Hata

Hata is the far southwestern corner of Tosa, the basin of the Shimanto River around Nakamura. It had belonged to the Ichijo house, one of the five regent families of Kyoto, as the estate of Hata since Kamakura times. In 1468, with the capital in flames in the Onin War and the rents not arriving, the former regent Ichijo Norifusa came down from Nara to manage the estate in person, with nobles, warriors and craftsmen in his train, and made his residence at Nakamura.

His son Fusaie, born in Tosa, never returned to Kyoto; he laid out Nakamura on the pattern of the capital and rose to the rank of provisional Major Counsellor in 1516. The Tosa Ichijo became first among the seven lords of the province, with Hata assessed at 16,000 kan, but fell in the 1570s: Chosokabe Motochika drove Kanesada from Hata, and in 1575 Kanesada's attempt to return from Bungo was crushed in the battle of the Shimanto River. After the Yamauchi took Tosa, Yasutoyo received Hata at twenty thousand koku and founded the Nakamura Yamauchi line. In 1724 Yamazaki Iekatsu began a reservoir at Tanokawa, completed by his son Ienaga.