Kikkawa Motoharu
daimyo (1530-1586)
Kikkawa Motoharu (吉川 元春; 1530 – December 25, 1586) was the second son of Mōri Motonari, and featured prominently in all the wars of the Mōri clan.
He became an active commander of the Mōri army and he with his brother Kobayakawa Takakage became known as the “Mōri Ryōsen", or “Mōri's Two Rivers" (毛利両川).
Biography
In 1530, he was born in Yoshida-Kōriyama Castle. When Motoharu was young he was adopted into the Kikkawa clan by Kikkawa Okitsune. He then became head of the family around 1550. In 1547, He married Kumagai Nobunao's daughter.
Motoharu fought in many battles alongside his brother, Kobayakawa Takakage, including the 1555 Battle of Miyajima and the 1570 Battle of Nunobeyama.
In 1566, he claimed Izumo Province as his fief, after defeating its lords, the Amago clan, in a number of battles.
He fought in the 1568 Battle of Torisaka. and the 1569 Battle of Tatarahama.
“Kikkawa Motoharu” enters the record as daimyo (1530-1586). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Kikkawa, Motoharu and daimyo can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q859673. VIAF identifies the subject as 36777847. The Library of Congress control number is nr92003865. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1530, 1586, 1550 and 1547.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kikkawa Motoharu” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.