備中国と毛利氏 : 『八箇国御時代分限帳』を読む

The author analyzed the contents of a notebook recording the Mohri vassals estates. In 1582 Mohri Terumoto held peace negotiations with Hashiba Hideyoshi and finished surveying the whole of his territory in 1590. Then he gave each vassal of his a new habitation and income. Immediately they moved from their main domatin to the newly obtained 9 provinces in Bitchu 備中 State (Tsuu 都宇 and kuboya 窪屋 provinces were excluded at that time).
In this book the author examined the place and income each of the Mohri vassals was given in 9 provinces, and clarified 5 points of view including the reasons how the Mohri family could have survived afterwards.
1. Terumoto posted his loyal officials at the key points of the three main routes eastward from Bingo 備後 to Bitchu as well as at the mouth of the Takahashi River so as to have those sites at his command. The three routes were the Sanyo-do in the south, the road from Toyomatsu 豊松 to Takahashi 高梁 by way of Nariwa 成羽 in the center, and the road from Tojo 東城 to Niimi 新見 in the north.
2. Those transferred officials left the management of their lands to the charge of the indigenous leaders respectively.
3. As to the Bitchu Kunishu 国衆, especially those who had taken the Mohri's side during the turbulent war times, were allowed to keep their possessions.
4. After Sekigahara battle in 1600, the Mohri's realm was restricted in the small western part of the main island (Suo 周防 and Nagato 長門) by the Tokugawa. However the Bitchu Kunishu seem to have decided their own futures by themselves. Some of them followed the Mohri clan, some returned to their ancestral lands to be farmers, and some chose another Daimyo as their master.
5. Under the Hideyoshi administration, the Mohri had already lost the rights deciding military and diplomatic affairs. Then soon after the Sekigahara battle, Terumoto made it clear that his family absolutely would obey the Tokugawa.
The Bitchu region has been studied mostly in the relation with its war time records written in the Edo Era. But by all these facts above mentioned, the author writes synthetically on the historical and regional characteristics of the social structures and their changing aspects there, and believes that the facts will also be able to revise the history of Okayama which has too much focused on the paternity of Ukita Naoie 宇喜多直家 and Hideie 秀家, and been informed in public to that direction.