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Uesugi clan
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The was a Japanese samurai clan, descended from the Fujiwara clan and particularly notable for their power in the Muromachi and Sengoku periods (roughly 14th-17th centuries).
The clan was split into three branch families, the Ogigayatsu, Inukake and Yamanouchi Uesugi, which boasted considerable influence. The Uesugi are perhaps best known for Uesugi Kenshin (1530-1578), one of Sengoku's more major warlords. The family name is sometimes rendered as Uyesugi, but this is representative of historical kana usage; the "ye" sound is no longer used in Japanese.
In the Edo period, the Uesugi were identified as one of the tozama or outsider clans, in contrast with the fudai or insider daimyo clans which were hereditary vassals or allies of the Tokugawa clan.
clan claims descent from Fujiwara no Yoshikado, who had been one of the Daijo Daijin (Minister of State) during the ninth century.
Kanjuji Shigefusa was a 13th generation descendant of the clan's great progenitor.
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Encyclopedia
The was a Japanese samurai clan, descended from the Fujiwara clan and particularly notable for their power in the Muromachi and Sengoku periods (roughly 14th-17th centuries).
The clan was split into three branch families, the Ogigayatsu, Inukake and Yamanouchi Uesugi, which boasted considerable influence. The Uesugi are perhaps best known for Uesugi Kenshin (1530-1578), one of Sengoku's more major warlords. The family name is sometimes rendered as Uyesugi, but this is representative of historical kana usage; the "ye" sound is no longer used in Japanese.
In the Edo period, the Uesugi were identified as one of the tozama or outsider clans, in contrast with the fudai or insider daimyo clans which were hereditary vassals or allies of the Tokugawa clan.
Uesugi clan branches
The clan claims descent from Fujiwara no Yoshikado, who had been one of the Daijo Daijin (Minister of State) during the ninth century.
Kanjuji Shigefusa was a 13th generation descendant of the clan's great progenitor. Near the end of the 13th century, he received Uesugi domain in Tango province, and he adopted the name of "Uesugi" after arriving establishing himself. The three main branches of the Uesugi are the Inukake, the Yamanouchi and the Ogigayatsu.
Muromachi period
The mother of the Shôgun Ashikaga Takauji (1305-1358) was a daughter of Uesugi Yorishige and a granddaughter of Shigefusa.
The three Uesugi branch families are descendants of Uesugi Yorishige.
Throughout the Muromachi period, members of the clan were appointed shugo (provincial governors), and would also dominate the post of Kanto Kanrei (shogun's deputy in Kanto).
They gained such power in the Kanto region that, in 1449, Kanrei Ashikaga Shigeuji plotted to kill his Uesugi deputy, and to significantly diminish if not eliminate the family's power. The Uesugi rose up and drove Shigeuji out of the area, asking the shogunate in Kyoto for another Kanrei. This development left the Uesugi extremely powerful within the Kanto region, more so than ever before, and the clan quickly expanded and grew, splitting into three branches, named after their home localities. The Ogigayatsu became based at Kawagoe Castle, in Musashi province, while the Yamanouchi were in Hirai, in Kozuke province. The third branch, the Inukake, held a castle in the region as well.
The three would begin fighting for domination of the clan and the region almost as soon as the split occurred, and intense fighting continued for roughly twenty-five years, until the end of the Onin War came about in 1477, bringing with it the end of the shogunate. Though the Ogigayatsu and Yamanouchi branches both survived this conflict, the Inukake did not.
Sengoku period
Traditionally the Ogigayatsu relied on the Ota clan, while the Yamanouchi relied on the Nagao of Echigo Province as the pillars of their strength. Ota Dokan, a vassal of the Ogigayatsu Uesugi, who were less numerous than their Yamanouchi cousins, lent them a great boost of power by building Edo castle for them in the 1450s. On the other hand, Nagao Tamekage, Deputy Constable of Kamakura in the first decades of the 16th century, allied himself with Hojo Soun, who would later become one of the Uesugi's strongest rivals.
The expansion of the Hojo into the lower Kanto forced the two branches of the Uesugi to become allies. In 1537, Kawagoe fell to Hojo Ujitsuna. Then in 1545, both of the branches of the Uesugi shared defeat, and attempted to regain their power. However, the Ogigayatsu branch family came to an end with the death of Uesugi Tomosada, during a failed attempt to retake Kawagoe castle that year. Uesugi Norimasa, the holder of Hirai castle, which had fallen in 1551 to the Hojo, took up arms with his retainer, Nagao Kagetora in Echigo. Kagetora then adopted the surname of "Uesugi" after campaigning against the Hojo in Sagami Province; he would later take the name Uesugi Kenshin, and become one of Sengoku's most famous generals, battling the Hojo and Takeda Shingen for control of the Kanto.
At the end of the Sengoku period, Kenshin's adopted son Uesugi Kagekatsu, then head of the clan, was a supporter of Ishida Mitsunari during the battle of Sekigahara. As a result of being on the losing side of the conflict, the Uesugi were afterwards much reduced in power.
Edo period
Uesugi Kagekatsu was given the tozama domain of Yonezawa (300,000 koku) in Dewa province, in Honshu's Tohoku (Northeast) Region.
Much research has been done on the economics of Yonezawa in the Edo period, particularly by Mark Ravina among others, and it is taken as fairly representative of a tozama (outsider) domain. Yonezawa was far from the capital, with far less direct political control from the shogunate, and also less trade and urbanization. Yonezawa was largely an agricultural domain, making it again a good representation of agricultural and social developments among the peasantry in this period.
Despite agricultural advances and generally high growth in the 17th century, Yonezawa, like most parts of the country, experienced a considerable drop in growth after 1700; it may in fact have entered stagnation or decline. The official koku revenue of the Uesugi daimyo was cut in half in 1664, but the clan continued to expend as before, maintaining the same lordly standard of living. Yonezawa, again representative of many other domains, entered debt, and was especially hard-struck by famines in the 1750s. The situation became so bad that in 1767, daimyo Uesugi Shigesada considered giving the territory back to the shogunate. Instead, he allowed his adopted son Uesugi Harunori to take over as daimyo; through agricultural and moral reforms, and series of other strict policies, Harunori turned the domain around. In 1830, less than ten years after Harunori's death, the shogunate officially praised Yonezawa as an examplar of good governance.
The Meiji Ishin in 1868 brought the abolition of the han system, that is, the end of the domains, the feudal lords, and the samurai class.
Meiji period
The head of this clan line was ennobled as a "Count" in the Meiji period.
Notable members of the clan
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Amakasu Kagetsugu
Ayukawa Kiyonaga
Honjô Shigenaga
Honjô Hidetsuna
Irobe Katsunaga
Jojo Masashige
Kakizaki Kageie
Kawada Nagachika
Kitajô Takahiro
Kitajô Kagehiro
Kojima Motoshige
Kojima Yatarô
Murakami Yoshikiyo
Nakajô Fujikasuke
Nakajô Kageyasu
Naoe Kanetsuna
Naoe Kanetsugu
Okuma Tomohide
Saitô Tomonobu
Samponji Sadanaga
Shibata Naganori
Shibata Shigeie
Suda Mitsuchika
Suibara Takaie
Takemata Yoshitsuna
Usami Sadamitsu
Yamayoshi Toyomori
Yasuda Akimoto
Yasuda Nagahide
Yoshie Kagesuke
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