This translation comes from the book “家康と三方ヶ原：生涯唯一の大敗を読み解く” by Hirayama Yu, and published in 2022 by NHK Publishing.  The book is an examination of the circumstances that led Matsudaira (later Tokugawa) Ieyasu to bet on a battle against the far more formidable forces of Takeda Shingen of Kai province, and how that experience affected Ieyasu’s thinking both in regard to his future strategies and alliances (remembering that Ieyasu was almost killed during the battle, only barely managing to escape with his life. It was one of three such occasions when Ieyasu’s continued existence fell under a cloud, the other two being the Mikawa Ikkō Ikki of 1563-64 and the escape from Iga in 1582).  Chapter one of the book gives a broad outline of how Ieyasu and Shingen came to one another’s attention, and how they would eventually come to blows on an otherwise non-descript plain in Tōtōmi province (modern Shizuoka Prefecture). The translation below picks up the narrative from the beginning of the chapter.
 
Ieyasu’s independence from the Imagawa and first clashes with the Takeda
 
Tokugawa Ieyasu and Takeda Shingen did not start directly corresponding with one another until Eiroku 11 (1568).  Irrespective of whatever this might show about their intentions, it is true to say that Ieyasu did not factor into Shingen’s thinking until around Eiroku 5 (1563).  As is well known, Tokugawa Ieyasu (known as the time as Matsudaira Motoyasu) had been raised in the household of Imagawa Yoshimoto and had been appointed as the lord of Okazaki Castle. Although he resided in Sunpu province, this area had been amalgamated with Mikawa province. Ieyasu had been married to the legitimate daughter of Sekiguchi Ujisumi, one of the Imagawa household’s principal retainers, who went by the name Tsukiyama-dono, and was associated with the Imagawa family’s board of councillors. Unlike the prevailing view about him, Ieyasu was not a hostage of the Imagawa, but was a key member of the Imagawa household responsible for the administration of Mikawa. He could also be said to have been an influential kokushū (or regional landowner or administrator).
 
As Ieyasu had been under the protection of the Imagawa since infancy, the Matsudaira family of Okazaki were also protected by the Imagawa, with the administration of their household seen to by their officials. The Imagawa had appointed the Matsudaira to build the framework for both the politics and military security of Mikawa by placing them on the frontline opposite the Oda family of Owari province. Without the Matsudaira presence, the transformation of Mikawa into part of the Imagawa fiefdom would not have occurred. For the Matsudaira themselves, by being part of the Imagawa’s security network, they were able to achieve a certain degree of prominence. It was in this environment that Ieyasu continued to grow and develop.
 
Meanwhile Imagawa Yoshimoto succeeded in stabilizing his rule over Mikawa. If preparations for an invasion of Owari province proceeded without interruption, as a kokushū level lord there was a strong chance that Ieyasu would have been given permission to return to Okazaki. Yet fate had something else in store for him.  On the 19th of the fifth month of Eiroku 3 (1560) at the Battle of Okehazama, Imagawa Yoshimoto was defeated by Oda Nobunaga and was killed in battle. At the time, Ieyasu was resident at Ōdaka Castle in Owari province on the front line of the conflict. However (after Yoshimoto’s death) he withdrew together with the entire Imagawa army and returned to Okazaki Castle. Under orders from Imagawa Ujizane, after returning to Okazaki Castle Ieyasu immediately became involved in conflict against Mizuno Nobumoto, the lord of Ogawa and Kariya Castles and an uncle to Oda Nobunaga. Ieyasu was just 19 years old at the time.
 
The conflict between Ieyasu and the Oda started in Eiroku 4. In the 4th month of the same year, Oda forces invaded Mikawa under the command of Nobunaga, where they proceeded to seize control of all of Kamo-gun west of the Tomoegawa river. This obviously put Ieyasu in a precarious position.   Both the Matsudaira and Imagawa forces were pressed hard at this time, yet Imagawa Ujizane, currently resident in Sunpu, showed no inclination to send reinforcements to aid them. Ujizane was rather more concerned with dispatching forces in the direction of the Kantō region. At the time, Hōjō Ujiyasu had been steadily building his control over the Kantō. From the 3rd year of Eiroku onwards, he began to be on the receiving end of attacks from Nagao Kagetora of Echigo province (later known as Uesugi Kenshin). 
 
Kagetora, using the authority of the former Kantō Kanrei Uesugi Norimasa, joined together with samurai of the Kantō and former members of the Uesugi household to resist the encroachment on their territory from Hōjō Ujiyasu.  Once Ujiyasu was dealt with, Kagetora could then proceed to seize control of the Kantō region.  Ujiyasu was not one to sit on his hands and straight away made a request for assistance. However assistance for Mikawa was not forthcoming.  Concerned about the impending danger to him, Ieyasu made a truce with Nobunaga, which in turn would lead to an alliance. According to the prevailing view, the role of intermediary for the meeting held in the 2nd month of Eiroku 4 was Nobunaga’s uncle Mizuno Nobumoto (he who had previously been at war with Ieyasu).
 
However the belief that Ieyasu visited Nobunaga at Kiyosu Castle (in Owari province) and there made an alliance with him was a fabrication made up by later generations.  There’s no evidence to confirm that this event ever took place, and Ieyasu certainly had no leeway to suddenly leave Okazaki in order to travel to another province. It’s understood that the alliance came about both through an exchange of documents and the coming and going of messengers. Thereafter, as previously explained, Nobunaga seized control of one part of western Mikawa province. Given that there is no trace of him having clashed with Ieyasu during this process, it is safe to say that the truce and alliance were already in place by this time. 
 
From the 3rd month of Eiroku 4 through to the ‘leap’ 3rd month of the following year, Ieyasu was engaged in subduing the Asuri-shū of Kamo-gun in Mikawa province. In the 4th month, he moved to commence an attack on the Imagawa, launching campaigns against Kira Yoshiaki of Tōjō Castle and Makino Narisada of Ushikubo Castle consecutively.  Imagawa Ujizane recognizing these as hostile acts, described them as “the betrayal of Matsudaira Kurando (a position title ascribed to Ieyasu)” and “Okazaki’s betrayal”, sent out a notice to all that he was now engaged in a full-blown war against Ieyasu.  This also signalled Ieyasu’s complete independence from the Imagawa.
 
The start of relations between Ieyasu and Shingen
 
As far as can be discerned from existing historical records, the first time that Takeda Shingen became aware of Ieyasu was in Eiroku 5 (1563). The impetus for this came from an order from the Muromachi Bakufu shōgun Ashikaga Yoshiteru, instructing Ujizane and Ieyasu to declare a ceasefire.  The war against the Imagawa was referred to by Ieyasu as the ‘Sanshū sakuran’ (or ‘the war of the three provinces’), demonstrating that it had escalated into a widespread civil conflict. Mikawa was divided between Ieyasu and Imagawa supporters, leading to even more fighting. In time it became clear to Ujizane that this revolt would not prove easy to suppress.
 
The shōgun Yoshiteru was at the time concerned about the difficulties faced in communicating with the Kantō region as a result of the conflict, and so issued ceasefire orders to both Ieyasu and Ujizane, along with Mizuno Nobumoto of the Oda camp.  He also issued instructions to Takeda Shingen and Hōjō Ujiyasu, ordering them to make arrangements for a peace treaty between the two warring sides.
 
It was through this process that Ieyasu came to the attention of Shingen, who at the time was in an alliance with the Imagawa and so came to regard Ieyasu as a foe. This in turn led to the formation of the struggle between the ‘Kiyosu alliance’ (of Nobunaga and Ieyasu) and the ‘alliance of Kai, Sunpu and Suruga’ (consisting of Shingen and Ujizane). In Eiroku 5, Ujizane sent out a request to Shingen for assistance in attacking Mikawa province.  Indeed, it does seem that this request might have been issued one year earlier, but as a result of the situation at the time, Ujizane had been unable to launch his campaign until the following year. In the 6th month of Eiroku 5, Ujizane wrote to Shingen, explaining that “I plan to embark on my campaign in Mikawa at the outset of Autumn. I would therefore be most grateful if, as promised, you can combine with my forces at that time as I intend to make full use of your considerable strength”. However in the end Ujizane did not set out on his invasion of Mikawa at the beginning of Autumn.     
 
Indeed it would not be until the 4th month of Eiroku 6 when Ujizane finally showed his stripes.  He imposed what became known as the “Sanshū kyūyō” (a temporary raise in taxes to accompany the invasion of Mikawa). What this did, however, was plunge the Imagawa territories into strife. All those who until then had held a special privilege giving them exemption from the imposition of public taxes (such as on the raising of houses) temporarily had their exemptions revoked and were ordered to pay the compulsory added cost. As a result, groups of disgruntled regional members in the Imagawa territories gathered together to demand a restoration of their exemptions. Ujizane did restore the exemptions for both those directly serving in the campaign as well as shrines and temples that had deep historical ties to the Imagawa family.  All others were forced to make their payments, which were collected in due course.
 
However the collection of the “Sanshū kyūyō’ created the impression within and outside the Imagawa territories that the Imagawa were rushing to launch an invasion of Mikawa. Knowing this, in Mikawa itself Sakai Shōgen Tadayoshi, a key retainer of Ieyasu’s household, laid siege to Ueno Castle up until the 6th month of Eiroku 6, unfurling the banner of revolt in the process. This trend spread throughout the province, leading to the attack against Kira Yoshiaki and Ogasawara Hiroshige at Terabe Castle in Hazu-gun.
 
It was around this time that Ujizane appears to have made his request for support from Shingen to launch an attack against Mikawa.  Shingen accepted Ujizane’s request and immediately sent a message to Akiyama Torashige of Ina-gun in lower Shinano province, instructing him to commence a strategy aimed at forcing the ‘lord of Okazaki’ to withdraw. The Takeda had already managed to secure an informant from inside the Ieyasu camp. In an order sent to Shimojō Nobuuji of the Shinano kokushū (and lord of Yoshioka Castle), Nobuuji was to meet up with messengers sent from the informant and there make arrangements for a secret meeting. In order to prove that Shimojō was acting on behalf of the Takeda and had received the assent of the Imagawa for the meeting to go ahead, Nobuuji was given a letter from Ujizane, which he was to show to anyone who might doubt his credentials. 
 
There has been a lot of speculation about who this informant within the Ieyasu camp might have been.  It may have been Sakai Tadanao of Ueno Castle.  Whatever the case may have been, it was clear that Shingen, together with Ujizane, was now firmly intent on crushing Matsudaira Ieyasu (TBC).    

The following is the personal view of Unakami Tomoaki on the character of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the model for the fictional figure ‘Yoshii Toranaga’ in the FX series ‘Shōgun’.  As you can see, Unakami has some fairly strong views about Ieyasu’s abilities as a general, in contrast to his skills at weaving intrigue. The translation below is from a section of Chapter 4.

From Unakami Tomoaki’s “Hontō wa gokai darake no Sengoku kassen senshi”, Tokkan Shoten, Tokyo, August 2020


Tokugawa Ieyasu was a master of intrigue, but…

In much the same way at Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu spent the first half of his life seeking to expand his rule. Despite being born as the lord of Okazaki Castle in Mikawa province and the legitimate heir to the Matsudaira family, he had been brought up since infancy as a hostage to both the Oda and the Imagawa families. At the Battle of Okehazama, while Oda Nobunaga was fighting against Imagawa Yoshitomo, Ieyasu was part of the Imagawa army. He was no more than a lad of 19 at the time.
 
When the Imagawa’s power began to decline following the Battle of Okehazama, Ieyasu made the decision to strike out on his own as lord of Okazaki Castle.  It was at this time that he forged an alliance with Oda Nobunaga.  For the next 21 years, until Nobunaga met his end during the Honnōji Incident, that military alliance would continue.
 
The Sengoku-era historian Taniguchi Katsuhiro noted that this alliance took place at a unique time in the Sengoku period, and whose mutual interest would continue for many years (Taniguchi Katsuhiro, “Nobunaga and Ieyasu’s Military Alliance – 21 years of interests and strategy”, Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2019).
 
Opposite the sphere of influence exercised by Imagawa Yoshimoto in Suruga province lay a region contested over by three major powers, namely the Hōjō, Takeda, and Uesugi families. Suruga province bordered these lands, and would eventually be amalgamated with Mikawa province. Owari province would see daily clashes over its border area. After Suruga lost its principal source of authority, a newly freed Ieyasu was able to start building a small power base in Mikawa. Meanwhile Nobunaga, in order to protect himself from the direct threat Takeda Shingen of Kai province presented to Owari province, realised that he needed Mikawa as a buffer zone.
 
For Ieyasu, he too wanted to receive aid from Nobunaga to both preserve his independence and prevent himself from once again being sucked into a power struggle against formidable opponents. Ieyasu made good use of his alliance with Nobunaga, and following the deaths of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, he deposed their heirs and built the foundations for an era of peace that lasted some 260 years. 
 
Despite all of this, Ieyasu was something of a military dunce. One thing that stands out in particular with regard to this is the epic Battle of Sekigahara that decided the fate of the nation.  If you take a look at the disposition of the Eastern Army on the eve of the battle, such was Ieyasu’s lack of military skill that it is a wonder that the Western Army was not victorious. In much the same way as Nobunaga, Ieyasu suffered defeat on the battlefield time and time again. 
 
What Ieyasu excelled at was intrigue.  While Nobunaga may have possessed a genius for revolutionary thinking, and of the three great unifiers it was Hideyoshi that was most capable militarily, Ieyasu was the strategist.  He was also extraordinarily cautious. He had learned a lot at the hands of Takeda Shingen of Kai, who had always presented the greatest threat to Mikawa. His experience living as a hostage also meant that he had taken exercising a high degree of caution to heart. Two apocryphal tales that left an impression on me in this regard are the tale of the out of season peaches and the crossing of the Marukibashi bridge.     
 
When Ieyasu was still a young man, Nobunaga sent some peaches to him. Under the old calendar this occurred in ‘Shimotsuki’, which in the modern calendar corresponds to December. While his retainers were perplexed as to how such a thing could have happened, and what sort of technology had been used to make it happen, Ieyasu pondered why Nobunaga had sent the peaches in the first place, and thinking that they might have a detrimental effect on his health, chose to give all of the peaches to his retainers. Hearing of this, Takeda Shingen offered his assessment, thinking “This is an individual that goes to great lengths to preserve his health. He prioritises his metabolism, and it appears that he won’t eat anything unnecessarily” (as recorded in the ‘Hisakankin’, a compilation of apocryphal tales about Tokugawa Ieyasu, edited by the Zenkoku Tōshōgu Rengōkai, published 1997). Shingen, who as a student of Sun Tzu had been able to correctly deduce Nobunaga’s nature, realised that far from being a dull and introverted soul, Ieyasu was in fact bursting with ambition.
 
Ieyasu was also known as a fine practitioner of the Ōtsubo school of horsemanship. However when attempting to cross a bridge spanning a river during the attack on Odawara during the Tenshō period, he deliberately got off his horse and crossed the river while being carried on the back of one of his retainers.  Ieyasu hadn’t learned horsemanship in order to show off in front of others, but rather to allow him to escape from the battlefield and live to fight again. Hence he had no need for any adventures, which does make for rather a dull story (from the Jyōzan Kidan and Bushō Kanjyōki published by Hakubunkan in 1929).    
 
Ieyasu’s high degree of caution made it impossible for him to achieve great deeds, but he possessed an extraordinary ability to wield intrigue.  Figures such as Mōri Motonari, Hōjō Sōun, and to some extent (Hōjō) Ujiyasu were generals of the strategic type, prepared to put up with hardship for a while waiting for their chance to strike.  Once their chance came they would move with lightening speed, but in the interim they would act cautiously, biding their time and building their resources. Ieyasu had the special patience of the strategist, and disliked embarking on adventures that would yield no rewards.  It was impossible for him to understand why anyone would act purely out of desire to provoke a response. He was also far more concerned about his health than the ordinary person.  His way of thinking, in which living a long life was what divided up life’s winners from its losers, was in contrast to Nobunaga and his idea that “life is but 50 years long”.      

The recent success of the FX/Disney series ‘Shōgun’, based on the novel published in the mid-1970s by James Clavell (an Australian-born British-American writer, whose life deserves a show of its own) has ignited interest around the world in the period of Japanese history depicted in the show and some of its main characters.  While Clavell’s novel is ostensibly a work of fiction, the characters that appear in it were certainly based on real individuals from sixteenth century Japan. Not least of these was the inspiration for the character of Toda Mariko, otherwise known as Hosokawa Gracia.
 
While there is a great amount of literature available that dramatizes the life of Hosokawa Gracia, the reality of her life was every bit as dramatic and tragic as depicted in fiction. Born into a world still in the throes of turmoil, she did what she could to survive, often to her own detriment. Yet she endured unimaginable hardship, until the circumstances of her marriage and the looming showdown between the forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu and Ishida Mitsunari forced her hand and resulted in her death. But what were her origins? Where did she come from, and how did the first half of her life come to play such a pivotal role in dictating her ultimate fate?
 
To answer some of these questions, I have taken the liberty of translating some of the early chapters of Ahn Jungwon’s book on Hosokawa Gracia. This is one of the most straight-forward works examining her life and legacy, and lays out the basic information on her origins in a manner that the general reader can easily comprehend. For the English reader, some of the format used by Ahn might seem a bit disjointed, with certain sections being repeated and new subjects introduced in the middle of a single paragraph. This is one of the unique characteristics of Japanese historical writing and so one can only ask for the reader’s patience and understanding if transitions can seem somewhat jarring from time to time.  
 
Hosokawa Gracia by Ahn Jungwon. Chuō Kōron Shinsha Publishing. October 2016.
 
Introduction
 
Hosokawa Gracia; a Christian woman of the Sengoku era (b. 1563 – d. 1600)
 
A famous woman, who took the name Gracia following her baptism into the Christian faith, replacing her original name of Tama(ko). Born a child of Akechi Mitsuhide (b.1528 – d.1582), one of the principal retainers to Oda Nobunaga (b.1538 – d.1582), she would go on to be betrothed to Hosokawa Tadaoki (b.1563 – d.1646).  In the weeks before the Battle of Sekigahara, her residence would be surrounded by the forces of her rival Ishida Mitsunari (1560 – 1600), and rather than being taken hostage, she would meet her end in dramatic fashion.
 
The baptismal name of Gracia was unique even for that time.  The key to understanding it lies in her original name. She was once known as Tama (ko), with the character ‘tama’ meaning ‘jewel’, or a thing of great value. This sound also resembled the word ‘tamamono’, meaning a gift or a blessing. Moreover, the name ‘Gracia’ resembles that of the Latin word ‘gratia’, meaning to give thanks or receive favour. Hence her baptismal name is believed to have been a liberal translation of her birth name.
 
She would ordinarily have been referred to as Akechi Tama(ko). However given that she is better known by the name ‘Hosokawa Gracia’, for the sake of convenience that is what she will be referred to throughout the course of this book.
 
The name Hosokawa Gracia has two particular characteristics. The first highlights her conversion to Christianity after marrying Hosokawa Tadaoki, the son of Hosokawa Fujitaka (b.1534 – d.1610, posthumously known as Yūsai), thus joining the Hosokawa household. Following her baptism, there was a possibility that she would divorce Tadaoki. While it said that she could not divorce because she had converted to Christianity, the truth is that the Catholic Church at the time had provisions that would allow for divorce. However Gracia’s case did not merit their implementation. It is quite possible that had her marriage been allowed to be annulled, she might not have met such a tragic end.  Yet the very fact that she was the wife of Tadaoki proved to be the catalyst that would ultimately decide her fate.
 
‘Marriage’ was thus the key element that tied her Christian faith together with her tragic end. I myself specialise in the examination of marital problems involving the Catholic Church in sixteenth and seventeenth century Japan and China.  What impact did Catholic doctrine have in new missionary lands, and what sort of friction did they cause? And as for issues concerning values held in those missionary lands and rivalry from other faiths, what methods did missionaries apply to try and resolve them? All of these questions can be drawn from the historical records left by European missionaries, starting with the Jesuits.
 
Gracia presents a particularly fascinating case amid the historical record of Christianity in Japan.  Through my research into marital issues, it may be possible to comprehend Gracia’s life. This book is thus the culmination of my interest in this subject. By examining the details of historical records left by missionaries as they relate to Gracia’s death, I believe I can shine some light on some heretofore little explored aspects of Gracia’s life.
 
Most studies of Gracia up until now have relied heavily on the theories expounded by Sophia University Professor Father Johannes Laures (b.1891 – d. 1959). In Laures’ view, since Gracia was a Christian, she was forbidden from taking her own life and so had a retainer of the Hosokawa family put her to death (Johannes Laures, “Life of Hosokawa Gracia”, Chuō Publishing, 1958). Father Laures’ theory about Gracia’s suicide would come to dominate the field in time. Yet can the mystery surrounding her death be so easily and conveniently explained?  
 
Why type of martyrdom did Gracia choose to accept? Did she do so in accordance with a warrior code, obeying an order given by her husband Tadaoki? Or was her death more in keeping with Christian doctrine? Why would she have someone else put her to death if she was capable of committing suicide herself? The records of the Jesuit missionary Gnecchi Soldo Organtino (b. 1533 – d. 1609) describe a conversation that he maintained with Gracia at a time of heightened tension and danger and how best to respond to it.  What sort of response did he make to her? We must also not overlook the question of how the Catholic Church reacted to Gracia’s death. Did she in fact die by suicide, and if she didn’t, can we still claim that she was martyred?
 
The number of historical documents related to Gracia are limited and it would be true to say that the possibility of new material being discovered that completely changes our understanding of her life is fairly low.  Nevertheless, it has now been more than half a century since Laures wrote his book, and studies into Christianity in Japan have developed in new directions. It has therefore become possible to re-examine aspects of her life by revisiting Christian historical records. This book is an attempt to look at Christian history from the ‘outside’, and re-examine Gracia’s life from the two aspects of ‘marriage’ and ‘death’.  
 
Chapter One – A Political Marriage and the Honnōji Incident
                             Born the daughter of Akechi Mitsuhide
 

1.  Scenery that Gracia saw

            Exiled to the mountains of Tango province
 
After her marriage to Hosokawa Tadaoki, Hosokawa Gracia entered the Hosokawa household, located at the time between Miyazu castle in Tango province (now part of Kyoto Prefecture) and Osaka. After arriving, she rarely ventured out again.  Both regions are in some way associated with Gracia, but little of her presence remains. Nonetheless, there was one place that was extraordinarily difficult for Gracia to forget.
 
In Tenshō 10 (1582), Gracia’s father Akechi Mitsuhide slew Oda Nobunaga in the Honnōji Incident, thus making Gracia the daughter of a turncoat and traitor. The Hosokawa family, under the pretext this provided, cut their ties with Gracia and sent her to a place located deep in the mountains. In this place known as ‘Midono’, Gracia spent the next two years of her life.  The view that greeted Gracia at that place in the mountains is almost the same today.  Midono is located within the mountains of Yasaka town, itself part of Kyotango City. We can use the sources to trace the peculiar circumstances that led Gracia to wind up at this location. 
 
The ”Record of the Hosokawa Household” (Hosokawa Kaki) states that the place that Gracia was sent into exile was “Midono, located in the mountains of Tanba’, while another source stated that it went “by the name of Uetomura in Tango province”. The poet Aoi Sōgo, in his book “Hosokawa Tadaoki” (published Shōwa 11 (1936) put the location of this alternative site at 2 ri (or 7.85km) north-west of the Kyoto (or capital) region. When the Chancellor of Sophia University and Jesuit Father Hermann Heuvers (b. 1890 – d. 1977) visited this alternative site many years later, he believed that it could never have served as a hideaway. Furthermore, none of the people living there had any idea who Hosokawa Gracia was. Not only had it never served as territory belonging to the Hosokawa family, it was also located far too close to Kyoto.
 
The novelist Morita Sōhei, when researching for his book “Hosokawa Gracia”, wrote in an essay for the Yomiuri Shimbun on 23 May, Shōwa 10 (1935) that when visiting Miyazu, he heard from a local reporter born in Nomamura village in Yosa-gun (close to Miyazu City) of a local legend of Tadaoki and his wife making their way to a local place, the details of this legend having been passed down throughout the surrounding area. The location of this place was ‘Midono’ in the mountains of Tango province. When Father Heuvers later made his own visit to the same area in August of 1935, he thought it to be an ideal location for a hideaway and was convinced that it must have served as Gracia’s secret residence. Moreover, local legends corresponded with what historical facts were known about Gracia’s life. In 1936, the Hosokawa family would purchase the land and erect a memorial stone to Gracia on it.
 
Midono today is a place deep within the mountains where people are exceedingly scarce.  It features steep mountain sides, and there is a tale that says that 400 years before Gracia made her way to the same valley, members of the Heike family defeated at the Battle of Dan-no-Ura developed the area for settlement.  Today, there is a road from Mineyama that connects with Midono, and which passes along the cliff edges of the deep valleys therein. When I visited the site in Autumn, I was told by a local driver who also served as a guide that in winter, the area receives around 2 metres of snow, thus making life there particularly difficult. There are only a few scattered dwellings in the vicinity. And yet it is this place, which exists almost as an inland island, that contains the remnants of Gracia’s hideaway.                 
‘Hidden’ rather than ‘cut off’
 
On a small hill located in the mountains lies a flat plain only some 60 metres in diameter. This hill is variously known as “the woman’s castle”, “the palace”, and “Osaki’s hill”.  It also features a memorial stone with the inscription “the secret residence of Hosokawa Tadaoki”.  A stone enclosure built around the memorial stone had apparently been visited by a group from Kyushu some days earlier, and there were still relatively fresh flowers and food offerings placed around it.  Apparently visitors from Kyushu visit the area every spring and summer. Which makes sense, given that it would be impossible to do so in winter. Down in the valley and separate from the ‘woman’s castle’ is another flat area known as the ‘man’s castle’.  It is said that this was the residence of those warriors from the Hosokawa household tasked with protecting Gracia.
 
Legend has it that Gracia, after arriving in Miyazu Bay by boat, travelled by road over the mountains until she arrived at Midono. Tabata Yasuko postulates that Gracia travelled by boat from Miyazu to Hioki, then by road from Hioki until she reached Komakura, and then travelled over the mountains to Midono. Tabata also speculates that Midono had once been the territory of the Akechi family. In his ‘History of Japan’, the Jesuit priest Luis Frois states that Akechi Mitsuhide possessed territory in Tango province, hence it is quite possible that this was the case. Midono itself is not that far from Miyazu City and is surrounded by steep mountains, thus making it quite well suited to serve as a hideaway. However its elevation is not that high, around 600 metres above sea level at most. What it suggests is that the Hosokawa family did not intend to cut off and abandon Gracia there, but rather keep her presence a secret.   
 
I was moved to wonder what Gracia would have thought looking out over the mountains from her residence within the “woman’s castle”.  Her entire family had been eliminated as a result of her father’s betrayal.  She herself had been cut off from her adopted family, separated from her children, all while her husband’s concubines had taken her place.  This was not the result of something she herself had done, and there must have been times when she thought “why on earth has this happened to me?”.  At the time, it would have been considered only proper for the daughter of someone whose conspiracy had slain the ruler of the land to also be put to death.  
 
Gracia herself must have felt from time to time that she could not easily return to the Hosokawa household, and that she was to a certain degree prepared to accept her fate. She may have felt that life itself was no longer worth living. Conversely, by going to Midono while still pregnant and giving birth there, she may have found a reason to keep living for the sake of her newborn child.  Perhaps she thought too much about the past while protected in her mountain hideaway. While she might have been able to return to the Hosokawa household early, she may have been anxious that those powers assembled in Osaka (namely Toyotomi Hideyoshi) would give her a particularly hard time.
 
Regarded as the daughter of a traitor, subject to her husband’s unusually strict discipline, and forced to live something like a hermit, it is no wonder that she would eventually seek solace in the Christian faith.
 
During her lifetime, the circumstances surrounding the rulers of the country underwent profound change. Her marriage had been decided by Oda Nobunaga. After his death as a result of her father’s betrayal, she was cut off by her adopted family and sent to Midono. She would then be recalled by the next ruler of the realm Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and because of her husband’s association with Tokugawa Ieyasu, she would be condemned to die.  Despite having never met them, having no family ties to them, and virtually nothing in common with them, the rulers of the realm (Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu) would all in some way contribute to the sudden dramatic changes in her life.
 
II  Marriage to the Hosokawa family
 
We must begin by talking about the first ruler of the realm to decide Gracia’s fate.
 
In Eiroku 3 (1560), Oda Nobunaga defeated the army of Imagawa Yoshimoto at the Battle of Okehazama following Imagawa’s invasion of Owari province from Suruga and Tōtōmi provinces.  This allowed Nobunaga to gain control over Owari from the Imagawa and liberate Matsudaira Motoyasu (afterwards known as Tokugawa Ieyasu), who had been a hostage of the Imagawa up until this time. Motoyasu then returned to his home province of Mikawa.  In Eiroku 5, Motoyasu visited Nobunaga at his castle at Kiyosu, whereupon Nobunaga’s daughter Gotoku was married to Motoyasu’s eldest son Nobuyasu. Motoyasu then severed all ties to the Imagawa family and changed his name to Ieyasu.
 
Meanwhile Nobunaga continued with his invasion of Minō province and fought against the Saitō family, who were rulers of Minō at the time. In Eiroku 4, Saitō Yoshitatsu died suddenly and was succeeded by his son, Tatsuoki.  To ensure the success of his invasion of Minō, Nobunaga moved his base from Komakiyama and attacked his cousin Oda Nobukiyo at Inuyama castle.  This victory united Owari under Nobunaga’s rule.  In the same year, Nagao Kagetora of Echigo province invaded Odawara, which was under the control of the Hōjō family.  Having defeated the Hōjō, Kagetora seized the official post of Kantō Kanrei from the Hōjō and changed his name to Uesugi Kenshin.  Kenshin would go on to fight a series of battles against Takeda Shingen of Kai province, during which time Nobunaga maintained an alliance with Kenshin.  Thereafter an adopted daughter of Nobunaga would be married to Shingen’s son, Katsuyori. 
 
It took Nobunaga 10 years to complete his takeover of Minō province.  Having done so, he began to embark upon an ambition to unite the country under his rule.  In the same year (Eiroku 4), Nobunaga changed the name of Inoguchi in Minō province to Gifu and made that his home base. He also began to use the insignia “Tenka Fubu’ (consisting of four characters, meaning ‘all under heaven, both civil/learned and military’). It was around this time, in Eiroku 6 (1563), that Gracia was born.  At the time, her father, Akechi Mitsuhide, was not yet in the service of Nobunaga.  It was while Nobunaga was in the process of expanding his control over Minō that he came into contact with Mitsuhide. As Nobunaga planned to take control of the capital (at Kyoto), Mitsuhide decided to swear fealty to him. As a retainer, Mitsuhide rose to prominence, which would have a significant influence of Gracia’s upbringing.  
 
Gracia’s birth
 
When speaking of Akechi Mitsuhide, the image that first comes to mind is that of a conspirator and traitor who caused the death of his lord Oda Nobunaga in the Honnōji Incident.  However, despite being one of the main retainers of Nobunaga, very few historical records detailing the life of Mitsuhide and written at the same time that he lived have survived. Mitsuhide’s life has, however, been subject to legend, such as the “Akechi Gunki” (Military Record of the Akechi Family). This is a compilation of various tales about Mitsuhide’s military exploits and was made almost a century after his death. Hence it’s not considered reliable as an historical source.
 
The historical record of the Hosokawa family, known as the “Hosokawa Kaki” (or Menkō Shūroku) does contain some entries in relation to Gracia’s father, Mitsuhide. However these were primarily written by later generations, and appear to have been edited based on the ‘Akechi Gunki’. Thus they cannot be taken at face value.  As for Mitsuhide himself, his family were thought to be branch of the Toki clan, with Mitsuhide being the child of the ruler of Akechi castle in Minō province.
 
Mitsuhide himself had been able to transcend his origins, for he most certainly spent his youth in relative poverty. Luis Frois in his “History of Japan” wrote that “he (Mitsuhide) was not of high birth”.  At some undetermined point, Mitsuhide most certainly entered into the service of Asakura Yoshikage (b.1533 – d.1573) of Echizen province.  Gracia was born in Eiroku 6 (1563) in Echizen province. Her mother is believed to have been Hiroko, the daughter of Tsumaki Norihiro.  The ‘Akechi Gunki’  states that she was “well known as an intelligent woman’. It also states that she gave birth to all of Gracia’s siblings.
 
As for Mitsuhide’s daughters, the “Hosokawa Kaki” says that he had at least 3 daughters, and that Gracia was either the third daughter or possibly came after that. The “Akechi Gunki”  says that Gracia was the third of four daughters, and that after the four daughters were born, Mitsuhide would go on to have three sons.  There are also theories that Mitsuhide had 5 daughters. Following the Battle of Yamazaki (Tenshō 10), in which Mitsuhide was defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Mitsuhide’s cousin Akechi Hidemitsu (also known as Mitsuharu), having heard of Mitsuhide’s defeat, set fire to Mitsuhide’s castle at Sakamoto while the entire Mitsuhide clan committed suicide, including Gracia’s mother.
 
When Gracia was born, her father was in the service of the Asakura family of Echizen province. In his youth, Mitsuhide has been relatively poor, but by the time Gracia was born, he had earned Nobunaga’s trust and was gradually making his way up in the world. It is believed that Gracia had a relatively happy childhood and grew up in a well-off household.  When she was nine years old, Nobunaga appointed Mitsuhide as ruler over Sakamoto in Ōmi province, whereupon he set about building a castle.   
 
Akechi Mitsuhide and Hosokawa Fujitaka
 
Gracia’s future father-in-law, Hosokawa Fujitaka, was born in Kyoto as the second son to Mitsubuchi Harukazu, a confidant of the then shōgun Ashikaga Yoshiharu.  His mother was the daughter of Kiyohara Nobukata. The Kiyohara family were known as practitioners of Shintō, however Nobukata himself was a Confucianist. Fujitaka would in time obey a directive from Ashikaga Yoshiharu to become the adopted son of Hosokawa Mototsune.  In Tenbun 15 (1546), he would be granted the use of the character for ‘fuji’ (wisteria) from Shōgun Ashikaga Yoshiteru and take the name “Fujitaka”.
 
As both a youth and proficient in the art of poetry, Fujitaka would receive instruction from the aristocrat Sanjō Nishisanuki in both the classic and modern styles of poetry. At the time of the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), he and Onogi Shigetsugu, the lord of Fukuchiyama castle, were surrounded by the forces of the Western army (led by Ishida Mitsunari) in Tabe castle.  When it became clear that the downfall of the castle was only a matter of time, the Emperor Goyōsei, despairing that a source of poetry was about to be extinguished, issued a decree calling for both a truce and for the siege of the castle to be lifted, which is what eventually occurred.    
 
The instruction that Fujitaka had received in the classic poetry style thus appears to have saved his life.  While Fujitaka was known at the time as a person of culture, he also had a long-standing affinity with the martial arts.  He studied sword play under Tsukahara Bokuden and archery from Houkabe Sadahiro. In later years following the Honnōji Incident, he would join the priesthood and take the name Yūsai. His decision to take the tonsure was apparently so he could refuse a request for assistance from Mitsuhide, and was certainly made in haste.
 
In Eiroku 8 (1565), the thirteenth Shōgun Ashikaga Yoshiteru was suddenly attacked by Matsunaga Hisahide at Nijō palace. He attempted to resist but was ultimately overwhelmed, with the event becoming known as the Eiroku Incident.  In its aftermath, Fujitaka managed to convince the priest Ichijōin Kakukei to leave the clergy and return to the secular world. This priest would in turn be known as the fifteenth shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki. 
 
When Yoshiaki paid a visit to the territory belonging to the Asakura family in Echizen province, Mitsuhide got to know Fujitaka, given Fujitaka was a retainer in Yoshiaki’s service at the time. After meeting Fujitaka, Mitsuhide, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, decided to leave the service of (Asakura) Yoshikage and work as a retainer to Nobunaga. In the eleventh month of Eiroku 11 (1568), Mitsuhide participated in a poetry recital together with Fujitaka. Together with Fujitaka, he was expected to become a liaison between Nobunaga and Ashikaga Yoshiaki.  Thereafter, as a senior retainer of Nobunaga, Mitsuhide was granted territory in Shiga-gun in Ōmi province and Tango province. These would become the sites for Sakamoto castle, now found in Ōtsu City in Shiga Prefecture, and Kameyama castle in Tango province.
 
According to Taniguchi Katsuhiro, Mitsuhide entered into Nobunaga’s service in Eiroku 11 (1568), just before Nobunaga made his first entrance into the capital. When Ashikaga Yoshiaki made a request to Nobunaga to move from Asakura-controlled Echizen to Gifu castle in Minō province, Fujitaka and Mitsuhide did everything in their power to facilitate this. Both reported to Nobunaga that Yoshiaki had entered the capital in the ninth month of the same year, with both retainers accompanying him.  In the tenth month of the same year, Yoshiaki was appointed to the position of shōgun.
 
Yoshiaki began to harbour resentment against Nobunaga’s ambitions and proceeded to organize political resistance to him, which in time would turn into full-blown conflict. Fujitaka decided then and there to forsake his ties to Yoshiaki and throw in his lot with Nobunaga, swearing fealty to Nobunaga in the fourth year of Genki (the first year of Tenshō, or 1573). Ultimately Yoshiaki would be driven out of Kyoto by Nobunaga, while Fujitaka would commence his service as a retainer to Nobunaga.   
 
According to Tabata Yasuko, Fujitaka and Mitsuhide shared a close relationship ever since they had met while providing service to Yoshiaki. After later becoming retainers of Nobunaga, they endeavoured to help one another. When both of them were later tasked with pacifying Tanba and Tango provinces, both Fujitaka and his son would cooperate with Mitsuhide, regarding him as their leader.  In Tenshō 7, following the pacification of Tanba and Tango, Mitsuhide was granted territory in Tanba while Fujitaka secured lands in Tango. Thereafter Mitsuhide would continue to be promoted to the position of military leader of the Kinnai region. Just before that, in Tenshō 6 (1578), Mitsuhide’s daughter Gracia married Fujitaka’s son Tadaoki on the orders of Nobunaga, thereby solidifying the relationship between both households.  
 
Gracia’s Marriage
 
So Gracia’s marriage was organized on the orders of her father’s lord, Nobunaga. Nobunaga himself made strategic use of his birth daughters and adopted daughters to strengthen his feudal ties, yet he was also very actively involved in forging the marital relationships of his retainers. In the first month of Tenshō 2 (1574), Nobunaga held a council of his most senior generals at Gifu castle. While there, he issued an order that Mitsuhide and Fujitaka should strengthen their familial relationship.  In the eighth month of Tenshō 6 (1578), upon his arrival at Azuchi castle in Ōmi province (Nobunaga’s new base founded in Tenshō 4 (1576), Fujitaka reported to Nobunaga on the marital arrangements made for his son, Tadaoki.  While this marriage had been forged on the orders of Nobunaga, it is entirely plausible that both the Akechi and Hosokawa families were quite pleased that their bonds had been strengthened in this way. And so Gracia was married to Tadaoki in the same month.
 
The marriage ceremony took place at the main stronghold of the Hosokawa family in Yamashiro province, at Seiryūji castle.  Both Gracia and Tadaoki were sixteen years old at the time. As was customary for military marriages during the Sengoku era, a palanquin was prepared to receive the bride. Retainers from both households then took their place on either side of the palanquin. First members of the Akechi household accompanied Gracia as far as the Hosokawa stronghold, whereupon they transferred the palanquin into the care of the Hosokawa. Following the wedding ceremony, both Gracia and Tadaoki continued to live at Seiryūji. In the following year (1579), their eldest daughter Chō was born, followed in 1580 by their eldest son Tadataka.  Until Fujitaka and Tadaoki both moved to Hachimanyama castle in Tango province in the eighth month of 1580, Gracia would spend roughly two years living at Seiryūji.    

Anyone taking the Kintetsu train line from Nagoya down to Tsu or Ise in Mie Prefecture will eventually come to a series of railway bridges spanning a series of wide rivers. These rivers, the banks of which are either covered in grass or have been converted into exercise paths and playing grounds, are the Kiso, Nagara, and Ibi, all of which flow down from the north, from Shiga, Fukui and Ishikawa Prefectures. Today these rivers are fairly non-descript bodies of water, the islands in-between them dotted with houses, small-scale factories, as well as a sports complex and an amusement park. 
 
Yet more than 400 years ago, this relatively benign, peaceful landscape was the scene of horror.






What took place there was, in many ways, the culmination of a campaign that the sixteenth century warlord Oda Nobunaga had waged against the religious power of Ishiyama Honganji for over a decade. 
 
Having managed to escape encirclement by a myriad of forces arranged against him (those forces aided to a significant degree by the machinations of the last Ashikaga shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiaki), Nobunaga used his considerable military and economic power to gradually eliminate all those who stood against his rule in central Japan – both secular and religious alike.  Foremost among these, with a following numbering in the hundreds of thousands (some theories putting it into the millions), was Ishiyama Honganji.
 
Honganji had arisen from a fairly minor sect of the Jōdō faith around the Kyoto region in the fourteenth century.  Through the activities of its second leader, Rennyō, and his offspring (the Jōdō Shinshū sect having allowed its priests to marry), the influence of the sect gradually grew throughout central, eastern and western Japan until it became the most prevalent Buddhist sect in the entire nation.  This influence, coupled with a concurrent growth in wealth and secular power, made Honganji a rival to the many military and aristocratic families that had traditionally exercised control over territory and administrative positions.
 
The fact that Honganji was able to manipulate the faith of its followers to engage in military conflict against its enemies made it a dangerous opponent for any ambitious daimyō attempting to unite the country under his rule. Yet this is precisely the situation that Oda Nobunaga found himself in at the outset of the 1570s. While campaigning against the Asai and Asakura families of Ōmi province, time and again Nobunaga had found himself having to put down uprisings (or ikki) inspired by followers of the Honganji faith (also known as the Monto).
The continued threat presented by the Honganji Monto to Nobunaga’s plans meant that they had to be dealt with in a far more brutal manner than was considered the norm in an already brutal age (by this time, the central provinces of Japan had been the scene of conflict for over a century).  The fact that many of the Monto were of common stock, peasants and tradespeople, led by lower level samurai known as jizamurai, no doubt played a role in informing the methods Nobunaga deployed against them.
 
The following chapter translation comes from the historical novel “Leon Ujisato” by Abe Ryūtarō. The novel ostensibly tells the tale of Gamō Ujisato, a retainer of Nobunaga from　Ōmi province who would eventually become lord of Aizu province and convert to Christianity, taking the Christian name of ‘Leon’. Without doubt, Ujisato bore witness to many battles and sieges while in Nobunaga’s service, the brutality of the fighting and their tragic aftermath going some way in influencing his decision to convert and become a student of the famous tea master Sen Rikyū.
 
All this lay in the future, however. In 1574 Ujisato was part of Nobunaga’s forces preparing to invade Ise province to eliminate the Honganji threat present there in the form of the Monto at Nagashima. It is at this point that the story commences.   
 
Before launching into the translation, I should warn readers that it does describe some fairly horrific acts committed against the Monto. Readers are advised to use their own discretion.     
 
“Leon Ujisato” by Abe Ryūtarō
 
Extract from Chapter Six - Tragedy
 
With the defeat of the Asai, Asakura, and Rokkaku families and the destruction of Enryakuji, Takeda Katsuyori of Kai province and the religious institution of Osaka Honganji were all that was left of the ‘net’ that had been cast to encircle Oda Nobunaga.
 
The Ikkō Ikki, which rose in revolt under the authority of directives from Honganji, still retained a considerable degree of power, made up as it was of low-level retainers and rural samurai drawn together from various regions.  Among these, it was the Ikki forces gathered at Nagashima in Ise province (modern Mie Prefecture) that presented the greatest threat.
 
Ise Nagashima is an estuary at the point at which the Kiso, Nagara, and Ibi rivers flow into Ise Bay. Since time immemorial, people living in the area had depended on boats for their livelihood, with most affiliated with the river and sea transport industries. For the Oda family, whose authority in the region centred on Tsushima island in the lower Kiso river, they had  maintained good relations with the people of the area in order to firm up their control over transport on Ise Bay. 
 
However following the call from Honganji to raise forces in opposition to the armies of Nobunaga, the region would be transformed into a battleground punctuated by utterly merciless fighting.    
 
The emergence of this formidable enemy began in the fourth month of Tenshō 2 (1574).  Ikki forces from Echizen, Ōmi, Kawachi and Kishū began to gather together, ultimately forming an army of some 50,000 followers.  Among the various forces, the contingent from Kishū were by far the strongest, with many members drawn from the musket companies maintained by the Negoro and Saika (Saiga) Monto (or group of followers).
 
Saika is a part of the Kinai region of central Japan and had long been subject to Nobunaga’s trade controls.  The Ikki forces there relied on their boats to make a living, and were known to trade with Awa Island, Tosa and Satsuma provinces, and as far as the Kingdom of Ryūkyū (Okinawa) where they bought up large quantities of saltpetre and lead.  They then sold this to the forces of the Takeda in Kai and the Hōjō in the Kantō region of eastern Japan, making themselves very wealthy in the process. 
 
“If we don’t fight them now, it will have grave consequences for us”. So recommended Takigawa Kazumasu, who had been appointed as overseer of the northern Ise region by the Oda. And yet Nobunaga made no attempt to move against the Ikki.
 
The reason for this was not purely the Ikki’s own doing.  By drawing the Oda forces into Nagashima, Takeda Katsuyori would be able to strike Nobunaga in the back. Examining the situation and its potential outcome, on the fifth day of the sixth month of Tenshō 2, Tokugawa Ieyasu sent an urgent message to Nobunaga from his base in Hamamatsu. “At present, around 20,000 Takeda personnel have surrounded Takatenjin castle”.
 
Ieyasu well knew that he would not be able to fend off such a large army with his forces alone, and so had asked for assistance from Nobunaga in the form of troops.
 
To this, Nobunaga grinned smugly to himself, thinking “The fool. It makes it look as though we can’t wait them out.”
 
To be sure, there were no provisions available in Ise Nagashima to support a 50,000 strong army. For the Ikki force, which would have no choice but to send its reinforcements back to where they came from, having Katsuyori launch an attack on Takatenjin castle would thus provide a welcome distraction.
 
“Tell him that we’re coming, and not to start anything until we get there”
 
This is what Nobunaga told Ieyasu’s messenger. However Nobunaga himself did not leave Gifu until the 14th of the sixth month.  Such was the slow pace at which the army advanced  that it did not reach Lake Hamana until the 19th, by which time Nobunaga was informed that Takatenjin castle had fallen into Katsuyori’s hands. 
 
It was behaviour very out of character for the normally fleet footed Nobunaga. However so  concerned was Nobunaga about being attacked in the rear by the Nagashima Ikki that he took every precaution possible.
 
After meeting with Ieyasu at Yoshida castle, Nobunaga explained the situation. As compensation for allowing the loss of Takatenjin castle, he handed over to Ieyasu two sacks filled with gold bullion. According to the “Shinchō Kōki” (Official Record of Nobunaga), each sack was so heavy it took two people to lift them.
 
Having thus placated Ieyasu, Nobunaga made preparations to head back to Mikawa. Just before riding off, he addressed Ieyasu, saying “take that gold and put a stop to the Takeda advance west”. Having thus dealt with one issue, from the 13th of the seventh month Nobunaga would begin his campaign against Ise Nagashima. Drawing together a huge army of roughly 100,000 troops from the provinces of Mino, Owari, Ise, and Ōmi, Nobunaga made his preparations for a final showdown with the Ikki force.
 
Gamō Ujisato (who at the time went by the name of Chūsaburō) and Shibata Katsuie led a contingent of mounted troops to the front. The Shibata force would be tasked with seizing the castle of Ōtorii, located at Katori in the northwest of Nagashima, one of five castles controlled by the Ikki force.
 
This presented an ideal opportunity. Chūsaburō was a keen student of Nobunaga’s tactics, and together with Wada Sanzemon and Hino Yajirō Gorō climbed up Mt. Tado. From the peak of the mountain, 400 metres above sea level, Chūsaburō was able to grasp the layout of the land in front of him at a glance.
 
The Kiso, Nagara, and Ibi rivers all converge at the point that the rivers meet the sea in the south, forming a wide river almost like a sea itself and which rolls on into Ise Bay. At the centre of the river’s mouth is a long island stretching out to the north-west by the name of Nagashima, while the west bank consists of three islands known as Ōtorii, Okunagashima, and Nakae.  This is where the Ikki force had constructed five castles.  The sides of the castles were protected by dual palisades which also permitted boats to enter and leave as necessary. The castles were also mutually reinforcing, allowing nothing to slip through without a challenge. They were, in other words, sea-borne castles that would prove very difficult to assault.
 
The Oda force, confronting this problem, decided to lay siege to the castles from four directions at once and arranged their camp accordingly.  In the north-east Nobunaga made his camp at Hayao, while in the east at Ichie lay Nobutada. At Katori in the north-west lay the forces of Sakuma Nobumori and Shibata Katsuie, while in the west at Kuwana lay Nobunaga’s second son Nobukatsu, himself adopted from the aristocratic Kitabatake household.   
 
In the south, floating on the sea, Takigawa Kazumasu and Kuki Yoshitaka had gathered together a small armada of around 100 boats made up of transport and fast boats. This enormous force, altogether over 100,000 personnel strong, thus appeared to smother both the river and sea in boats.
 
“That is our target”
 
Chūsaburō extended his whip, pointing at the castle at Ōtorii.  At the same time he asked Sanzaemon how he would go about attacking it.
 
The island itself was of a circular shape upon which an Ikki force of around 10,000 followers had gathered. In the space between the palisades earth mounds had been raised for protection, thus showing that the defenders were prepared for a musketry duel.  Throughout the island, large scale flags bearing the holy inscription “Namu Amida Butsu” had been raised, and which were now fluttering in the sea breeze .
 
“There’s little point in coming up with a plan to draw them out. We should attack them head-on with a full-scale assault”.
 
To make a landing on the island, Sanzaemon had gathered together an array of paddy boats that were both wide and shallow. The plan was to set up shields on the sides of the boats to provide protection for the crew. From there the crew could continue to shoot their muskets as they made landfall on the island.
 
“With this much arrayed against them, there’s no chance that the Ikki will succeed. Do you think that they’ll just give up?”       
 
Jirō Gorō was a member of the Honganji Monto and so had a degree of sympathy with the Ikki force. The name Hino came from Hinomaki Gokadera, a subsidiary temple of Honganji. Its congregation, both retainers and residents, had many Monto members. Among the force arrayed against the Oda on the other side of the palisade were people who had forsaken their ties to the Gamō family to join the Ikki.
 
“While there’s no chance for the Ikki to succeed, we won’t permit them to surrender either”    
 
Chūsaburō well understood just how mercilessly Nobunaga planned to wage this battle.
 
“What the hell does that mean? Are you saying that we’re going to kill them all?”
 
“Jirō Gorō, you forget your place”, Sanzaemon admonished in a low voice.
 
Nobody wanted such a thing to happen.  Yet many of the warriors present began to realise that there was no other way of preventing this from turning into a long, drawn out conflict.
 
On the 15th of the seventh month, Nobunaga ordered an all-out attack.
 
The Oda forces launched their transport and fast boats from all four directions and proceeded to open fire with muskets and cannon on the five Ikki castles. The Ikki force responded with cannon and fire arrows of their own, yet the firepower arrayed against them by the Oda force was overwhelming and soon put them purely on the defensive.
 
It was at this point that Chūsaburō launched his attack on Ōtorii castle.
 
Paddy boats had a good degree of stability for the three musket companies that Chūsaburō had prepared for the assault, and wouldn’t tip over even if they ran over a sand bank.  Chūsaburō divided up his 300 troops among the boats, and after floating them down river landed at Ōtorii. 
 
The Ikki force proceeded to fire their muskets at this new threat from the top of their earth mound defences. In response, Chūsaburō peered out from between the gaps in the shields of the paddy boats. Judging when the enemy had expended its ammunition, he then sent his long spear squads in to attack the gaps in the palisades.
 
Hand-to-hand fighting around the palisades, with each side grabbing at the other’s spears, lasted for around an hour. Yet still the Oda force could not break the castle’s defences.   
 
Chūsaburō decided to withdraw all of his troops. Taking them back to their landing place, they proceeded to construct earth mounds of their own and wait for reinforcements.
 
It was the same situation at all of the other castles.  Despite landing on the islands, the Oda force had been unable to break through the dual palisades around each castle. And so the decision was made to set up camp and lay siege to the castles.
 
For the Ikki force, whose contact with the outside world had been completely cut off, a lack of fresh water began to have a more serious impact than the loss of troops. There were no wells in any of the five castles. If they dug into the earth, their proximity to the sea meant that all that came out was salt water. The thinking had been that since they were close to rivers, they could use that water and so there was no need to dig any wells. Yet the force surrounding them was so overwhelming and its security on such high alert that the Ikki force soon found that it couldn’t venture out to fetch any water.
 
It was clear to all how this was going to end.  The Ikki force would eventually surrender only to rise again somewhere else. Yet Nobunaga would not allow this to happen.  If he did permit the Ikki force to leave, they would only drift along to another province and once again revolt against his rule.
 
In order to force them to obey, Nobunaga would have to make them give up their beliefs. Yet given that the Monto’s only desire was to be reborn in the Pure Land (Jōdō), they would rather die than go against Honganji’s teachings.  
 
(“Well, that’s that then. They will have to be cut off at the roots”)
 
Having made his fateful decision, Nobunaga gave the order for security around each castle to be increased. 
 
The siege of Ise Nagashima went on for three months. Within the castles, starvation and thirst soon began to take their toll. According to the ‘Shinchō Kōki’… “As the siege went on for three months, the number of dead reached half (of the Ikki force)”. 
 
This was a tragedy for the Ikki force, yet the burden on the Oda force, which had mobilised a large army and which now had to maintain a siege, was also significant.  Criticism of Nobunaga’s methods among society in general began to grow, gradually putting the Oda force in a difficult position.
 
The 19th of the ninth month proved to be a fateful day. While promising the Ikki force that it would be able to surrender, Nobunaga planned to train his muskets on the Ikki force when it tried to leave by boat and ensure that none got out alive.
 
Having been forced into such dire circumstances, the Ikki force decided to make a desperate counter-attack. Seven or eight hundred members of their force stripped off, sank into the water, and made their way towards the Oda camp to assault them.
The Oda force, unaware from which direction the enemy had suddenly appeared to launch their attack, were cut down in great numbers by the Monto and their leaders and disgraced themselves by allowing the Monto to escape. Enraged that this had been allowed to happen, Nobunaga ordered that some 20,000 people, old and young, male and female, who had fled to Yanagashima and Nakae to escape the worst of the fighting, be herded into one corner of the same area, attacked with flames from all four directions and burned to death.
 
For those who had been hiding in ditches and small shacks and shanties, the approach of flames driven from dwellings that had already been set on fire soon forced many to abandon their places of shelter. The groups of musketeers and archers surrounding them then cut them down mercilessly in a shower of bullets and arrows.
 
Those who could no longer escape were engulfed in flames, and they screamed and wailed hideously as they burned.
 
The leaders of the Ikki soon found the building that they had retreated into was on fire.  The enormous thatched roof proceeded to slowly burn. The gates of the castle, which until this time had remained firmly closed, finally opened.  Out came around 100 young women, all of them almost completely naked, holding infants that were still teething and others only months old.  It seems the leaders had chosen to play the only hand they had left, pleading that the Oda force spare the children.
 
Observing all this from the other side of the palisade, a roar like a beast starved of its share of blood went up among the Oda force. The gates to the palisade were flung open and men rushed forward, jostling with one another to seize hold of one of the women.  No one made any effort to save the children. 
 
Those children that tried to get away were surrounded and impaled on cross shaped and single bladed spears. They were then hoisted into the air and placed in the gaps between the palisades. Any children who had not already succumbed to their wounds became targets for the musketeers to practice their skills and were shot through the head.  
 
Chūsaburō witnessed all this from his vantage point at Ōtorii. 
 
Piercing screams that assailed the ears, roaring flames sending ash and smoke up into the heavens, the smell of burning flesh mixed in with the passing breeze.  All this Chūsaburō took in with all of his senses, the horror of war rendered so vividly that he found himself unable to move.
 
“This can’t be happening.  This isn’t something that humans do”.
 
So sobbed Jirō Gorō as he crouched down, and unable to take any more proceeded to throw up.
 
The musket companies under Sanzemon’s command also stood up, astonished at the tragedy unfolding before them.
 
(“Is this…is this what idealistic people do?”)
 
No, it can’t be, Chūsaburō thought for a moment before dismissing it from his mind.
 
And yet, Chūsaburō well understood Nobunaga’s feelings, that if Nobunaga did not do this and go this far, then the country would never change. Chūsaburō knew that there was no other way for a warrior to live than to obey commands.
 
(“Yet is this really the way it should be?”)
 
Amid a shocking scene that could rend heaven from earth, Chūsaburō asked himself this question again and again, cursing himself that he had lived this long without ever having held a set of beliefs.

Chapter One   The advance from Shikoku　(continued from last week)
Miyoshi Yukinaga and the Hosokawa clan
 
1   The Hosokawa, shugo of Awa province, and the Muromachi Bakufu
 
According to the various military tales and genealogies composed about the Miyoshi clan during the Edo period, the Ogasawara of Shinano province were appointed as the shugo (an official position similar to a governor) over Awa province during the Kamakura period. A descendant of that family established himself in Miyoshi-gun (district) at the mouth of the Yoshino river, and there took the surname Miyoshi. 



While it is certainly true that this person belonged to the same family, as is often the case with many of the figures of the Era of the Warring States, it is difficult to verify the validity of claims about origins.
 
A primary source detailing the origins of the Miyoshi first appeared in the latter half of the fifteenth century.  On the 24th of the second month of Kanshō 6 (1465), Inō Shinkaku, the bugyōnin (overseer) appointed by the shugo of Awa province Hosokawa Shigeyuki, ordered one “Miyoshi Shikibu no Shō” to accumulate information about taxation paid across 3-gun districts. In Awa province at the time, the shugodai (a deputy to the shugo) of the Tōjō clan amalgamated a number of provincial districts and appointed either ko-shugodai (an assistant, usually a retainer, to the shugodai) or gundai (district administrators) to each. In the southern gun, Tōjō Wakasa Nyūdō, and in the north and west Miyoshi Shikibu no Shō, were two of these individuals.
 
In the first year of Bunmei (1469), Inō Shinkaku issued a directive to Miyoshi Shikibu no Shō, Kataho Hitachi Nyūdō, and Henmi Bungo Nyūdō to collect tithes from their respective districts.  Kataho was from Izu province and a descendant of a hikan (a retainer granted land and special authority in exchange for military service) of the Hōjō Tokusō clan of the Kamakura Bakufu.  The Henmi clan was from Kai province, and like the Takeda and Ogasawara clans, lay claim to Minamoto no Yoshimitsu as an ancestor.  Both families (Kataho and Henmi) thus bore illustrious lineages, yet if the Miyoshi were also descended from the Ogasawara, wouldn’t it have made more sense for them to also take a surname from a geographical feature in the eastern provinces?
 
Following the chain of logic here, the Miyoshi were most likely kokujin (a prominent local samurai family) in Awa province, who grew in influence to become the gundai of the north western region of Awa. In their search for a more illustrious lineage, many kokujin status families in Awa like the Ichinomiya began to describe themselves as descended from the Ogasawara clan, thus leading to the establishment of the Ogasawara theory of origin.
 
There is also a theory that this Miyoshi Shikibu no Shō was a direct ancestor of Miyoshi Yukinaga, Motonaga and Nagayoshi, each of whom would make their mark in the Kinai region (Yamashiro, Yamato, Settsu, Kawachi, and Izumi provinces).  However all three chose to give themselves the title of ‘Chikuzen no Kami’ (a common practice among prominent military figures of this era was to appoint themselves to positions based on former Imperial titles, in this case ‘kami’. The title held no actual rank, and was more a trend adopted to make one appear more illustrious. Chikuzen is the former name of modern Fukuoka prefecture). While it is possible that the family’s lineage was altered at some point, we do know that in Tenshō 9 (1581) there was still a family by the name of Miyoshi in Awa province using the official title ‘Shikibu no Shō’. Hence the chances that Yukinaga, Motonaga and Nagayoshi had a common ancestor in Shikibu no Shō are rather slim. 
 
It does appear that in the aftermath of the Ōnin War, in the seventeenth year of Bunmei (1485), Hosokawa Nariyuki and his son Masayuki were accompanied by members of the Miyoshi clan in their journey from Kyoto to Awa. So rather than originally being from Awa, there was a Miyoshi family active in Kyoto at the time. It seems more likely that the family of Miyoshi Shikibu no Shō that came to administer the north-western regions of Awa were originally the main branch of the family, while the Miyoshi that later came to adopt the more prestigious title of ‘Chikuzen no Kami’ were retainers in the service of the shugo of Awa province residing in Kyoto. Yukinaga, Motonaga and Nagayoshi were the descendants of these retainers, and during the course of the Era of the Warring States, it was this family that would eventually come to be regarded as the main branch of the Miyoshi clan.
 
The Muromachi Bakufu and the Hosokawa clan
 
The Muromachi Bakufu maintained a policy of dividing up its authority into regions, namely the Kantō, Tōhoku and Kyūshū. To the position of Kamakura Kubō (a position overseeing the administration of 10 provinces in the Kantō region) it appointed the fourth son of Ashikaga Takauji, Ashikaga Motouji, while in relation to the position of Kantō Kanrei (a position providing advice to the Kamakura Kubō and appointed by the shōgun) they appointed the Uesugi clan, a family from whom Takauji’s mother was descended. To the position of Ōshū Tandai (overseeing the far northern provinces) they appointed the Ōsaki clan (a branch of the aristocratic Shiba family), while the Mogami clan (another branch of the Shiba family) were appointed as the Ushū Tandai (the area of north western Honshū now occupied by Akita and Niigata prefectures).   
 
The position of Kyūshū Tandai went to the Shibukawa clan, thereby ensuring that all of these prestigious posts were occupied by illustrious families tied through blood relations to the Ashikaga Bakufu. On the other hand, the Tokai, Hokuriku, Kinnai, Chūgoku and Shikoku regions (known collectively as the Muromachi Dono Gobunkoku) were under the direct control of the shōgun, while the shugo of the same stretch of territory were expected to reside in Kyoto. Those who became shugo included the Akamatsu and Sasaki clans, both of whom had been instrumental in the formation of the Ashikaga Bakufu, and apart from prestigious families dating from the Kamakura era including the Ōuchi, Ōtomo, and Kōno, all fell under the Ashikaga banner. The basic administration adopted by the Bakufu involved shugo combining their responsibilities for numerous provinces throughout the country with control over those same areas, all the while providing the shōgun and the Bakufu government in Kyoto with support.
 
One issue that emerged for the Ashikaga shōgun during the Nanbokuchō period (roughly 1336 to 1392) was how to secure their position while simultaneously fighting both the Southern Court and restraining more influential members of their own family. Their solution was to make the Northern Court appreciate the significance of the role of the shugo, remove the influence of any other branches of the Ashikaga family so that the shōgun monopolized contact with the Emperor, and ensure that only the shōgun’s family occupied high office.

Meanwhile the Hosokawa clan, itself a branch of the Ashikaga family, had pacified Shikoku during Ashikaga Takauji’s retreat to Kyūshū, Through their assistance rendered to Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, Yoshimitsu was able to consolidate the authority of the shōgun. The Hosokawa were, in turn, appointed as senior councilors within the Ashikaga Bakufu. Generations of the Hosokawa clan would take the position title of Ukyō no Daibu (many of the official positions within the Bakufu and imperial system took names derived from Chinese bureaucratic titles), which in time became known as the Ukei chō. The main branch of the Hosokawa family, under the title of Ukei chō, would become one of the three principal families appointed to the position of kanrei (the Sanrankei) together with the Shiba and Hatakeyama. They would then combine their Bakufu duties to simultaneously serve as shugo to the provinces of Settsu, Tanba, Sanuki and Tosa.     
 
The Hosokawa also had their own influential sub-branches of the family. Among those who only served in the position of shugo included the Awa, Awaji, Bichū, Izumi-kami and Izumi-shimo families. Non-shugo branch families such as the Yashū and Tenkyū would serve as retainers to the Ukei chō.
 
At the height of the Muromachi Bakufu, the shōgun held a conference examining important proposals, receiving opinions from a variety of councilors. Those councilors included the sankanrei (see earlier), the Yamana, Isshiki, Akamatsu, and the Awa. In the beginning, these families would wait upon the shōgun, taking up guest spots and holding special status which allowed their attendance at events. With the coming of the Era of the Warring States, these families would be consolidated into the Go shōban shū, a group the membership of which served as proof that one belonged to a powerful, influential clan. The Awa became as renowned as the sankanrei, Yamana, Isshiki, Akamatsu, Kyōgoku, Hatakeyama, and Ōuchi. In other words, the Awa on their own became a mainstay of the Bakufu, one rank below the Ukei chō.
 
The Hosokawa were proud of their strong familial ties. By the mid-fifteenth century, unlike the Hatakeyama that had split into the Masanaga and Yoshihiro factions and fought among themselves, the Hosokawa had emerged as the leaders of the Bakufu government.

From Amano Tadayuki, "The Miyoshi Clan - The first "Lords of the Realm" of the Warring States Era", Chūōkōron Publishing, Tokyo, 2021

The Miyoshi Family of Awa
 
From the 15th through to the 16th centuries, the Miyoshi became a prominent family, advancing from Awa province on Shikoku Island into the Kinai region, a region that at the time was known as ‘the realm’. ‘Realm’ is a multi-faceted term and can refer in particular to Kyoto, the Kinai region, and Japan in its entirety. During the Era of the Warring States (Sengoku Jidai) it was mostly used to refer to the Kinai.
 
‘Realm’ does not simply designate a region but includes a nuance of centralized political power, in the same way ‘capital’ and ‘central’ is used today. In the area around Kyoto following the Ōnin War (1467-1477), the Miyoshi family were extraordinarily active. Starting with  Miyoshi Yukinaga who led a tokusei ikki (a form of protest against the imposition of land taxes), it extended to Miyoshi Motonaga who recommended that Ashikaga Yoshitsuna (otherwise known as the Sakai Kubō) be elevated to the position of shōgun, to Miyoshi Nagayoshi, who refused to show deference to the Ashikaga shōgunate and came to rule over Kyoto itself, to Miyoshi Yoshitsugu who assassinated shōgun Ashikaga Yoshiteru, to Miyoshi Yasunaga, who adopted both an offspring of Oda Nobunaga and the nephew of Hashiba (Toyotomi) Hideyoshi, through to Miyoshi Isan and Miyoshi Fusakazu, both of whom loyally served Tokugawa Ieyasu.
 
Yet when compared to the families of the eastern provinces such as the Date, Hōjō, Uesugi, and Takeda, and those of the western provinces such as the Mōri, Chōsokabe, and Shimazu, nowadays the Miyoshi are virtually unknown. Why is this?
 
When we think about the Era of the Warring States, we recall that this was the age of the three great figures of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu, which also incorporated the Azuchi-Momoyama period. The Miyoshi, who were unrelated to these three great figures, prove poor material when it comes to providing stories for manga, novels, television dramas, historical plays, movies and tourist spots. Yet all versions of the standard high school issue B textbook of Japanese history bring up the Miyoshi. For someone to claim they don’t know who they are should be considered odd.    
 
According to the newly revised version of the “Japanese History B” textbook (published by Jikkyo publishing in 2019), “Hosokawa Harumoto, who successfully managed to subdue Kyoto, had his authority seized by Miyoshi Nagayoshi. Meanwhile the authority of the Miyoshi would in turn be taken over by their retainer Matsunaga Hisahide.” These details have not changed since 1989. Moreover in the ‘Comprehensive Japanese History – Revised Version” (printed by Yamakawa Publishing in 2019), it includes a footnote that states “the struggle over the authority of government centered around the Hosokawa continued unabated”, while in the margins it says “in reality authority shifted from the Hosokawa to Miyoshi Nagayoshi, and then transferred to Nagayoshi’s retainer Matsunaga Hisahide”.
 
In other words, the Miyoshi had no other role than as an example of how retainers such as Matsunaga Hisahide overthrew their social superiors (gekokujō).  
 
When we trace the origins of this line of thinking, we arrive at Ōta Ushikazu (Gyūichi)’s “Taikaou sama kunki no uchi” (A military record of the Taikō, i.e., Toyotomi Hideyoshi) and Raisan Yō’s “Nihon Gaishi” (A history of Japanese foreign relations).  The “military record of the Taikō”, written at the outset of the Edo period (1615-1868) was a compilation of anecdotes about warring state era generals centered around Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and featured embellishments and fabrications. It was to become the basis for narratives and ballads. “A history of Japanese foreign relations” was released in the latter Edo period, and while it is unclear whether it was based on any historical evidence, through stories and ballads its anecdotes grew in popularity and were eagerly absorbed. These in turn became renowned tales that were widely read by the population at large.
 
Most notably, Raisan Yō, who possessed Confucian values, defended the previously reviled Nobunaga by claiming that Nobunaga’s harsh measures were a necessity because of the civil strife of his era. Raisan was also responsible for the formation of a view of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu as heroic figures struggling against adversity. By and large these views have carried on through to today. For my part, I have never read a primary source that says that Matsunaga Hisahide usurped the Miyoshi.
 
Lecture notes belonging to one of the most prominent scholars of history during the Meiji and Taishō eras, Tanaka Yoshinari, who served as both head of the historical archives and a professor at Tokyo Imperial University, were compiled by his students following his death into the “Ashikaga Jidai Shi” (History of the Ashikaga Era, 1923) and the “Oda Jidai Shi” (History of the Oda Era, 1924). This was a time when historical studies were adopting evidence-based theories. While both works go into considerable detail on the divisions within the Hosokawa family, they note that Miyoshi Motonaga, the father of Miyoshi Nagayoshi, was responsible for the creation of a new political dynamic, but say nothing about either Nagayoshi or Hisahide themselves. Perhaps Tanaka, regarding these two as responsible for nothing more than chaos and decadence, saw no value in speaking about them.    
 
Rather, the “Nippon Kinsei Shi” (History of Early Modern Japan, Vol.1, 1916) which was authored by Nakamura Kōya while he was still studying as a postgraduate at Tokyo Imperial University, regarded Miyoshi Nagayoshi highly. For Nakamura, Nagayoshi was “without peer among the many heroic figures made flesh during the maelstrom of the sixteenth century”. In the Kinki region where he was most active, there existed “a school of thought advocating mature iconoclasm” and was a region suited to the “large scale recruitment of troops”. This ‘shining star’ lacked the forthright nature of figures such as Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Yet in terms of political skill he “should indeed be admired”. The fact that he placed his main residence not in Kyoto but at Sekkasen (Izumi province, modern Osaka) was ‘extraordinarily perceptive’.
 
His response to opponents such as Hosokawa Harumoto and Ashikaga Yoshiteru was praised for its “calm repose, thorough preparation, and abundant benevolence”.  Before the war, Nagayoshi “had an established reputation as a calm and composed general that loved poetry”. After the war, most historical study on the Kinki region in the warring states period focused on the Yamashiro kuni ikki (a form of uprising led by regional leaders) and the ikkō ikki (a religiously inspired uprising linked to the Jodō Shinshū faith), as well as the emergence of independent urban areas such as Sakai. Such trends as these had their foundation in the search for the origins of post-war democracy in Japan.
 
As a result of such studies, the picture of the Kinai following the Ōnin War was one where Oda Nobunaga abruptly entered the capital and thereafter embarked on conflict throughout the nation. The history of almost a century of central government that occupied the period in between the two above events was apparently cast aside. Moreover, as a result of movements opposed to the over-concentration of authority in Tokyo during Japan’s period of accelerated economic growth, regional leaders, namely famous warlords from various places throughout the nation, garnered a great amount of attention. Almost concurrent to this trend was another where those like the Miyoshi who were active within the central government faded from view.  
 
With the turn of a new century, studies into the Muromachi Bakufu and shōguns along with those of warlords of the Kinai region evolved, resulting in the publication of a continuous series of books on the subject. Conversely doubts began to be raised regarding both Nobunaga’s foresight and creativity. The image of Nobunaga that we hold today was greatly influenced by Ōta Gyūichi’s “Shinchō Kōki” (Public Records of Nobunaga), resulting in his portrayal as a heroic, albeit somewhat unusual public figure. (The emergence of new studies into the Muromachi period) thus made it possible to compare the era of the Oda with their warlord predecessors in the Kinai region.   
 
Ultimately, to the people of the Muromachi era, the idea of overthrowing the Muromachi Bakufu and uniting the nation was both extraordinary and lacking in common sense.  People today have the benefit of knowing the history of the Kamakura, Muromachi, and Tokugawa bakufunates and how all three were overthrown by force of arms. They then tend to believe that overthrowing the Bakufu was one of the options available at the time. However the overthrow of the Muromachi Bakufu was the first time in Japanese history that this idea became reality.  To directly confront the shōgun and then overthrow him was something that no Japanese had experienced up to this point.  
 
And while all this was going on, there is the added question of how the people at the time accepted a new form of central government in exchange for the old one? What presuppositions and environment led to its formation? In order to consider such questions, there is value in discussing how, over the course of a century in the Kinai region of central Japan otherwise known as ‘the realm’, the Miyoshi dealt with the Muromachi Bakufu and Ashikaga shōgun and then three governments each led by a different ‘heroic figure’ of the age. Let us begin, then, by examining the battles of the Miyoshi family.   

From Owada Tetsuo’s “Hideyoshi”, published by Chûko Shinsho 2007 (numbers after paragraphs refer to pages)
 
Chapter VII. Reproducing the Taikõ legend
 
The militarization of Japan and Hideyoshi
 
I have spent an inordinate amount of time within the pages of this book examining the issue of the invasion of the Korean peninsula, which itself is one issue among many of Hideyoshi’s.   However, at this particular juncture, were I attempting to evaluate Hideyoshi, it would be impossible for me to ignore the question of Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea.  Why? Because since the Meiji period, Hideyoshi has been praised and held up as a national hero, a legend in which the invasion of Korea is an indispensable part. However until the end of the Edo period, Hideyoshi’s popularity was of a completely different character. It was tied to an anti-Bakufu ethos shared among the common people - the so called “Taikõ effect”.  It was, in essence, a reproduction (or re-issue) of the Taikõ legend. (176)
 
During the Edo period, and as touched upon at the beginning of this book, a “pro” Hideyoshi ideology emerged in the form of dissent against the “deification of Lord (Tokugawa) Ieyasu”.  Given that the Bakufu form of government was by its very nature oppressive, anti-Bakufu and anti-Tokugawa ideology took the form of anachronistic depictions of the Hideyoshi era, or else a yearning to return to that era.  This was a result of the image of Hideyoshi portrayed in the “Ehon Taikõki” (The Illustrated Record of the Taikõ) and the “Shinsho Taikõki” (The New Record of the Taikõ).  Upon the arrival of the Meiji era, one further aspect was added to these pre-existing notions. (177)
 
This was the advance of Japan onto the continent. In other words, as militaristic strategy took on more concrete forms, suddenly a lot of focus was placed on Hideyoshi as a sort of ‘pioneer’ or ‘harbinger’.  I’ll give you one example of this.  An old elementary school song went as follows:
 
Over one hundred years ago, when the world was racked with turmoil,
the ‘ensign bearing gourds’ (i.e Hideyoshi) suddenly appeared,
and tamed the four winds and seas,
The trees and grass of over sixty provinces wave in the breeze,
Oh, Taikõ, Hõ Taikõ
 
With overwhelming strength, he invaded Chõsen,
on every street and road, he defeated all before him,
The nation’s light shone bright, and its glory was acclaimed,
Over four hundred provinces all shake as one,
Oh, Taikõ, Hõ Taikõ
 
The first verse sings of the unification of the nation, while the second of the invasion of the Chõsen peninsula.  While the unification of the nation occurred as depicted in the song, the invasion of the Chõsen peninsula is completely at odds with historical reality. Moreover, since it is at odds with reality, it seeks to justify the actions taken during Hideyoshi’s invasion. Hence the references to “the nation shining bright, and national glory” to herald the nation’s achievements.  
 
Another particular point to remember is that this song was composed with the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War – two wars involving invasions of the mainland – as a background.  The Japanese Empire had already embarked on a strategy of large-scale invasion of Korea and China, hence the “bright, shining example of the pioneer Hideyoshi” was introduced to heighten awareness of the nation’s glories. (178)
 
Another elementary song went as follows:
 
Although he rose wearing the clothes of the common man,
He stood above all others,
Who was he, into whose hand fell over sixty provinces?
 
The glories that remain are reflected in today’s world like a mirror,
Who was it, who made the nation’s glorious name known to all and sundry?
 
This song (and others like it) stirred emotions, and the effects of the education provided to children at the time was quite profound.  As seen by the lyrics of elementary school songs, the message that “the invasion of Chõsen by Hideyoshi was a magnificent act that spread the name of Japan far and wide, and is a mirror (for modern times)” became a deeply rooted ideology among the commonalty of Japan.  In truth, Imperial Japan embarked upon its invasion of Korea using Hideyoshi as a guide. (178-179)
 
The union of Japan and Korea and Hideyoshi’s invasion plan for Chõsen 
 
The Treaty of Ganghwa was concluded in the year following the Ganghwa Island Incident of the 8th year of Meiji (1875).  This treaty resulted in Japan opening up Chõsen (Korea), but it also exacerbated the stand-off with Qing China over the suzerainty of Chõsen.  The subsequent Imo (Jingo) Incident of the 15th year of Meiji (1882) and the Gapsin Incident (or coup) of 1884 eventually led Japan and Qing China to sign the Treaty of Tianjin (1885). However the lull created by the treaty did not last long, and in the 27th year of Meiji (1894) Japanese and Qing China troops clashed, which in turn lead to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. Victory in this conflict then expedited Japan’s advance into neighbouring countries. (179)
 
While the purpose of Japan’s war with Qing China was to bring the Chõsen peninsula under Japanese control, it was not as successful as initially planned. Furthermore, the Sino-Japanese War resulted in an increase in Russian influence over Korea.  In February 1904, Japan embarked a large-scale army to the Chõsen peninsula.  With this military force in place, Japan and Korea concluded and ratified the Japan-Korea Treaty. This meant that Korea essentially became a Japanese protectorate.  Following Japan’s victory over Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Potsdam Treaty was signed and Japan assumed overall control of Korea. (180) In the meantime, while Japan was fighting the Sino and Russo-Japanese wars and signing the Ganghwa and Korean treaties, a Kabuki play known as the “Taikõki” (or Record of the Taikõ) concurrently began to be performed, a point that has often escaped attention. 
 
In 1889 (Meiji 22), Kabuki theatres were opened with debut performances of the ‘Taikõki’.  From 1891, and on throughout the Sino and Russo-Japanese wars, the number of performances of this play underwent a dramatic increase (as detailed within Shin Gisu’s ‘The 300th Anniversary Festival of Hideyoshi at Mimizuka’, Kabuki “Taikõki” and “Hideyoshi’s Invasion and Osaka Castle”).  Incidentally, when examining the yearly debut performances of ‘Taikõki tales’, in 1882 the Ichimura-za (or theatre) performed the “Hariõgi Chõsen Gunki” (The Folding Fan Military Tales of Chõsen) (written by Kawatake Mokuami). In 1885, the same Ichimura-za performed the “Tane-hisago Shinsho Taikõki” (The Seed Gourd True Tales of the Taikõki) (written by Kawatake Shinshichi the Third). Moreover in 1886, the same Ichimura-za performed the “Hanamidoki Hisago Taikõki” (The Flower-Viewing Gourd Taikõki) (also by Shinshichi the Third).  (179-180)
 
As seen by the title of the “Hariõgi Chõsen Gunki”, this play was mainly about Hideyoshi’s invasion of the Chõsen peninsula.  The year of its debut performance, 1882, coincided with the Imo (Jingo) Incident, hence the eyes and ears of the populace had already turned towards Chõsen.  As becomes clear given the popularity at the time of the “Taikõki Gunki Chõsen Kan” (The Taikõki War Tales – Chõsen Version) penned by Fukuchi Õchi, the advance of Japan on the continent was accepted by the people as synonymous with Hideyoshi’s invasion of the Chõsen peninsula.  As Professor Shin pointed out, the only conclusion one can draw from this is that Kabuki and other forms of dramatic entertainment made a large contribution to the rise of the anti-Chõsen campaign and invasion ideology.   (181)
 
Following the Russo-Japanese war, Japan’s control over Korea was absolute. In 1905, the second Japan-Korea Co-operation Treaty was signed, which resulted in the transferral of Korea’s diplomatic rights to Japan, the installation of the post of governor in Gyeongseong (Seoul) along with the creation of a domestic administration. Itõ Hirofumi served as the first governor of Korea. Of course, this led to outbreaks of resistance within Korea, however these were suppressed and the course of transforming Korea into a protectorate continued. Finally, in 1910, the union of Japan and Korea was complete. The name of the nation was changed from Korea to Chõsen, and the Chõsen Governor’s Office was installed. The governor, as chief officer, was also the commander of all land and sea forces in Chõsen, and so held absolute power over the constitution, the judiciary, and the administration.  (181)
 
On the 29th of August, following the conclusion of the “Japan-Korea Treaty for Union with Korea”, that evening the first Chõsen governor, Terauchi Masakata, while looking at the moon through his window, wrote somewhat poetically:
 
“If Kobayakawa, Katõ, and Konishi were still of this world, how many times will they have looked upon this moon?” (*Note that all three were generals that took part in Hideyoshi’s invasion of Chõsen)
 
Terauchi Masakata, along with the government officials and military officers at the time, all shared the belief that through the Union of Korea and Japan, they had finally brought Hideyoshi’s dream to fruition. (182)
 
The Invasion of Chõsen and the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere”
 
(From the Meiji era onwards) the basic direction of justifying invasion and the glorification of Hideyoshi underwent no substantial modification.  Indeed, as Japan travelled along the road towards militarism, the role of Hideyoshi as a “shining example” was given even greater emphasis than that found during the Sino and Russo-Japanese wars and the Union with Korea.  During the course of Japan’s military invasions of the Chinese continent and into Southeast Asia, once again Hideyoshi made an appearance (in the public consciousness).  The trigger for the 15-year conflict between Japan and China, the so-called Mukden Incident, also coincided with the completion of the iron and concrete recreation of Osaka Castle. (190-191) The completion of the castle and its dedication ceremony took place on the 7th of November in the 6th year of Shõwa (1931).  
 
The Liu Tiao Gou Incident took place on the 18th of September of the same year as the dedication of the castle, and one cannot say that these two events were unrelated.  More definitive than this was the talk of “Hideyoshi’s dream” that emerged around the time of the outbreak of the Pacific War and Japan’s advance into Southeast Asia.  The editorials of the newspapers at the time certainly adopted this view, as can be seen in the headlines and articles written in January of 1942 concerning the Fall of Manila. (191)
 
The “Mainichi Shimbun” for the 8th of January wrote “The dream that the brilliant Hõ Taikõ held 350 years ago, that the light of the “origin of the sun” (Hi no moto, i.e Nippon) would shine from the administered continent all the way to Luzon Island in the south, is inexorably bound to the Fall of Manila”.  The “Asahi Shimbun”, for the same day, touched upon the “Festival honouring the Hõ Taikõ on the occasion of the Fall of Manila” when it reported “What comes to mind following the Fall of Manila and the continuing reports of victory by Imperial forces over the entire Philippines is the letter sent by the National Hero, the Hõ Taikõ, welcoming trade with the Philippine Islands as one part of his overall plan for a united East Asia. This is an historical fact. So this year, given it marks the 350th anniversary of this event, the commercial district of Osaka will hold the “Festival Honouring the Hõ Taikõ” and its “Congratulatory Parade” on the 9th to mark the Fall of Manila and celebrate both the spirit of the Taikõ and the realisation of his ambition”. (191)
 
As Kashiwai Hiroyuki pointed out, celebrations held on the 350th anniversary were obviously military celebrations, major events to both deify Hideyoshi as a “war god” during the “Great East Asia War” and glamorize the invasion of Manila (see Kashiwai Hiroyuki “the Mukden Incident and the Reconstruction of Osaka Castle Keep”, “the Fall of Manila” and celebrations of the 350th Anniversary of Hideyoshi’s Correspondence”, and “Hideyoshi’s Invasion and Osaka Castle”).  Hideyoshi was thus co-opted as one part of the broader “Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere” campaign. (192)
 
For example, the historian Uozumi Sõgorõ stated “The grand concept of administering Greater East Asia held by the peerless hero Hõ Taikõ, stretching back 350 years, has today been realised at the hands of the Imperial Army, and so the designs of that great man have been revealed in all their dazzling colour” (from “Consideration of the ambitions of the Hõ Taikõ”  1st Volume, Published April, 1942).  Thereafter this form of thinking became the norm and was a shared awareness, as seen in the following example: “Today, at this stage in the epochal development of the Japanese people, I wish to examine the ambitions of the Hõ Taikõ - ambitions that should be described as precursors.  Just as the Great East Asia War of today could be expressed in many ways as the ultimate realisation of the Japanese spirit, the active implementation of strategy during those times and their spirit of leadership is something that we share in common.” (Uemura Heihachi’rõ, ‘The ambitions of Hõ Taikõ and Nagoya Castle’, 1943, foreward). (192)
 
Nakano Seigõ, who advocated Pan-Asianism, founded the Tõhõkai and was an ultra-right wing politician, is a famous example of this form of thinking, given that he co-operated in the transformation of the political system into fascism and from 1940 onwards served as the chairman of the Dai-Seiyoku Sankai.  Within the Shintõ-Juku, a cram school for the youth wing of the Tõhõkai that Nakano himself led, Hideyoshi was taught to students using the textbook “Taikõ Hideyoshi” (1943, published by the Tõhõdõshikai).  It is worth examining this particular book to show how those advocating wars of invasion regarded Hideyoshi. (192)
 
The reason that Nakano gave for raising the example of Hideyoshi was “As you know, Hideyoshi was a brilliant general who spread the glorious name of Japan far and wide, as well as serving as a politician”.  Furthermore, “His attitude of unconcern for material things and magnificent bearing personified the simple, honest Japanese.  His heart was always fair and upright, and his bearing towards all matters was not confected but emitted a brilliant natural light, illuminating all and setting the world to right.  The mirror of his soul was perfectly clear.  In his role as an educator to the nation, he did not become mired in theory, but was a naturally disposed Japanese hero.  The Goddess Amaterasu truly favoured this most genuine of her descendants”.  In short, Hideyoshi was the model for what it meant to be “Japanese”, and was very much a Japanese-style of hero. 
 
Nakano regarded Hideyoshi’s invasion of Chõsen as the “first step in the creation of a Greater East Asia” and took Hideyoshi’s war record as a basis for lessons. For example, “While Japan, Germany and Italy are winning and the bonds between each are strong, we must ensure that no gaps emerge between us lest it lead to the start of a British-American “peace conspiracy”.  If this happens, the sickness of pro-US and British ideology will emerge once again. We will all be sucked in by their wily schemes, and debate within the nation will fracture.  If just one crack were to appear in the axle that binds us, the US and Britain will appear to skilfully break us all apart. Japan is honour bound to its allies, and in order to achieve our shared goals must act in an honest and forthright manner.  Being led astray by immediate selfish, minor interests, immersed in calculations, and misinterpreting the general state of affairs will lead to a swift downfall.  Japan must be convincing in its mission to raise up Greater East Asia in the world.  Those who become too engrossed in their own little schemes will in turn be ensnared by other schemes”.  To Nakano, Hideyoshi was a mirror for what was happening now.  (193-194)
 
In an age where the flames of war spread from the Chinese continent to Southeast Asia, one could say that Hideyoshi was man built for such an era. I vividly recall the words written by the novelist Tanaka Sumie, who pointed out the following: “Hideyoshi’s motivation for sending troops to Chõsen, the implementation of his plans, the end result of all of this activity, the waste, the great loss of human life, very closely resembles the ‘holy war’ ideology that possessed Japan during the Great East Asian War” (from ‘Why was the Kanpaku Hidetsugu murdered?’ in “Rekishi Dokuhon” published November 1983). (194)

Fujiki Hisashi, “The commoner’s battlefield: raising troops and capturing slaves during the medieval period”, Asahi Shimbun, Reprint 15 March 2007
 
(My reasons for choosing this particular book for translation are fairly straightforward. The subject matter expressed by Professor Fujiki is extremely interesting, given that it dealt with the lot of common soldiers (who were by and large peasants drafted into serving their local lord, with some exceptions) and the reality of living in a world where the threat of violence was never far away.  Another fascinating point is that it examines the practice of capturing and selling slaves, something that was highly prevalent during the era of the warring states in Japan but is not a subject examined in most popular media that depicts that period in Japan’s history.  Presumably the idea of Japanese selling other Japanese into slavery is abhorrent to modern Japanese sensibilities, yet the practice was common, and really only petered out once the country began to be subject to more stable, centralised rule from the early seventeenth century onwards.  
 
It’s this phenomena that Professor Fujiki illustrates in detail, in a manner accessible to most Japanese readers (itself a welcome development in a field that tends to be dominated by archaic discussions about the certain use of words in historical documents.  Of great interest to the academic, but of little to no consequence to the general reader).  By undertaking this translation, I hope that I might too be able to bring a bit more of this period of Japan’s history to the attention of a broader audience, and spark some curiosity among those for whom the era of the warring states (Sengoku Jidai) remains a mystery). (Note: the numbers at the end of paragraphs refer to pages of the original text). 
 
Prologue
 
“Plunder, before armies were nationalised, lay at the very heart of the formation of an army and its existence, with merchants serving as intermediaries”, Yamauchi Susumu, “A History of the Legal Concept of Plunder”
 
Fighting in order to eat
 
“We wage war in order to seize the wealth of the land, towns, and villages.  The campaigns that take place in Japan are mostly concerned with seizing wheat, rice and barley.”
 
This comparison of causus belliwas made by the Portuguese missionary Luis Frois (1532 – 1597), who bore witness to many battles that took place in Japan towards the end of the era of the warring states.  For Frois, the wars that took place in Europe during the Middle Ages occurred in order to expand territory, whereas in Japan they occurred in order that people might eat. (2) 
 
“War to expand territory” or “war in order to eat” – a comparison of both of these phenomena is undoubtedly fascinating, but it also presents problems. (3) At the same time that Frois was making these comments, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was calling for a halt to all private conflict throughout the island of Kyushu, using phrases such as “territorial border disputes between provincial rulers are to cease” and “I personally shall be the judge of any disagreements over the division of territory in Kyushu”.  In other words, Hideyoshi, who himself had stood at the centre of conflict during the era of the warring states, was a product of both the Japanese way of war and of the seizure of territory. (4)
 
However what I would like to pay particular attention to is the fact that from his arrival at Yokosenoura bay in Nagasaki in the seventh month of the sixth year of Eiroku (1563) until his death at Nagasaki in the fifth month of Keicho 2 (1597), Luis Frois spent over 30 years living both in Kyushu and in the Kinai area of Japan. His record of that time was written right in the middle of the era of the warring states, as a so-called “true depiction of war”.  The escalation in conflict that he witnessed was, to his mind, undoubtedly “war in order to eat” or “war in order to live”.  Hence I have taken this to mean that for Frois, “war in order to eat” and “war in order to live” involved a fight to the death. (4)
 
Frois said the following in relation to “war in order to eat” that he saw on a daily basis throughout Kyushu;
 
“The people captured in Bungo(province) by the army of Satsuma(Shimazu) were then taken to the province of Higo and sold off.  In that year, the residents of Higo suffered a terrible famine and much hardship, and so fell into a state where they were unable to fend for themselves. Since there was no way they would be able to care for the captives(from Bungo), they took them to ‘Takaku’(Takaki, located on the Shimabara peninsula) where the captives were sold off, much like they were selling off a family heirloom.” (4)
 
Frois then continued. The fate of those taken by the Shimazu army was that they either ended up as prisoners of war, died from the effects of war and illness, or wasted away from starvation. Both sides engaged in killing and plundering one another.  Those who had been taken as prisoners of war by the Shimazu army “after being taken back to Satsuma and Higo, led around to various markets like a herd of sheep, where they were sold.  Many of those taken were sold off for cheap prices of one or two “toston” (or bun, a small amount of money)”.  (5)
 
All 12 volumes of Frois’ “History of Japan” are replete with continuous conflict and the buying and selling of both people and goods seized through violence, all set against a backdrop of unremitting starvation. (5)  Frois’ opinion of war was very much founded on the raw experience and observations that he made of the battlefield, particularly those in Kyushu. (5)
 
This “true depiction of war” lay at the bottom of many of the more familiar, more colourful studies of warring state era armies and tales of battle. It speaks of the reality of fighting for the many foot soldiers (or ‘militia’) who faced starvation, and so fought either in order to live or in order to be able to eat. It also reverses many of the conceptions that we might have about warfare of that period.  Hence it is my intention here to overturn the depiction of war in the Sengoku era from one of “battles between heroes” to that of “battles between commoners”, and so depict the society of the era of the warring states from the ground up.  (5)
 
‘Militia/foot soldiers’ usually refers to “lowly ranked soldiers”.  The armies of warlords of the era of the warring states might have had one hundred soldiers in them, however only 10 or so of those soldiers might be mounted on horses.  The other 90 would be placed into one of three different categories. 1) Officially sanctioned warriors, who went by the name of kasemonoor wakatoor ashigaru– samurai, in other words, who fought together with their lord. 2) Those of lower rank, known as either chugenor komonoor arashiko, who acted as aides to their lord on the battlefield, handling horses or carrying their lord’s spear – in other words, genin(trans.note = literally “lower people”). 3) Those known as either buor bumaru, “peasants” in other words, who had been drafted in from villages to serve as porters, transporting goods etc.  (5)
 
Those wakatoand ashigaruincluded under item 1) were the main military force permitted to engage in fighting on the battlefield. Those included under item 2) and 3) were ostensibly excused from participating in the fighting because of their rank (or kenzen, the gap between samurai and those of lower ranks). However in the heat of battle, such distinctions were often ignored.  It is my intention to shed some light on these soldiers, which I refer to as zohyobut were otherwise known as wakatoor komonoor fujin, along with many other merchants, bandits, and pirates whose characteristics are unknown but who also appeared on the battlefield. (6)
 
It is particularly challenging to tell the story of the most commonly known battles from a different point of view to the ‘heroes’ of such tales, however my main purpose in writing “the commoner’s battlefield” is as follows;
 
I. A world in chaos
 
The annual records that Luis Frois wrote as part of his public duties for the Society of Jesus have proven useful to the study of Japan’s history, yet Frois himself was described by one of his superiors as “prone to boastfulness and idle gossip”.  This then beggars the question whether or not the “true depiction of war” that Frois wrote was based on fact?
 
First, let us take a look at the battlefields of the era of the warring states, to those conflicts that lasted over a century, starting with the battlefields of Kyushu that Frois himself witnessed. What actually took place in a “war in order to eat”? We must try to venture into the cruel centre of conflict to determine what is otherwise commonly referred to as “a world beset by chaos”. (6)
 
At the end of the Middle Ages period, following the peace imposed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (and unification of the nation), the battlefields of Japan fell silent. Thereafter an army numbering some one hundred and fifty thousand arrived in force on the battlefields of the Korean peninsula. When examining “war in order to eat”, one must not ignore this state of affairs either.
 
When these invasion battlefields too finally fell silent, the final battles to determine the ruler of Japan were contested at Sekigahara and Osaka.  So what actually happened during such conflict? (6,7)
 
II. The common soldier
 
The commoners that served as soldiers on these battlefields played the main role in this “world of chaos”. So from where did they come?  The world of the era of the warring states was beset by poor harvests and famine.  For the commoner, try as he might to plow his fields yet still face starvation, the only option was to join a group of militia and head off to the battlefield. Once there, he might seize a little food, or property, or even a man or woman. With this meagre asset in hand, he might be able to survive the winter.   For common soldiers, the battlefield in the period between winter and the following summer, in which starvation was rampant, was the only miserable available means of support. (7)
 
Those left behind in the villages, say two or three other youths who couldn’t find enough to eat, would be joined by vagabonds, bandits, buccaneers and merchants. The chaos that battle spread – or rather the violence and plunder that accompanied it - appears to have occurred as a consequence of “war in order to eat”. (7)
 
III. The village battlefield – the village as a castle
 
On the other hand, in the wars that were part of the “world of chaos”, both villages and towns found conflict an important test of the extent to which they were willing to defend their property. The more traditional symbols of power in the regions, the castles of a lord or landowner, became evacuation centres for the people at some time in their history. Yet for villages located far from a castle, a mountain that they knew nearby might contain huts or a mountain castle that could serve as their own evacuation centre.   Villages located on the border between provinces would pay tribute to both sides and maintain their neutrality, or else they would pay a large amount of gold to the invading army and thus guarantee their safety.  Villagers would also arm themselves, and if they found anyone from a defeated army trying to retreat, they would descend from the village and attack them to steal their remaining goods. (7)
 
In order to protect themselves from the fires of war, both towns and villages adopted a number of self-defence measures during the era of the warring states.  
 
IV. From the battlefields to the cities – the wanderings of common soldiers
 
People of the era of the warring states announced their resolution to forego the world of chaos through their acceptance of “Hideyoshi’s peace”, which brought an end to conflict throughout the land.  For common soldiers, who made their living off of the spoils of battle and who without it would face starvation, they could either head overseas to participate in the invasion of the Korean peninsula or they could make their way to large scale castle construction projects or numerous “gold rushes”. These ‘projects’ provided new avenues of revenue for common soldiers, and they flocked to join them. The spirit of the age of “Hideyoshi’s peace” can be seen in the impetus to shift from the battlefield (the medieval world) to the city (the early modern world). (8) These large scale public projects, they be battles, or castles, or gold mines, acted as a kind of “survival system” amidst the continuous bad harvests and famines of the age. (8)
 
 
 
Epilogue
 
For those people taken as prisoners and sold over and over again, and for common soldiers who lost their means of livelihood, where did they eventually end up? Frois does not address this in his writing, yet evidence exists of many powerful ships from around the world, starting with the Portuguese and Japanese pirates operating in league with them, loading up many prisoners of war and common soldiers at many ports throughout Kyushu and taking them to battlefields in Southeast Asia. It is in investigating this phenomenon that I wish to conclude my study into the “commoner’s battlefield”. 
 
What drew me to such a title as “the commoner’s battlefield” was my discovery of the hugely influential work by Yamauchi Susumu, titled “A history of the laws and attitudes towards plunder and abduction”.  In Europe of the Middle Ages, the abduction of people from the battlefield, set against a stubborn continuation of famines, was closely entwined to the creation of an army as far as common soldiers and merchants were concerned. Another lesson came from Hiraki Shosuke (an expert on German medieval history).  The Frankish peasantry found that since their level of production was nowhere near adequate to feed themselves and they were not really suited to merely be farmers. So they became warriors in order to eat, and headed for the battlefield to seek fame and glory.  For them, war became a basis for everyday life, an important supplement in their calculations and an economic act of convenience. (8-9) 
 
Yet the agrarian revolution of the middle ages dramatically increased the levels of production among the peasantry, and thus it became possible for peasants to produce enough for themselves to eat. They became ‘professional’ agrarian workers, no longer reliant on fighting for a livelihood, which brought about a clear distinction between themselves and professional soldiers.  It’s this aspect to “the commoner’s battlefield” in particular that caught my eye. (9) 
 
This “reverse” explanation of the division of soldiers and peasants by Hiraki came as a shock to me. Until I read this, I had always looked at the issue of when warriors of the era of the warring states chose to become warriors from the point of view of “the creation of a professional warrior class”.  However Professor Hiraki’s thesis asked when peasants chose to remain peasants (without relying on warfare), thus looking at things from the point of view of the creation of a “professional agrarian class”.  It was the complete opposite of commonly held views on the division of peasant and warrior. (9) 
 
The works of early modern Japanese historian Takagi Shosaku also highlighted the fact that the plunder and abduction of people and goods on the battlefield were regarded as legitimate activities, with the main perpetrators of these acts being “samurai, chugen, komono, or arashiko”; in other words the common soldier. (9-10)   Using words that associated ‘samurai’ with soldiers of lower social rank indicated that they were not regarded as warriors, and that fact itself expanded my views on what constituted a common soldier. (10) I also learned a lot from the works of Asao Naohiro and his explanation of the late sixteenth century as the “high point of the social climbers”. (10)
 
A longstanding scholar of folk history and pursuer of studies into the traditions of plunder, Chiba Tokuji, also revealed the ‘origins of conflict’ lay in fighting between people and beasts, and thus revealed the true nature of warfare in Japan from the depths of folk belief.  This also influenced my thinking on warfare in a range of different ways. (10)
 
I should add that a majority of Japanese scholars of the era of the warring states (myself included) are well aware of the cruelties that war creates.  Recent studies by Kobayashi Seiji, which has raised many questions among scholars of the field, have admirably broken new ground on this front and I myself have been influenced by them. However, a good many scholars up until now (again, myself included), when reading of the plunder of people and goods from the battlefield, are influenced by (modern) practices of taking prisoners of war and accounting for them, and thus ascribe to the plunder of women and children and the seizure of goods the moniker of ‘crimes’. We also refer to the seizure of crops and burning of villages in the era of warring states as “harvesting” and “burning”, thus attempting to downplay the tactics adopted by warlords at the time. We only pay attention to acts meant to preserve the security of villages without examining what it was like for villages caught up in the cruelties of war.  While we might debate human trafficking, we see no problem in the taking of slaves from the battlefield. (10)
 
There are many records stating that the people were always the victims of war. Yet such works suffer from a lack of urgency compared to actual specific examples from history. They regard the people as little more than poor unfortunates. I myself am guilty of making this mistake, and I deeply regret it. (10) 
 
Until the beginning of the 21stcentury, for almost half a century Japan has known peace and has had ample food supplies.  While we are currently bathed in such joyful hues, we forget about the starvation and war that has affected many others abroad, and regard the so-called “era of war and famine” that was Japan during the Middle Ages as a period without rhyme nor reason nor any semblance of peace. As a result, when we come to read works about the war and famine in Japan in the Middle Ages, we have virtually no frame of reference from which to draw.  My thoughts on this have become even stronger since witnessing the changes in the environment going on around us. (10-11)
 
About twenty years ago I wrote a thesis which questioned the meaning of the large scale social changes that occurred at the end of the sixteenth century, otherwise known as the “unification of the nation (or the transition from war to peace)”, and that “Hideyoshi’s peace” contained within it a meaning of escaping from the cruelties of a society forced to defend and protect itself. Yet despite attempting to focus on aspects of society of the era of the warring states, I realize that I wasn’t able to shed light on anything about either the cruelties of a society at war or the realization of a life of peace. (11)
 
So gradually I began to examine things from the point of view of the common soldier rather than the “hero”, and was able to slowly enjoy immersing myself in the “social history of war and peace”.  The results of all of this detective work are contained in this work that I have titled “The commoner’s battlefield”. (11)    
 
I     A world in chaos
I.  The battlefields of the era of the warring states
 
The Shimazu army captures prisoners on the battlefield
 
First, let’s begin by paying a visit to the battlefields of Kyushu that Frois would have seen and which he described in his “History of Japan”.  Are we in fact certain that his descriptions of “war in order to eat” and “war aimed at plunder” were correct? What can we find to back up such assertions? (14-15)
 
One of the leading players on the battlefields of Kyushu at the end of the sixteenth century was the Shimazu clan of Satsuma.  The army of the Shimazu had made its way relentlessly northward, so much so that by Tensho 14 (1586) one could call the Shimazu the “absolute rulers of five provinces” of Kyushu. They continued to press the Otomo clan, the sole remaining ruler of Bungo province, and had almost completed their conquest of the entire island. As part of the central cog in this army, Shimazu retainer Uwai Kakuken had led troops north and very soon entered the province of Higo. Taking in the scenery around him, Uwai noted down what he witnessed in his diary. (15)
 
According to the diary’s editor, Uwai wrote that “The wounded returned (to Satsuma), along with the women and children captured along the way, so much so that they clogged up the roads.” Hence the roads leading back to Satsuma were filled with wounded soldiers belonging to the Shimazu army, along with some tens or so women and children captured as spoils of war.  The line of people that Kakuken saw were a group belonging to the Otomo and taken as plunder on the battlefields in the north, and were being led back to captivity in Shimazu held territory in the south.  This description perfectly backs up what Frois wrote in his own record. (16)
 
Moreover, four years earlier, at the end of Tensho 10 (1582), when moving to aid the Arima clan, Kakuken wrote a report on the siege of the castle of Chijiwa held by the Ryuzoji clan, where he noted that “two or three hundred of the enemy had been captured”, “countless people were captured”, and “there was an excess of captured people”. (16)
 
Frois wrote the same thing about the activities of the Shimazu clan at that time.  According to Frois’ record “They killed a large number of enemy soldiers, or took them prisoner. They devastated that land and plundered it.  However the commanders and soldiers who observed matters from their mountain camp strongly desired to take their spoils and return home. Unable to wait an extra day to complete their destruction of the enemy, they abandoned the castle of Saiga (that had been captured) and withdrew without meeting their objective.” (16)
 
There are no contradictions between Frois’ and Kakuken’s records.  Amid the soldiers of the Shimazu army, there were some who had no interest in meeting that day’s objective (of capturing Chijiwa castle) and wanted “return home as early as possible with their spoils” and that there were “commanders and soldiers” whose only interest was plunder, which means that the army clearly included organised groups of plunderers.  The line of people that Kakuken had met on the road were most certainly taken by those same plunderers. (16)
​
The reports, diaries, and military tales of the Shimazu are replete with many examples of the Shimazu army capturing people or livestock or else devastating crops.  I’ll quote here from three diaries whose records only describe the capture of people.
 
(The diary of Hongo Tadasuke)
 
(1st Month of Tenbun 15 – 1546). 50 or more people killed, and countless men, women, cattle and horses taken.
(4th Month of Tenbun 18 – 1549) 236 heads taken, and many captured. 
 
(The diary of the Yamamoto of Gamou)
 
(8th Month of the 1st year of Kouji – 1551) Three enemy killed, and one other captured.
(10th Month of the 1st year of Kouji) Two enemy killed, in addition to 15 or 16 children and one adult being captured.
(3rd Month of Kouji 2 – 1552) 7 ashigaru went out and captured around 4 commoners.
(2nd Month of Kouji 3 – 1553) Chased after 10 or so enemy, and after a while captured 3 of them.
(3rd Month of Kouji 3) Took one adult captive at the base of Kitamura. (17)
 
(Diary of Hongo Tokihisa)
 
(5th Month of the 8th year of Eiroku – 1565) 28 killed, 40 captured, 700 items seized.
(4th Month of the 9th year of Eiroku) Fighting between boats, the Ito group killed 29, took 9 alive, over 63 killed in total, 5 boats seized.
(5th Month of the 12th year of Eiroku) 107 heads taken, of which only 1 taken alive, 5 generals killed, for a total of 170 killed.
(Same month) Departed Shonai, 3 people abducted.
(4th Month of the 3rd year of Genki – 1572) Villages were destroyed, and many horses and people were taken.
(9th Month of the same year) A castle was captured, 3 of the Ijichi family were killed, along with over 70 others, countless numbers of people seized.
(1st Month of the 2nd year of Tensho – 1574) 60 killed, and over 400 taken by skilled retainers.
 
Amid these records of the military exploits of the Shimazu army, one thing that particular stands out are the numerous references to “taking people” or “capturing people alive”. As seen from the examples of “3 enemies killed, and 1 taken alive”, taking prisoners on the battlefield (as opposed to killing them) appears to refer to the capture of enemy soldiers. However the plunder of countless numbers of men and women, as evidenced by the references to “countless numbers of men, women, cattle and horses were taken” and “over 400 people taken (by skilled retainers)”, in addition to those records stating “1 child taken” and “3 people abducted” makes it unlikely that they were taken as prisoners of war. When we see records that state “the lower classes took one captive” and “7 ashigaru went out and captured around 4 commoners”, this indicates that the main perpetrators of taking prisoners on the battlefield, as well as those who fell victim to such practices, were lower order soldiers or their affiliates.(18)

The battlefields of southern Higo province 
 
Even in the territory of a minor daimyo like the Sagara clan in southern Higo, the taking of people went unabated.  The annual record of the Sagara, known as the “Yatsushiro Diary”, speaks of this.  
 
(3rdmonth of the 9thyear of Tenbun – 1540) Over a thousand of the enemy killed, and up to 2000 taken prisoner.
(10thmonth of the 16thyear of Tenbun) A soldier by the name of Yo Shichihyoe carried out a night attack and took one enemy captive. 3 days later he captured two retainers from Izumi. (19)
 
(10th month of the 19th year of Tenbun) Broke through defences, killed 4, captured 11 alive, and took numerous cows and horses.
(9th month of the 2nd year of Kouji – 1556) Broke through the defence of Takado Daido, killed 6, took 20 captive.
(11th month of the 2nd year of Kouji) 5 killed, 53 taken captive, cattle and horses taken.
(11th month of the 3rd year of Kouji) From Inekari to Fusekusa, 2 killed, 2 captured.
(3rd month of the 2nd year of Eiroku – 1559) In sumover 20 men and women killed, and 38 or so captured. 
(9th month of the 2nd year of Eiroku) At Fusekusa, headed down to the sands near the sea, 3 killed, 8 taken captive. 
(Lunar 3rd month of the 4th year of Eiroku) A night attack carried out from Ikeura and Sashiki, 1 killed, 2 captured. 
(12th month of the 7th year of Eiroku) Some underlings, while out gathering firewood, took 7 persons captive. (19)

History, as an old axiom goes, it written by the victors. Through either good fortune, careful planning, meticulous execution (in all meanings of that word) or some other advantage, certain persons are destined to be remembered for their merits while others stand condemned for their sins. Yet the wheel of history sometimes turns in favour of the ‘wicked’, and on occasion reputations can be raised up from the mire of infamy and cast into the light of redemption. Japanese history is no exception to this trend, and recent scholarship has brought about a reinterpretation of the motives and methods used by certain historical individuals in pursuit of their interests. This blog has explored one of those figures, Akechi Mitsuhide, whose name was synonymous with ‘traitor’ for having rebelled against and ultimately caused the death of Oda Nobunaga (who himself might be regarded as a historical ‘villain’), yet many others come to mind – from Fujiwara no Kaneie, to Taira no Masakado, Taira no Kiyomori, Nichiren, Hōjō Masako, Hōjō Takatoki, Kō no Moronao, Ashikaga Takauji, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, Ashikaga Yoshimasa (noticing a trend here?), Hino Tomiko, Saito Dōsan, Kennyo, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the list goes on.

The figures outlined above are notable for the fact that in some way or another they fought against and on occasion prevailed against the perceived wisdom and authority of their day, whether it be the Imperial court, other warrior houses, influential religions, or social mores. In insisting on their rights and views, they collided with other prominent historical figures of their day, and their misfortune was to be on the losing side when the historical record came to be written (or lost).
Take, for example, the case of Hino Tomiko.  Here was a woman born into an aristocratic family tied to the Ashikaga shōgunate, who was married to the 8th Ashikaga Shōgun Yoshimasa at the age of 16. In the early 1460s Tomiko gave birth to a number of girls, but was unable to have any sons. This state of affairs was obviously a concern for the continuation of the Ashikaga household, so much so that Yoshimasa’s brother, originally known by his Buddhist name Gijin (as he had taken the tonsure and retired from public life), was brought back from the monastery, given the name Ashikaga Yoshimi, and was expected to succeed Yoshimasa in the position of shōgun.

However fate can sometimes conspire to play cruel tricks on mere mortals. In 1465 Tomiko gave birth to a son, Yoshihisa, which set off a series of events that would eventually lead to the Ōnin War. You see, Yoshimi had a powerful supporter in the form of Hosokawa Katsumoto, who believed that Yoshimi’s claim to the position of shōgun superseded that of Yoshihisa and so Yoshimi should become the 9th Ashikaga shōgun and was prepared to back him in that claim.

Tomiko had other ideas, however. Having tried for years to have a son, and with one finally available, Tomiko declared that Yoshihisa, as the son of Yoshimasa, had more claim to the shōgunate than Yoshimi. In order to support her claim, she appealed to Hosokawa rival Yamana Sōzen as well as her own Hino aristocratic family. This led to a direct standoff between the Hosokawa and Yamana clans, which in turn branched out to affect relations between other warrior and aristocratic families not only in the capital but also in the provinces, leading in turn to an outbreak of violence between supporters of the Hosokawa and Yamana in Kyoto in 1465.   

This conflict, known as the Ōnin War, would last for approximately 11 years, during which much of Kyoto burnt to the ground, Katsumoto and Sōzen both died, and the power of the central aristocratic and military families waned as regional warlords rose to take their place. Tomiko would survive all of this, and would see Yoshihisa succeed as the 9th shōgun, albeit to a much weakened government and an unstable realm.  Nonetheless, in her capacity as the wife of one shōgun and the mother to another, for which she was normally referred to as the ‘Midai-dokoro’ (御台所), she wielded considerable power for a woman in an age when women were not expected to play a prominent role in political and societal affairs (it certainly helped that she may, or may not, have also been secretly corresponding with Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado and carrying on a relationship with him, thus increasing her authority among the organs of state in the capital).

This in part explains why Tomiko’s reputation underwent such a hammering by later generations of historical scholars. Other causes are related to the fact that in the aftermath of the Ōnin War, Tomiko, as the real source of authority, ordered the installation of toll gates at the seven entrances to Kyoto in order to collect funds for the rebuilding of the Imperial palace – the ‘Dairi’ (内裏) – as well as to celebrate the end of hostilities and the return of peace to the capital. It does appear, however, that the collection of tolls was used to increase Tomiko’s personal fortune, a situation that created resentment and resulted in 1480 in the outbreak of a tokusei ikki (a form of protest which demanded the forgiving of debts and other financial burdens) during which the toll gates were destroyed. Not to be thwarted, Tomiko ordered the toll gates to be re-established at the city entrances, thereby making her a target of anger from not only commoners but also members of the aristocracy.
For a state still recovering from the effects of war and famine, and given the precarious state of the Ashikaga shōgunate at this period in time, it does seem foolish of Tomiko to have provoked popular anger by imposing financial hardship on the residents of the capital (Tomiko was also linked to the decision by Yoshimasa to embark on the construction of the ‘Hana no Gosho’ (Ginkakuji) during the great famine of Chōroku-Kanshō from 1459 to 1461, a move for which Yoshimasa was harshly criticized and admonished by Emperor Go-Hanazono).   On the other hand, the Imperial palace was restored, although it would be another 30 years before any festivals were held in the capital.

It does seem that historical memory has conspired to ensure that Hino Tomiko’s memory remains forever tied to villainy, for her selfishness, her greed, and her indifference to the suffering of the people. Yet for around 40 years she managed to thrive in a society in a state of chaos, at the focal point of political and military power, dominating the shōgunate in a manner never to be repeated by any of the male successors to that position. Her rapacious nature may have been one born of necessity, given that the relative power of the shōgunate was waning in the face of challenges from other military houses which forced her to be ruthless. Yet she was loyal to those who served her interests, and her fortune enabled the Ashikaga shōgunate to continue into the sixteenth century until its eventual demise in the 1570-80s.  As stated at the outset, history is written by the victors, and Tomiko’s misfortune was to be a powerful woman in an era where the instruments of state, overwhelmingly dominated by men, were falling apart. Her like would not be seen again until the emergence of Yodo-dono (also known as Cha-cha, concubine of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and mother of Toyotomi Hideyori) in the late sixteenth century, whose reputation would be the subject of slander in the same manner as Tomiko.  

There is no doubt that the figure of the ‘ninja’ is one that has permeated popular culture from Japan to all corners of the globe.  The typical depiction of a ninja, or ‘shinobi’ as they were more often called, is one of a black clad figure moving swiftly through a castle scene at night to carry out an assassination or infiltrate an enemy camp to steal information pertinent to victory.  Yet the historical reality of ninja was more complicated, and certainly more diverse, than the image presented to us on the movie screen or in serialized novels.  For instance, the very concept of a ‘ninja’ varies according to both time and place, and Japanese history is replete with examples of individuals who did not identify themselves as ‘ninja’ or belong to a region (such as the two most well-known enclaves of ninjutsu in Iga and Koga) that knowingly practiced ninjutsu.  One such example is that of Saika Magoichi (雑賀孫市), an individual whose origins are surrounded in mystery, but who most certainly existed during the latter stages of the Sengoku era, and whose exploits would make him the stuff of legend.

My first encounter with Magoichi came as a result of study that I undertook at Ōtani Univesity a decade ago when researching the role of regional, lower class samurai (or jizamurai) in the gradual spread of villages affiliated with the Ikkō faith and loyal to the main Ikkō temple of Honganji.  One organization that kept coming up again and again in studies devoted to the rural adoption of Jodō Shinshū and its gradual militarization was the Saika-gun located on the Kii peninsula (modern Wakayama Prefecture). The Saika-gun were somewhat unique among the various militarized groups that existed at the time in that they adopted an entirely foreign weapon, the arquebus, or matchlock musket, as their principle means of offence and defence, and were remarkably successful in both production and application of this technology. 

Magoichi himself, according to this study of individual shinobi during the Era of the Warring States, was ruler of Saika-castle (which sounds ostentatious, but in reality amounted to an earthen fort with wooden walls and some buildings of plaster and stone) and lord over a territory that produced 70,000 koku (the standard definition of wealth for the Sengoku period – essentially 1 koku equaled the amount of rice necessary to feed one retainer for a year). He was the son of Suzuki Satao, and was formally known by the name Suzuki Magoichi Tao Shigetomo. He was never called by his formal name, preferring instead to go by his more casual nomenclature.  According to legend, Magoichi spent his adolescence as a pirate, plundering any vessels that strayed too close to the shoreline of the Saika peninsula.  He was said to have a gregarious, outgoing personality, and, as often accompanies such traits, had a great affinity for women and alcohol.

This personality naturally led people to gravitate towards him, and in time he found himself appointed as the leader of the Saika group of musketeers. His armour was certainly individualistic, punctuated by a helmet resembling an iron pot and a cuirass resembling fish scales and a banner depicting a three legged divine messenger; the Crow of Kumaya Yata. He bore a favourite musket, which he dubbed ‘Aiyama Gohō’, and led a unit of 2,000 musketeers into battle.

The Saika area was a broad expanse of land facing the Waka Bay, and its location made it a favourite for those people returning from journeys to the continent. Many of these travelers possessed knowledge of metal working, and contributed to the development of a local brand of blacksmithing known as the “Kii – Corean Style”.  Many of those blacksmiths had been to Tanegashima to learn both musket technology and tactics, and subsequently brought that knowledge back to the Kii peninsula.  One such smith, known as Tsuda Kenmotsu Kazunaga, the elder brother of the banner man (or leader) of the Negoro temple group, Sugino Bōmeisan, taught the techniques for arms manufacturing and musket tactics to both the Saika and Negoro group of followers, and in the case of the Saika was responsible for organizing them into a coherent, militarized unit. 

The Tsuda school of arms forging derived from the imagination of a master craftsman, however Magoichi was the key person in combining both this technology and the form of ninjutsu practiced by the Saika group to become a master of guerilla warfare.  The Saika group that Magoichi led were not warmongers, and certainly did not seek to become involved in conflict out any desire for thrills or adventure.  The Saika group took as their purpose the creation of a stable, prosperous country, and knew that in order to realise such a vision they would need money. Their involvement in conflict thus stemmed from the fact that they were, in essence, mercenaries, in that they would accept payment from daimyō from across Japan in exchange for providing their services as musketeers in various conflicts throughout the nation.  One unique aspect to the Saika group was that they fought more for ideological reasons that purely fiscal ones, often refusing their services to any force they deemed hostile to their interests or whom they simply didn’t agree with, not matter how great the offer made.

The Saika, and Magoichi in particular, were devoted followers of the Ikkō sect, and fought in battles against Oda Nobunaga under orders from the head of the Hongaji temple, Kennyo, in the latter 16th century.  The first conflict involving Magoichi against the Oda forces took place on the 12th and 13th days of the 9th month of the first year of Genki (1570).   In the 7th month of the same year, the forces of the Miyoshi clan (consisting of three parts, led by Miyoshi Nagayuki, Iwanari Tomomichi, and Miyoshi Masayasu) were expelled from the island of Awa (which lies between the modern prefectures of Osaka and Tokushima-Kagawa) by Oda Nobunaga. In order to exact their revenge, all three forces, with a combined strength of 13,000 troops, landed and made camp at Nakashima Tenma no Mori in Settsu province (now part of Kita-ku in Osaka City).  Magoichi and the Saika group were included in those forces.

The Miyoshi army took up positions within forts belonging to the Honganji temple at Noda and Fukushima in Settsu province.  At the outset of the conflict fortune favoured the Miyoshi, however in the 8th month word reached the Miyoshi that Nobunaga had departed from Gifu (in Owari province) with a force of approximately 40,000 troops.  On the 18th of the 9th month, Nobunaga advanced his main camp to within range of the Miyoshi forces at Tenma no Mori. Prior to this, on the 12th, Nobunaga sent his cannon and musket corps to open up proceedings by shelling and firing upon the Miyoshi camp.  The Miyoshi army, unable to withstand the attacks from the Oda, sued for peace, yet Nobunaga refused to parley and planned to wipe out the entire Miyoshi force.

In the middle of the night on the 12th, the bells of Honganji suddenly began to ring, signaling the beginning of a musket duel at the Oda held forts at Sakura-gishi and Kawaguchi. For Honganji, this was a sudden and unmistakable declaration of war on the forces of the Oda.

One section of the Oda forces was located in marshy land between the rivers of Kanzaki-gawa and Nakatsu-gawa. In the early hours of the morning of the 13th, a group approached this position flying a banner emblazoned with three stars. The banner was without question that of the Oda general Wada Koremasa. Seeing this, members of the Oda forces approached the group, believing that they were about to be reinforced. However the group suddenly halted at the edge of the Nakatsu-gawa river, threw away their three star banners, and raised a banner depicting the three legged Crow of Kumaya Yata.   

The armed group then spread out along the banks of the Nakatsu-gawa and proceeded to open fire on the Oda forces.  For the Oda, there was nowhere to hide, and certainly nowhere to which they could run. The group involved was of course that of the Saika under the leadership of Magoichi, using the ‘abandon banners strategy’. 

However, according to a different historical source, a particularly strong wind was blowing in the early hours of the 13th which was accompanied by heavy rain, causing the Yodo River to back up and overflow. The Oda force, rather than running away, decided that it would attack the force on the opposite side of the Nakatsu-gawa, however by the time they arrived on the far shore the Saika had already dispersed their forces and vanished.  The Oda forces spotted a group of about 10 or so soldiers whom they quickly set upon, only to discover that the soldiers they thrust their spears into and slashed with their swords were in fact dummies made of bamboo and dressed in the armour of ordinary foot soldiers (ashigaru).

Not only this, the Saika group had set up sharpened bamboo stakes in the grass along the river bank, causing many injuries to the Oda force and not a few casualties. 

Eventually news reached the Oda camp that the combined armies of the Asai and Asakura, together with their Ikkō allies, had launched an attack on the western shore of Lake Biwa and threatened to cut the Oda army off from its home base at Gifu. Realising the threat to his rear, Nobunaga raised camp and headed off in the direction of Kyoto, thus bringing his campaign against the Miyoshi to a quick conclusion.

Magoichi practiced a form of ninjutsu techniques known as the ‘five elements’. Among these was a range of guerilla tactics referred to as ‘earthen elements’.  A series of trenches and tunnels would be dug in the form of a maze which would allow the Saika to close the distance with their enemy without being seen. This would then allow the Saika to snipe at their enemy from all directions, thereby ensuring disorder in the enemy camp.  On occasion, a Saika group member would show themselves to their enemy, only to appear as though they had been swallowed up by a forest. An enemy soldier would give chase and rush into the same area, only to literally fall foul of a sharpened bamboo stick placed in a camouflaged pit.  Not only this, the Saika would create muskets out of bamboo and rig them to fire projectiles at random, thereby causing yet more casualties to an enemy force.

In the 5th month of Tenshō 4 (1576), Nobunaga yet again found himself in conflict against the Saika led by Magoichi. In the 7th month, Nobunaga installed a blockade against Honganji, attempting to starve the temple complex into submission.  Unable to achieve this objective, Nobunaga placed his fleet in and around the shores of Izumi province (location of modern Osaka prefecture), however they were set upon by the forces of the Murakami fleet, whose overwhelming numbers (estimated at 800 vessels) forced the Oda to retreat, and many Oda ships were lost to fires started by flaming arrows shot from the Murakami vessels.

In the second month of the following year, Nobunaga again set out to bring down the Honganji complex, but realized that in order to achieve this he would first need to deal with the potential threat presented by the Saika group.  At the outset, Nobunaga forced the surrender of some members of the Saika and Sugi no Bō of the Negoro group.  On the 15th day of the same month, Nobunaga invaded the Saika territory leading generals from fifteen provinces.  When word of this reached the Saika, their forces assembled at the mountain temple of Mirokuji, where Magoichi explained the strategy they would employ against the Oda. Sharpened wooden palisades would be installed along the riverbank of the Saika River, nets would be spread out, traps installed in river beds, and various other devices installed to hamper the progress of the Oda army.

The Oda army marched straight into these traps, resulting in many drownings, while those that survived would be sniped at by Saika musketeers at any opportunity.  However the overwhelming numbers of the Oda soon led to the Saika region being cut off from outside supplies, and on the 2nd day of the 3rd month the Saika forces made a vow to Nobunaga and surrendered.  Magoichi survived the surrender, and would later be involved in the attack on Fushimi Castle by the forces of Ishida Mitsunari in the lead-up to the Battle of Sekigahara.  In his later years he was granted the sum of 3,000 koku by Tokugawa Ieyasu, and would serve in the retinue of the first ruler of Mitō province, Tokugawa Yorifusa.