A history of the Japanese people

by F. Brinkley; Dairoku Kikuchi

THE FIVE CENTRES

Among the welter of warring regions glanced at above, five sections detach themselves as centres of disturbance. The first is the Court in Kyoto and the Muromachi Bakufu, where the Hosokawa, the Miyoshi, and the Matsunaga deluged the streets with blood and reduced the city to ashes. The second is the Hojo of Odawara, who compassed the destruction of the kubo at Koga and of the two original Uesugi families. The third is Takeda of Kai, who struggled on one side with the Uesugi of Echigo and on the other with the Imagawa of Suruga. The fourth is Oda Nobunaga, who escorted the shogun to the capital. And the fifth is the great Mori family, who, after crushing the Ouchi and the Amako, finally came into collision with the armies of Oda under the leadership of Hideyoshi.

ENGRAVING: "EMA" (Pictures Painted on Wood, Especially of Horses,
Hung up in the Temple as Motive Offerings)

ENGRAVING: ODA NOBUNAGA

CHAPTER XXXIV

NOBUNAGA, HIDEYOSHI, AND IEYASU

ODA NOBUNAGA

WHEN the Taira sept was shattered finally at Dan-no-ura, a baby grandson of Kiyomori was carried by its mother to the hamlet of Tsuda, in Omi province. Subsequently this child, Chikazane, was adopted by a Shinto official of Oda, in Echizen, and thus acquired the name of Oda. For generations the family served uneventfully at the shrine in Omi, but in the disturbed days of the Ashikaga shoguns, the representative of the eighth generation from Chikazane emerged from the obscurity of Shinto services and was appointed steward (karo) of the Shiba family, which appointment involved removal of his residence to Owari. From that time the fortunes of the family became brighter. Nobuhide, its representative at the beginning of the sixteenth century, acquired sufficient power to dispute the Imagawa's sway over the province of Mikawa, and sufficient wealth to contribute funds to the exhausted coffers of the Court in Kyoto.

This man's son was Nobunaga. Born in 1534, and destined to bequeath to his country a name that will never die, Nobunaga, as a boy, showed much of the eccentricity of genius. He totally despised the canons of the time as to costume and etiquette. One of his peculiarities was a love of long swords, and it is related that on a visit to Kyoto in his youth he carried in his girdle a sword which trailed on the ground as he walked. Rough and careless, without any apparent dignity, he caused so much solicitude to his tutor and guardian, Hirate Masahide, and showed so much indifference to the latter's remonstrances, that finally Masahide had recourse to the faithful vassal's last expedient—he committed suicide, leaving a letter in which the explanation of his act was accompanied by a stirring appeal to the better instincts of his pupil and ward. This proved the turning-point in Nobunaga's career. He became as circumspect as he had previously been careless, and he subsequently erected to the memory of his brave monitor a temple which may be seen to this day by visitors to Nagoya.

It is frequently said of Nobunaga that his indifference to detail and his lack of patience were glaring defects in his moral endowment. But that accusation can scarcely be reconciled with facts. Thus, when still a young man, it is related of him that he summoned one of his vassals to his presence but, giving no order, allowed the man to retire. This was repeated with two others, when the third, believing that there must be something in need of care, looked about attentively before retiring, and observing a piece of torn paper on the mats, took it up and carried it away. Nobunaga recalled him, eulogized his intelligence, and declared that men who waited scrupulously for instructions would never accomplish much. The faculties of observation and initiation were not more valued by Nobunaga than those of honesty and modesty. It is recorded that on one occasion he summoned all the officers of his staff, and showing them a sword by a famous maker, promised to bestow it upon the man who should guess most correctly the number of threads in the silk frapping of the hilt. All the officers wrote down their guesses with one exception, that of Mori Rammaru. Asked for the reason of his abstention, Mori replied that he happened to know the exact number of threads, having counted them on a previous occasion when admiring the sword. Nubunaga at once placed the weapon in his hands, thus recognizing his honesty. Again, after the construction of the famous castle at Azuchi, to which reference will be made hereafter, Nobunaga, desiring to have a record compiled in commemoration of the event, asked a celebrated priest, Sakugen, to undertake the composition and penning of the document. Sakugen declared the task to be beyond his literary ability, and recommended that it should be entrusted to his rival, Nankwa. Nobunaga had no recourse but to adopt this counsel, and Nankwa performed the task admirably, as the document, which is still in existence, shows. In recognition of this success, Nobunaga gave the compiler one hundred pieces of silver, but at the same time bestowed two hundred on Sakugen for his magnanimity in recommending a rival.