Prince Takechi

Prince Takechi was a son of Emperor Tenmu and Amako no Iratsume, a daughter of a Munakata clan leader. During the succession war of 672, he joined his father, then Prince Ōama, on the eastern route through Ise. The Nihon shoki, a royal chronicle completed in 720, records Ōama sending him ahead to Fuwa, in present-day Gifu, to organize military affairs. [S01, S02]

The chronicle then gives Takechi broad responsibility for the forces gathered there. Ōama issued commands to the troops through him at Wasami. Takechi's position connected his father's claim with provincial mobilization, while other commanders led operations in the Yamato region and against the Ōmi court. The eventual defeat of Prince Ōtomo enabled Ōama's accession as Tenmu. The chronicle's account comes from the dynasty that won the war. [S01]

Takechi remained prominent under Empress Jitō. In 690, he became daijō daijin, a leading minister of state, amid appointments to the government departments. He died in 696. His son, Prince Nagaya, later maintained a household at the Nara capital. Takechi's household also appears in the evidence for princely residences: wooden documents from Nagaya's home refer to a “North Palace,” interpreted as his father's establishment. Its exact location remains an archaeological question. Military command and household resources sustained his place in royal government. [S03, S04]