The Activities of Koka-mono at "Shinkun Koka-Iga Goe" (summary)
Lecturer: Toshinobu Watanabe
Soon after the Honnoji Incident, Ieyasu Tokugawa rushed from Sakai back to Okazaki. This famous episode about his escape was written in 54 historical articles in "Dai nihon shiryo". Having examined these 54 materials, we found the following: 1) In the documents written within 60 years after this incident, the description of "Iga-goe" and "Iga-ji" mentions the route along the Iga Valley (not via Kyoto), which doesn't mean that Ieyasu's party went through the territory of Iga. 2) In the historical materials at that time, mention the names of the places Uji-Tahara (Yamaguchi Castle), Shigaraki (Ogawa Castle) and Tsuge (Tokunaga-Temple) as part of their route between Uji-Tahara and Tsuge, but no other name in particular is being mentioned. 3) Some specific places of Iga appear in the documents quite out of the blue since the "Ishikawa Tadashi Soutomesho" was published. We need to doubt the credibility of this material.
Based on these points, we tried to examine the historical materials which were handed down in the Koka area and where the information about the supports of Koka-Bushi at the Yamaguchi Castle, at the Ogawa castle and in Tsuge during Ieyasu's escape were found clearly, and also what Ieyasu gave them to thank for their follow up, for example, Karoku (hereditary stipend), their official positions and so on. With the information, we suppose as follows; Tarao Family, Yamaguchi Family, Yamaoka Family and Wada Family were the core members of Ieyasu's supporters, and later on Minobe Family, Takeshima Family and Yamanaka Family joined them. Besides them, Gamou Family and Tsuge Family (and Fukuchi Family) might also have supported Ieyasu directly or indirectly.
All of them have already supported Nobunaga Oda and his government in 1581 (9th year of Ten or later) at that time. Because they were followers of Oda government, it was quite easy for Ieyasu to accept their supports and offers without any suspicion.