Kinugasa Kagenobu served as a bushō from the Sengoku to early Edo periods.  As a retainer of the Kuroda clan, he was included among a group of retainers called the Twenty-Four Elite of the Kuroda.  He was a retainer of the Fukuoka domain in Chikuzen Province and served as the lord of Hashitani Castle.

Initially, Kagenobu served as a yoriki, or security officer, of the Kodera clan and then transferred to the Kuroda clan, becoming a servant of Kuroda Mototaka.  In 1577, at the Battle of Aga, Kagenobu rescued a besieged Kuriyama Toshiyasu and served as a messenger to his former lord in the Kodera family.   After the death of Kodera Masamoto, upon orders of Kuroda Yoshitaka, he searched for Yoshitaka’s orphan, Kodera Ujimoto, and took him back to Harima Province.

In 1587, during an uprising in Buzen, Kagenobu compelled the surrender of Higuma Naotsugu of Himekuma Castle.  During the Bunroku-Keichō Campaign, Kagenobu joined Gotō Mototsugu with the vanguard forces.  In 1600, at the Battle of Sekigahara, he defended Matsuyama Castle.  In 1601, after the Kuroda clan entered Chikuzen Province, Kagenobu received a fief of 3,000 koku on a par with a chūrō, a role comparable to a chief retainer.

Kagenobu died on 4/18 of Kanei 8 (1631).  He was eighty-five years old.  Under another theory, he was seventy-nine years old.

Character

He was known as resourceful and to excel at tanka poetry.