Numata Jakō (沼田麝香, 1544 – September 4, 1618) also known as Hosokawa Maria (細川マリア) was a Japanese noble lady of the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

. She was the wife of

Hosokawa Fujitaka , also known as , was a Japanese samurai ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku period. Fujitaka was a prominent retainer of Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the last Ashikaga shōgun. When he joined the Oda, Oda Nobunaga rewarded him with the fief of Tango and went o ...

and mother of

Hosokawa Tadaoki was a Japanese samurai warrior of the late Sengoku period and early Edo period. He was the son of Hosokawa Fujitaka with Numata Jakō, and he was the husband of a famous Christian convert (Kirishitan), Hosokawa Gracia. For most of his life, he ...

. She was best known for fighting and for accompanying

in the

siege of Tanabe The 1600 Siege of Tanabe was one of a number of battles which took place in parallel to the more influential series of battles known as the Sekigahara Campaign which led to the unification of Japan under Tokugawa Ieyasu. History The command o ...

during

Sekigahara Campaign The Sekigahara Campaign was a series of battles in Japan fought between the Eastern Army aligned with Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Western Army loyal to Ishida Mitsunari, culminating in the decisive Battle of Sekigahara. The conflict was sparke ...

Life

Jako was the daughter of the lord of Kumagawa Castle in

Wakasa Province was a province of Japan in the area that is today the southwestern portion of Fukui Prefecture in the Hokuriku region of Japan. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Wakasa''" in . Wakasa bordered on Echizen, Ōmi, Tanba, Tango, and Yama ...

, Numata Mitsukane, who was a vassal of the

Ashikaga clan The was a prominent Japanese samurai clan which established the Muromachi shogunate and ruled Japan from roughly 1333 to 1573. The Ashikaga were descended from a branch of the Minamoto clan, deriving originally from the town of Ashikaga ...

. She married Fujitaka around 1562 and gave birth to Tadaoki in 1563. Influenced by her son's wife,

Hosokawa Gracia Akechi Tama, usually referred to as , (1563 – 25 August 1600) was a member of the aristocratic Akechi family from the Sengoku period. Gracia is best known for her role in the Battle of Sekigahara, she was considered to be a political hos ...

, Jakō was converted to Christianity. In 1600, when Ishida Mitsunari the leader of the Western Army in Battle of Sekigahara attempted to take Gracia as a hostage, the Ogasawara Shōsai family retainer killed her, he and the rest of the house then committed seppuku and burned the mansion. After the incident Jakō was emotionally affected, days later when the western army reached the gates of the Tanabe Castle, she fought bravely alongside to her family in the

Siege of Tanabe

The Hosokawa sided with

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fello ...

(Eastern Army) against Ishida Mitsunari (Western army) during the decisive

. During the

there were only 500 troops of Eastern army to defend the castle against the 15,000 of the Western Army. Numata Jakō was an important role throughout the siege. At night she would don her armor an make the rounds of the men on watch to buoy their spirits. She also made a diagram of the banners of those enemy units that either fired high so as not to hit anyone or fired using only powder and no musket balls. if the hosokawa survived the siege, it would in part be because of sympathizers among the enemy force, and she wanted them spared from any post-battle retribution, resisted without truce. The general commanding the siege had great respect for Jako's husband. Because of this, the attack lacked the usual spirit involved in a samurai siege: the attackers amused themselves by shooting the walls with cannons loaded only with gunpowder. Fujitaka laid down arms only after an imperial decree from Emperor Go-Yōzei. However, this was 19 days before Battle of Sekigahara, and neither he nor his attackers were able to join the battle. After the victory of the Eastern army in Sekigahara, Jako and her family was rewarded and praised by

Later life

After the Battle of Sekigahara, the

Hosokawa clan The is a Japanese Samurai kin group or clan. Ancestors # Emperor Jimmu # Emperor Suizei # Emperor Annei # Emperor Itoku # Emperor Kōshō # Emperor Kōan # Emperor Kōrei # Emperor Kōgen # Emperor Kaika # Emperor Sujin # Emperor Sui ...

became one of the clans loyal to the

Tokugawa Shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

. Jako's son, Hosokawa Tadaoki was awarded a fief in Buzen (Kokura, 370,000 koku) and went on to serve Tokugawa at the

siege of Osaka The was a series of battles undertaken by the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate against the Toyotomi clan, and ending in that clan's destruction. Divided into two stages (winter campaign and summer campaign), and lasting from 1614 to 1615, the siege ...

. She survived the entire period of warring states, dying on July 16, 1618 at the age of 75, three years after the siege of Osaka. Her tomb is located in Nanzenji Temple, Kyoto City.

Popular culture

* She appears as generic playable character in the series of games '' Samurai Warriors 4 Empires''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Numata, Jako People of Sengoku-period Japan Women of medieval Japan Numata Jako Japanese women in warfare 16th-century Japanese people 16th-century Japanese women 17th-century Japanese women Women in 16th-century warfare Women in 17th-century warfare 16th-century births 1618 deaths