Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616)
The second of the above, Uesugi Kenshin, was not member of the great Uesugi family which took such an important part in the affairs of the Kwanto. He belonged to the Nagao, which originally stood in a relation of vassalage to the Yamanouchi branch of the Uesugi in Echigo, and his father attained an independent position. Kagetora, as Kenshin was called in his youth, found himself engaged in his twenty-first year in a contest with his elder brother, whom he killed, and, by way of penance for the fratricide, he took the tonsure under the name of Kenshin and would have retired from the world had not his generals insisted on his remaining in command. It was at this time that Kenshin became a member of the Uesugi sept. In 1505, the two branches of the Kwanto Uesugi joined hands against their common enemy, Hojo Soun, and from that time the contest was continued until 1551, when Ujiyasu, grandson of Soun, drove Uesugi Norimasa from his castle of Hirai in Kotsuke. The vanquished general fled to Echigo to seek succour from his family's old-time vassal, Nagao Kagetora, already renowned under the name of Kenshin. Norimasa bestowed the office of kwanryo as well as the uji of Uesugi on Kenshin, who thenceforth became known as Uesugi Kenshin, and who thus constituted himself the foe of the Hojo. At a somewhat earlier date, Kenshin had been similarly supplicated by Murakami Yoshikiyo, whose castle was at Kuzuo in Shinano, whence he had been driven by Takeda Shingen.
ENGRAVING: UESUGI KENSHIN
It thus fell out that Uesugi Kenshin had for enemies the two captains of highest renown in his era, Hojo Ujimasa and Takeda Shingen. This order of antagonism had far-reaching effects. For Kenshin's ambition was to become master of the whole Kwanto, under pretence of re-establishing the original Uesugi, but his expansion southward from Echigo was barred by Shingen in Shinano and Kai, and his expansion eastward by the Hojo in Sagami and Musashi. The place of the struggle between Shingen-and Kenshin was Kawanaka-jima, an arena often pictured by artists of later generations and viewed to-day by pilgrims to the venerable temple, Zenko-ji. There the two generals, recognized as the two greatest strategists of that epoch, met four times in fierce strife, and though a Japanese historian compares the struggle to the eruption of volcanoes or the blowing of gales of blood, victory never rested on either standard.
ENGRAVING: TAKEDA SHINGEN
Peace having been at length restored for a moment, in 1558, Kenshin visited Kyoto in the following year. There he was received with distinction. The Emperor—Okimachi—bestowed on him a sword, and the shogun, Yoshiteru, entitled him to incorporate the ideograph "teru" in his name, which was thus changed from Kagetora to Terutora. He was also granted the office of kwanryo. On his return to Echigo, Kenshin proceeded to assert his new title. Mustering an army said to have been 110,000 strong, he attacked the Hojo in Odawara. But Ujiyasu would not be tempted into the open. He remained always behind the ramparts, and, in the meanwhile incited Shingen to invade Echigo, so that Kenshin had to raise the siege of Odawara and hasten to the defence of his home province. There followed another indecisive battle at Kawanaka-jima, and thereafter renewed attacks upon the Hojo, whose expulsion from the Kwanto devolved on Kenshin as kwanryo. But the results were always vague: the Hojo refrained from final resistance, and Shingen created a diversion. The chief sufferers were the provinces of the Kwanto, a scene of perpetual battle. In the end, after Etchu and Kotsuke had been brought under Kenshin's sway, peace was concluded between him and the Hojo, and he turned his full strength against his perennial foe, Shingen. But at this stage the situation was entirely changed by the appearance of Oda Nobunaga on the scene, as will be presently narrated. It is recorded that, on the eve of his death, Shingen advised his son to place himself and his domains in Kenshin's keeping, for, said he, "Kenshin now stands unrivalled, and Kenshin will never break faith with you;" and it is recorded of Kenshin that when he heard of Shingen's death, he shed tears and exclaimed, "Would that the country had such another hero!"*
*The present Count Uesugi is descended from Kenshin.
THE IMAGAWA, THE KITABATAKE, THE SAITO, AND THE ODA FAMILIES
The Imagawa, a branch of the Ashikaga, served as the latter's bulwark in Suruga province during many generations. In the middle of the sixteenth century the head of the family was Yoshimoto. His sway extended over the three provinces of Suruga, Totomi, and Mikawa, which formed the littoral between Owari Bay and the Izu promontory. On the opposite side of Owari Bay lay Ise province, the site of the principal Shinto shrine and the original domain of the Taira family, where, too, the remnants of the Southern Court had their home. Its hereditary governor was a Kitabatake, and even after the union of the two Courts that great family, descendants of the immortal historian and philosopher, Chikafusa, continued to exercise sway. But, in 1560, discord among the chief retainers of the sept furnished a pretext for the armed intervention of Oda Nobunaga, who invested his son, Nobukatsu, with the rights of government. On the northern littoral of Owari Bay, and therefore separating Ise and Mikawa, was situated the province of Owari, which, in turn, opened on the north into Mino. In this latter province the Doki family was destroyed by the Saito, and these in turn were crushed by the Oda, in 1561, who, from their headquarters in Owari, shattered the Imagawa of Mikawa and the Saito in Mino, thereafter sweeping over Ise.