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A niece of Oda Nobunaga, this lady was the eldest of three daughters whose mother shared the suicide of her husband, the great general, Shibata Katsuiye. Hideyoshi placed her among his consorts, bestowing upon her the castle of Yodo, hence her name, Yodogimi.
He therefore distributed his army on a line of thirteen redoubts, keeping a reserve of fifteen thousand men under his own direct command, his object being to hold the enemy's forces in check while he attacked Gifu, which place he assaulted with such vigour that the garrison made urgent appeals to Katsuiye for succour.
Hideyoshi's victory cost the enemy five thousand men, and demoralized Katsuiye's army so completely that he subsequently found himself able to muster a total force of three thousand only. Nothing remained but flight, and in order to withdraw from the field, Katsuiye was obliged to allow his chief retainer, Menju Shosuke, to impersonate him, a feat which, of course, cost Shosuke's life.
Her three daughters were accordingly sent away, and she herself joined in the night-long feast which Katsuiye and his principal retainers held while Hideyoshi's forces were marching to the attack. When the sun rose, the whole party, including the ladies, committed suicide, having first set fire to the castle.
But the affair had taught the superiority of offensive tactics, and thus Nobunaga's impulse was to attack the army of Imagawa, instead of waiting to be crushed by preponderate force. His most trusted generals, Shibata Katsuiye, Sakuma Nobumori, and Hayashi Mitsukatsu, strenuously opposed this plan.
This lady was a sister of Nobunaga. She had been given, as already stated, to Asai Nagamasa, and to him she bore three children. But after Nagamasa's destruction she was married to Katsuiye, and was living at the latter's castle of Kitano-sho when the above incidents occurred.
Accordingly, having ascertained that the weakest point in the line was at Shizugatake, where only fifteen hundred men were posted, Katsuiye instructed his principal general, Sakuma Morimasa, to lead the reserve force of fifteen thousand men against that position, but instructed him at the same time to be content with any success, however partial, and not to be betrayed into pushing an advantage, since by so doing he would certainly furnish a fatal opportunity to the enemy.
Unquestionably Hideyoshi had in vivid recollection the disaster which had overtaken Katsuiye at Shizugatake. Ieyasu, fully cognizant of the situation through the medium of a spy, knew the limitations set by Hideyoshi. On April the 7th, Nobuteru attacked the fortress of Iwasaki, in Mikawa, killed its commandant, and captured the castle.
In May, 1583, after the downfall of Katsuiye, the Emperor appointed Hideyoshi to be a councillor of State, and conferred on him the fourth order of rank. In November of the following year, he received another step of rank and was nominated gon-dainagon.
The four councillors could not possibly be expected to work in harmony, and it was certain that Katsuiye, Sakuma Morimasa, and Takigawa Kazumasu would lose no opportunity of quarrelling with Hideyoshi. But Hideyoshi's astuteness and patience led him successfully through this maze of intrigues and complications.
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