Nitsuki

The Nitsuki, also read Niki, were a Seiwa Genji family of the Ashikaga line: Kamakura-period Sanekuni, great-grandson of Ashikaga Yoshiyasu, settled at Nitsuki in Mikawa as Nitsuki Taro, while his younger brother Yoshisue took the neighbouring Hosokawa estate and founded the Hosokawa. Both became hereditary Ashikaga retainers; the Nitsuki rose under Takauji's shogunate.

The brothers Yoriaki and Yoshinaga fought for Takauji nationwide, heading the Samurai Dokoro and collecting constableships: Yoriaki became Takauji's steward in 1351, holding it until the shogun's death in 1358; the brothers once governed as many as nine provinces between them.

Their eminence was short-lived. Yoshinaga's high-handed rule set him against fellow generals; after his fall the provinces slipped away, Tajima the last, lost to the Yamana in 1372. The Onin War of 1467—1477 split the family into rival branches and it never recovered; the Iga branch was driven out by the Iga Sokoku Ikki warrior league, lesser lines surviving into the Edo period as Tokugawa and Mori retainers.