Part 50 (1/2)
The Nitta chieftain himself retired rapidly to Kyoto with a mere remnant of his army, and effected a union with the forces of the ever-loyal Kusunoki Masas.h.i.+ge and Nawa Nagatos.h.i.+, who had given asylum to Go-Daigo at the time of the escape from Oki. The cen.o.bites of Hiei-zan also took the field in the Imperial cause. Meanwhile, Takauji and Tadayos.h.i.+, utilizing their victories, pushed rapidly towards Kyoto. The heart of the samurai was with them, and they constantly received large accessions of strength. Fierce fighting now took place on the south and east of the capital. It lasted for several days and, though the advantage was with the As.h.i.+kaga, their victory was not decisive.
An unlooked-for event turned the scale. It has been related above that, in the struggle which ended in the restoration of Go-Daigo, Akamatsu Norimura was chiefly instrumental in driving the Hojo from Rokuhara; and it has also been related that, in the subsequent distribution of rewards, his name was omitted for the slight reason that he had, at one period, entered religion. He now moved up from Harima at the head of a strong force and, attacking from the south, effected an entry into Kyoto, just as he had done three years previously. Go-Daigo fled to Hiei, carrying the sacred insignia with him, and on the 24th of February, 1336, the As.h.i.+kaga armies marched into the Imperial capital.
TAKAUJI RETIRES TO KYUSHU
At this stage succour arrived for the Imperialists from the extreme north. In the arrangement of the local administration after Go-Daigo re-occupied the throne, the two northern provinces of Mutsu and Dewa had been separated from the Kwanto and placed under the control of Prince Yos.h.i.+naga, with Kitabatake Akiiye for lieutenant. The latter, a son of the renowned Chikafusa, was in his nineteenth year when the As.h.i.+kaga revolted. He quickly organized a powerful army with the intention of joining Yos.h.i.+sada's attack upon Kamakura, but not being in time to carry out that programme, he changed the direction of his march and hastened towards Kyoto. He arrived there when the As.h.i.+kaga troops were laying siege to Hiei-zan, and effecting a union with the Imperialists, he succeeded in raising the siege and recovering the city.
It is unnecessary to follow in detail the vicissitudes that ensued.
Stratagems were frequent. At one time we find a number of Yos.h.i.+sada's men, officers and privates alike, disguising themselves, mingling with the As.h.i.+kaga army, and turning their arms against the latter at a critical moment. At another, Kusunoki Masas.h.i.+ge spreads a rumour of Yos.h.i.+sada's death in battle, and having thus induced Takauji to detach large forces in pursuit of the deceased's troops, falls on him, and drives him to Hyogo, where, after a heavy defeat, he has to flee to Bingo. Now, for a second time, the As.h.i.+kaga cause seemed hopeless when Akamatsu Norimura again played a most important role.
He provided an asylum for Takauji and Tadayos.h.i.+; counselled them to go to the west for the purpose of mustering and equipping their numerous partisans; advised them to obtain secretly a mandate from the senior branch of the Imperial family so that they too, as well as their opponents, might be ent.i.tled to fly the brocade banner, and having furnished them with means to effect their escape, returned to Harima and occupied the fortress of s.h.i.+rahata with the object of checking pursuit. At this point there is a break in the unrelenting continuity of the operations. It should obviously have been the aim of the Imperialists to strike a conclusive blow before the As.h.i.+kaga leaders had time to a.s.semble and organize their mult.i.tudinous supporters in s.h.i.+koku, Kyushu, and the provinces on the north of the Inland Sea. This must have been fully apparent to Kusunoki Masas.h.i.+ge, an able strategist. Yet a delay of some weeks occurred.
A quasi-historical record, the Taiheiki, ascribes this to Yos.h.i.+naga's infatuated reluctance to quit the company of a Court beauty whom the Emperor had bestowed on him. Probably the truth is that the Imperialists were seriously in want of rest and that Yos.h.i.+sada fell ill with fever. Something must also be attributed to a clever ruse on the part of Akamatsu Norimura. He sent to Yos.h.i.+sada's headquarters a message promising to give his support to the Imperialists if he was appointed high constable of Harima. Ten days were needed to obtain the commission from Kyoto, and Norimura utilized the interval to place the defenses of s.h.i.+rahata fortress in a thoroughly secure condition. Thus, when his patent of high constable arrived, he rejected it with disdain, saying that he had already received a patent from the shogun, Takauji, and was in no need of an Imperial grant which ”could be altered as easily as turning one's hand.”
Yos.h.i.+sada, enraged at having been duped, laid siege to s.h.i.+rahata but found it almost invulnerable. It was on March 11, 1336, that Takauji went westward from Bingo; it was on the 2nd of April that Yos.h.i.+sada invested s.h.i.+rahata, and it was on the 3rd of July that the siege was raised. The As.h.i.+kaga brothers had enjoyed a respite of more than three months, and had utilized it vigorously. They were at the Dazai-fu in Chikuzen in June when a message reached them that s.h.i.+rahata could not hold out much longer. Immediately they set their forces in motion, advancing by land and water with an army said to have numbered twenty thousand and a fleet of transports and war-junks totalling seven thousand. At the island, Itsukus.h.i.+ma, they were met by a Buddhist priest, Kenshun, bearer of a mandate signed by the ex-Emperor Kogon of the senior branch, and thus, in his final advance, the As.h.i.+kaga chief was able to fly the brocade banner. In the face of this formidable force the Imperialists fell back to Hyogo--the present Kobe--and it became necessary to determine a line of strategy.
DEATH OF MASAs.h.i.+GE
Go-Daigo, in Kyoto, summoned Kusunoki Masas.h.i.+ge to a conference. That able general spoke in definite tones. He declared it hopeless for the Imperialists with their comparatively petty force of worn-out warriors to make head against the great As.h.i.+kuga host of fresh fighters. The only wise course was to suffer the enemy to enter Kyoto, and then, while the sovereign took refuge at Hiei-zan, to muster his Majesty's partisans in the home provinces for an unceasing war upon the As.h.i.+kaga's long line of communications--a war culminating in an attack from the front and the rear simultaneously.
Thus, out of temporary defeat, final victory would be wrested.
All present at the conference, with one exception, endorsed Masas.h.i.+ge's view as that of a proved strategist. The exception was a councillor, Fujiwara Kiyotada. He showed himself a veritable example of ”those whom the G.o.ds wish to destroy.” Declaring that all previous successes had been achieved by divine aid, which took no count of numerical disparity, he urged that if the sovereign quitted the capital before his troops had struck a blow, officers and men alike would be disheartened; and if refuge was again taken at Hiei-zan, the Imperial prestige would suffer. To these light words the Emperor hearkened. Masas.h.i.+ge uttered no remonstrance. The time for controversy had pa.s.sed. He hastened to the camp and bid farewell to his son, Masatsura: ”I do not think that I shall see you again in life. If I fall to-day, the country will pa.s.s under the sway of the As.h.i.+kaga. It will be for you to judge in which direction your real welfare lies. Do not sully your father's loyalty by forgetting the right and remembering only the expedient. So long as a single member of our family remains alive, or so much as one of our retainers, you will defend the old castle of Kongo-zan and give your life for your native land.”
ENGRAVING: THE PARTING OF KUSONOKI MASAs.h.i.+GE AND HIS SON MASATSURA
He then handed to his son a sword which he himself had received from the Emperor. Pa.s.sing thence to Hyogo, Masas.h.i.+ge joined Nitta Yos.h.i.+sada, and the two leaders devoted the night to a farewell banquet. The issue of the next day's combat was a foregone conclusion. Masas.h.i.+ge had but seven hundred men under his command. He posted this little band at Minato-gawa, near the modern Kobe, and with desperate courage attacked the van of the As.h.i.+kaga army.
Gradually he was enveloped, and being wounded in ten places he, with his brother and sixty followers, entered the precincts of a temple and died by their own hands.* Takauji and his captains, lamenting the brave bus.h.i.+'s death, sent his head to his family; and history recognizes that his example exercised an enn.o.bling influence not only on the men of his era but also on subsequent generations. After Masas.h.i.+ge's fall a similar fate must have overtaken Yos.h.i.+sada, had not one of those sacrifices familiar on a j.a.panese field of battle been made for his sake. Oyamada Takaiye gave his horse to the Nitta general and fell fighting in his stead, while Yos.h.i.+sada rode away. At first sight these sacrifices seem to debase the saved as much as they exalt the saver. But, according to j.a.panese ethics, an inst.i.tution was always more precious than the person of its representative, and a principle than the life of its exponent. Men sacrificed themselves in battle not so much to save the life of a commanding officer, as to avert the loss his cause would suffer by his death. Parity of reasoning dictated acceptance of the sacrifice.
*Kusunoki Masas.h.i.+ge is the j.a.panese type of a loyal and true soldier.
He was forty-three at the time of his death. Three hundred and fifty-six years later (1692), Minamoto Mitsukuni, feudal chief of Mito, caused a monument to be erected to his memory at the place of his last fight. It bore the simple epitaph ”The Tomb of Kusunoki, a loyal subject.”
ENGRAVING: OSONAE (New Year Offering to Family Tutelary Deity)
ENGRAVING: PALANQUINS (Used in Old j.a.pan Only by the n.o.bility)
CHAPTER x.x.x
THE WAR OF THE DYNASTIES
OCCUPATION OF KYOTO BY As.h.i.+KAGA
IN July, 1336, Takauji entered Kyoto and established his headquarters at the temple Higas.h.i.+-dera. Go-Daigo had previously taken refuge at the Hiei-zan monastery, the ex-Emperors, Hanazono and Kogon, remaining in the capital where they looked for the restoration of their branch of the Imperial family. The As.h.i.+kaga leader lost no time in despatching a force to attack Hiei-zan, but the Imperialists, supported by the cen.o.bites, resisted stoutly, and no impression was made on the defences for a considerable time. In one of the engagements, however, Nawa Nagatos.h.i.+, who had harboured Go-Daigo after the flight from Oki, met his death, and the Imperialist forces gradually dwindled. Towards the close of August, Takauji caused Prince Yutahito (or Toyohito, according to gome authorities), younger brother of Kogon, to be proclaimed Emperor, and he is known as Komyo.
Characteristic of the people's political ignorance at that time is the fact that men spoke of the prince's good fortune since, without any special merit of his own, he had been granted the rank of sovereign by the shogun.
Meanwhile, the investment of the Hiei monastery made little progress, and Takauji had recourse to treachery. At the close of October he opened secret communications with Go-Daigo; a.s.sured him that the As.h.i.+kaga did not entertain any disloyal purpose; declared that their seemingly hostile att.i.tude had been inspired by the enmity of the Nitta brothers; begged Go-Daigo to return to Kyoto, and promised not only that should all ideas of revenge be foregone, but also that the administration should be handed over to the Court, and all their ranks and estates restored to the Emperor's followers.
Go-Daigo ought surely to have distrusted these professions. He must have learned from Takauji's original impeachment of Yos.h.i.+sada how unscrupulous the As.h.i.+kaga leader could be on occasion, and he should have well understood the impossibility of peace between these two men. Yet his Majesty relied on Takauji's a.s.surances. It was in vain that Horiguchi Sadamitsu recounted Yos.h.i.+sada's services, detailed the immense sacrifices he had made in the Imperial cause, and declared that if the Emperor were determined to place himself in Takauji's hands, he should prepare his departure from Hiei-zan by summoning to his presence Yos.h.i.+sada with the other Nitta leaders and sentencing them to death. Go-Daigo was not to be moved from his purpose. He gave Yos.h.i.+sada fair words indeed: ”I profoundly praise your loyal services. My wish is to pacify the country by the a.s.sistance of your family, but heaven has not yet vouchsafed its aid. Our troops are worn out and the hour is unpropitious. Therefore, I make peace for the moment and bide my time. Do you repair to Echizen and use your best endeavours to promote the cause of the restoration. Lest you be called a rebel after my return to Kyoto, I order the Crown Prince to accompany you.”
Thus Go-Daigo, truly faithful neither to the one side nor to the other, set out for the capital. That night, Yos.h.i.+sada prayed at the shrine of Hiyos.h.i.+: ”Look down on my loyalty and help me to perform my journey safely so that I may raise an army to destroy the insurgents.
If that is not to be, let one of my descendants achieve my aim.” Two hundred and six years later, there was born in Mikawa of the stock of Yos.h.i.+sada one of the greatest generals and altogether the greatest ruler that j.a.pan has ever produced, Minamoto Ieyasu. Heaven answered Yos.h.i.+sada's prayer tardily but signally.