Nakagawa Kiyohide

Who was Nakagawa Kiyohide?

Nakagawa Kiyohide was a daimyo in Azuchi-Momoyama period. His childhood name was Nakagawa Toranosuke. His common name was Nakagawa Sebe. His father was Nakagawa Shigekiyo. Nakagawa Hidemasa and Nakagawa Hidenari were his sons. Furuta Oribe's wife was Kiyohide's young sister.

At first, Kiyohide served Ikeda Katsumasa, who was from a powerful clan at Settsu Province. He became independent along with Araki Murashige and Takayama Ukon at Settsu Province afterward. When Oda Nobunaga marched his armies into Kyoto, Kiyohide surrendered and served him. In 1572, he and Murashige killed Wada Koremasa.

In 1578, when Murashige rebelled against Nobunaga, Kiyohide, acting in concert, also rebelled. However, when Nobunaga came to attack with a large army, Kiyohide surrendered and attacked Murashige instead. After Murashige has been defeated, Kiyohide took part in various battles under Niwa Nagashige and Ikeda Tsuneoki.

In 1582, he served Hashiba Hideyoshi after Nobunaga died, and was active in the Battle of Yamazaki.

In 1583, he was the second vanguard of Hideyoshi's force at the Battle of Shizugatake, and held Oiwayama-fort with Takayama Ukon and Miyoshi Hidetsugu. Then Sakuma Morimasa, who was a brave military commander of Shibata Katsuie, attacked hard, and Kiyohide died in the battle at the age of 42. His grave is at Bairin-ji, Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture.