Ogasawara Nagakiyo (小笠原長清)

Nagakiyo OGASAWARA was a military commander from Kai Province who lived in the last days of the Heian period to the early Kamakura period. He was the second son of the Tomitsu Kigami who belonged to the family of the Kai-Genji.

It is said that he succeeded to Ogasawarago, Koma district, Kai Province among the territory of his father Tomitsu Kagami who served Emperor Takakura as an Imperial Palace Guard and that he was granted the family name of Ogasawara from Emperor Takakura when the time came to celebrate his coming of age. He was the founder of the Ogasawara school of the Japanese horse-back archery technique, and he was the founder of the Ogasawara clan to which the position of the Shinano no kuni no kami (the Governor of the Shinano Province) was granted.

It is said that when MINAMOTO no Yoritomo raised his army, he was a hikan (a low-level bureaucrat) of TAIRA no Tomonori together with Mitsutomo AKIYAMA, his older brother, and they joined Yoritomo's army by having the authorization from Tomonori to return home under the pretext of their mother's becoming sick. In the Genpei War, he made himself a distinguished warrior by his repeated outstanding war service and for this reason he was appointed to the position of Shinano no kami (Governor of Shinano Province), which was the same position as his father. In addition, he and Nobumitsu TAKEDA, Yukiuji UNNO and Shigetaka MOCHIZUKI were called 'the big four in the archery and equestrianism' and he became the grand master of Kyuho (manners in time of peace and campaign strategy in times of war; Japanese horse-back archery technique) founded by MINAMOTO no Yoritomo when he was 26 years old; with these activities he built the base of the Ogasawara clan as shogunal retainer of the Kamakura Shogunate.

After Yoritomo died, Nagakiyo was implicated in the Rebellion of Yoshikazu HIKI and accordingly he was punished because his son had been an attendant of the second Shogun MINAMOTO no Yoriie, and owing to this incident, the Ogasawara clan fell at one time, but he became the 'deputy of the seven provinces' as one of the Daishogun (commander in chief) of Tosando and made a great contribution to the Jokyu War, and thanks to this achievement he became the Awa no kuni shugo (provincial constable of Awa Province) in 1221.

[Original Japanese]