The Kikuchi Clan

The Kikuchi clan controlled much of Kyushu for nearly 500 years from their castle town of Waifu, present-day Kikuchi city in Kumamoto. They repelled Mongol invasions alongside the Kamakura shogunate in the thirteenth century, then switched allegiances to support Emperor Godaigo's rebellion in the fourteenth, helping deliver the most decisive victory of Japan's Northern and Southern Courts conflict, the 1359 Battle of Chikugo River. Under later leaders Tamekuni and Shigetomo, Kikuchi became a regional center for Buddhist and Confucian scholarship before retainer families overthrew their masters in 1504. Prominent clan lords were later enshrined at Kikuchi Shrine after the Meiji government held them up as models of imperial loyalty.