Kii

The Kii, also called the Buzen-Utsunomiya, were a branch of the Utsunomiya of Shimotsuke who became landowners in Kii village of Buzen. The line began when Nakahara Munehusa, second son of the Utsunomiya ancestor Fujiwara no Sōen, took up a steward post there in the Kamakura period. Under Utsunomiya Nobufusa the clan built Kiidani Castle and reached its height.

From the seventh head, Fuyutsuna, in the Nanboku-chō wars the house declined, and served the Ōuchi and then the Ōtomo. Shigefusa Kii joined the Shimazu but submitted after Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Kyūshū campaign of 1587. Ordered to Iyo, he refused and held Kiidani against Kuroda Yoshitaka and his son Nagamasa, making peace after a starvation siege and giving his daughter Tsuruhime as hostage.

In 1588 Nagamasa murdered Shigefusa at a banquet in Nakatsu Castle; his heir Asafusa was killed and Tsuruhime crucified with thirteen ladies-in-waiting. Former retainers rose again in 1600 but were defeated at Ishigakihara.