Asuke Shigenaga (足助重長)
Shigenaga ASUKE (year of birth unknown - 1181 ?) was a Busho (Japanese military commander) at the end of Heian period. He was the sixth son of Shigenao URANO. His brothers included Shigemitsu YAMADA, Shigechika, Shigemune TAKADA (Shigeie TAKADA?), Shigeyoshi, Shigehira and his children included Shigehide ASUKE and wife of MINAMOTO no Yoriie. He was Uhyoe no jo (officer of the Right Division of Middle Palace Guards). He called himself Rokuro KAMO. He was the founder of ASUKE clan.
He is considered to have inherited from his father, Shigenao Shokan shiki (officer entrusted with local management by the lord of the private estate [Honjo]) of Asuke-no-sho (manor), Kamo district, Mikawa Province, and constructed there Kibyu-jo Castle, where he lived in. He is considered to have served the direct descendant of Kawachi-Genji (Minamoto clan) as his forefathers had done and married a daughter of MINAMOTO no Tametomo (Chinzei Hachiro), the eighth son of MINAMOTO no Tameyoshi. Although the details are unknown, he is understood to have been killed in battle by Heike (the Taira family) ("Sonpi Bunmyaku" (a text compiled in the fourteenth century that records the lineages of the aristocracy) and so on. According to legend, he is said to have participated in the Battle of Sunomatagawa with his brothers in 1181, been held as prisoner of war after the battle by Heike and eventually killed.
Meanwhile, he had with the daughter of MINAMOTO no Tametomo a legitimate child, Shigehide and a daughter who became the wife of MINAMOTO no Yoriie, the 2nd seii taishogun (literally, "great general who subdues the barbarians") of the Kamakura bakufu (Japanese feudal government headed by a shogun). This woman appeared in the February 20, 1219 Section of "Azuma Kagami" (The Mirror of the East) as mother of Kugyo.