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Oichi (お市^?) or Oichi-no-kata (お市の方^?) (1547–1583) moderately well-placed figure in the late Sengoku period, known primarily as the mother of three daughters who married well -- Yodo-dono, Ohashi and Oeyo.

Oichi was the younger sister of Oda Nobunaga; and she was the sister-in-law of Nōhime, the daughter of Saitō Dōsan. Oichi was equally renowned for her beauty and her resolve. She was descended from the Taira and Fujiwara clans.

Contents 1 Life as a spouse and mother 2 Oichi's daughters 3 Popular culture 4 External links

[edit] Life as a spouse and mother

Following Nobunaga's conquest of Mino in 1567, in an effort to cement an alliance between Nobunaga and rival warlord Azai Nagamasa, Nobunaga arranged for Oichi, then twenty years old, to marry Nagamasa.

Their marriage was through political means, ensuring an alliance between the Oda and the Azai clans. She bore Nagamasa one son (Manjumaru) and three daughters -- Yodo-dono, Ohatsu and Oeyo.

In the summer of 1570, Nagamasa betrayed his alliance with Nobunaga and went to war with him on behalf of the Asakura family. A story relates that Oichi sent her brother a sack of beans tied at both ends, ostensibly as a good-luck charm but in reality a warning that he was about to be attacked from both front and rear by the Asakura and Azai clans. According to the story, Nobunaga understood the message and retreated from his brother-in-law's assault in time.

The fighting continued for three years until the Asakura and other anti-Oda forces were destroyed or weakened. Oichi remained with her husband at Odani Castle throughout the conflict, even after Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a trusted vassal of Nobunaga at the time, began laying siege to the castle. When Odani was surrounded, Nobunaga requested that his sister be returned to him before the final attack. Nagamasa agreed, sending out Oichi and her three daughters. Nagamasa and his son, Manjumaru, committed suicide soon afterwards.

Oichi and her daughters remained in the Oda family's care for the next decade. After Nobunaga was assassinated in 1582, his sons and vassals broke into two major factions, led by two of Nobunaga's favored generals, Katsuie and Hideyoshi. Nobunaga's third son, Nobutaka, belonged to the former group, and arranged for his aunt Oichi to marry Katsuie in order to ensure his loyalty to the Oda clan. But in 1583, Katsuie was defeated by Hideyoshi in the Battle of Shizugatake, forcing him to retreat to his home at Kitanosho Castle. As Hideyoshi's army lay siege to the castle, Katsuie implored Oichi to flee with her daughters and seek Hideyoshi's protection. Oichi refused, insisting on dying with her husband after their daughters were sent away. The couple reportedly died in the castle's flames.

[edit] Oichi's daughters

Oichi's three daughters each went on to become important historical figures in their own right. The eldest and the most famous, Yodo-dono became a concubine to Hideyoshi, who had killed not only both her birth parents but also her stepfather. She became known as Yodo-dono or Yodogimi (from Yodo Castle, given to her by Hideyoshi), and she bore him his only two sons, including his heir Hideyori. Yodo-dono and Hideyori later died in the Siege of Osaka, the final battle of the Warring States era.

The second, Ohatsu, married Kyogoku Takatsugu, a man from a noble family once served by the Azai clan. The Kyogoku clan sided with Ieyasu after Hideyoshi's death, giving her the means to serve as an intermediary between Ieyasu and Yodo-dono. She worked in vain to end their hostilities, and after Yodo-dono and Hideyori's death, managed to save Hideyori's daughter by putting her in a convent.

The youngest, Oeyo (also called Ogō), married Tokugawa Hidetada, Ieyasu's heir and the second Tokugawa Shogun. They had many children, including the third Shogun Iemitsu, and Kazuko, consort to Emperor Go-Mizunoo. Kazuko's daughter Okiko became Empress Meishō, thus posthumously making Oichi both a grandmother to a Shogun and a great-grandmother to an Empress.

[edit] Popular culture

• Oichi was named Oyu in Onimusha 2, in which she works together with Saika Magoichi, Yagyu Jubei, Ekei Ankokuji, and Fuma Kotaro in defeating her evil demonic brother, Oda Nobunaga. Oyu is also in Onimusha: Blade Warriors.

• She is a playable character in Sengoku Basara 2, in which she become crazy and evil after the death of her love, Azai Nagamasa. She wipes out the Oda clan.

• She is a playable character in the Samurai Warriors series. In Samurai Warriors 1, she is a tomboy but yet a girly girl. In her true ending, she finds a way to keep both her husband, Azai Nagamasa, and her brother, Oda Nobunaga, alive. In her other ending, she is forced to wipe out her brother's clan and live with Azai Nagamasa. In SW2, she is forced to kill her husband, and she is heart broken, but in Azai Nagamasa's ending, she is allowed to live peacefully with both her brother and her husband alive.

• She is a character in Nobunaga's Ambition, a series similar to Romance of the Three Kingdoms video game series.

• She is a character in Kessen III, where she looks more like the traditional pictures of her. She becomes the wife of Azai Nagamasa, but Toyotomi Hideyoshi takes her away from her husband, who kills himself in a burning Odani Castle. Hideyoshi brings her back to her brother, Oda Nobunaga, but she is heart broken that she couldn't die with Nagamasa.

• She is a playable character in Warriors Orochi. She, Azai Nagamasa, and Gan Ning are captured by Cao Pi's forces at Chen Cang Castle, and they are allowed to live. Oichi, Azai Nagamasa, and Gan Ning later help Honda Tadakatsu repel Lu Bu and Orochi's forces. In WO2, she, Azai Nagamasa, and the Asakkura clan arrive as reinforcements to rescue Maeda Toshiie and Jiang Wei. In Dream Mode, she works with Shang Xiang, the Nanman, and Da Qiao in rescuing their husbands from Da Ji at Kyushu. In another Dream Mode, she is protected by Sun Jian, Cao Ren, Sun Ce, Shibata Katsuiie, and Maeda Toshiie against Yuan Shao & Liu Biao.

• Oichi's daughters Yodo-Dono and Ohatsu are characters in Onimusha 4. Ohatsu must betray everything she worked for in defeating her sister, Yodo-Dono, and her husband, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who have become pure evil. She is in love with an old friend named Soki, the main hero in Onimusha 4, but at the end of the game, she doesn't know what happened to Soki after Hideyoshi's defeat.

[edit] External links

• Biography of Lady Oichi

v • d • e Prominent people of the Sengoku period Three major daimyo Oda Nobunaga · Toyotomi Hideyoshi · Tokugawa Ieyasu Other daimyo Azai Nagamasa · Chōsokabe Motochika · Date Masamune · Hōjō Sōun · Hōjō Ujiyasu · Imagawa Yoshimoto · Maeda Toshiie · Matsunaga Hisahide · Mōri Motonari · Ōtomo Sōrin · Saitō Dōsan · Sanada Masayuki · Shimazu Yoshihisa · Shimazu Yoshihiro · Takeda Shingen · Uesugi Kenshin · Uesugi Kagekatsu · Ukita Hideie Other notable military individuals Akechi Mitsuhide · Fukushima Masanori · Fūma Kotarō · Hattori Hanzō · Hōjō Ujimasa · Honda Tadakatsu  · Kobayakawa Hideaki  · Honganji Kennyo · Ii Naomasa · Ishida Mitsunari · Ishikawa Goemon · Katō Kiyomasa · Maeda Keiji · Naoe Kanetsugu · Oda Nobutada · Ōtani Yoshitsugu · Saika Magoichi · Sanada Nobuyuki · Sanada Yukimura · Shibata Katsuie · Shima Sakon · Tachibana Ginchiyo · Takeda Katsuyori · Takenaka Shigeharu · Toyotomi Hideyori · Yamamoto Kansuke Others Emperor Ōgimachi · Hosokawa Gracia · Komatsuhime · Izumo no Okuni · Kaihime · Miyamoto Musashi · Mori Ranmaru · Nene · Nōhime · Oichi · Sasaki Kojirō