Taku

The Taku were a local warrior house of Hizen province in northern Kyushu, descended from the Tsukui clan and settled in the Taku basin. Around 1193 Taku Munenao built Kajimine Castle, also called Taku Castle, on the summit of Mount Kajimine, and it remained the family seat for more than three hundred and fifty years.

In the mid-sixteenth century the Taku joined Arima, Ōmura and other Hizen chiefs resisting the rise of the Ryūzōji. In 1544 Ryūzōji Chikaie took Kajimine and drove out Taku Munetoki, although Arima help restored the family the next year.

Ryūzōji Takanobu and his brother Naganobu seized the castle again in 1562, driving the Taku to Suko, and Taku Munetoshi's resistance was broken in 1563. The old Taku house then ended, and Naganobu's descendants, known as the later Taku, took over the district.