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*The oldest ideographic inscription extant in Japan is carved on a stone in Iyo province dating from A.D. 596. Next in point of antiquity is an inscription on the back of an image of Yakushi which stands in the temple Horyu-ji. It is ascribed to the year A.D. 607. None of the religious edifices then constructed has survived in its integrity to the present day.

Thenceforth, coins of copper or more correctly, bronze were regularly minted and gradually took the place of rice or cotton cloth as units of value. It would seem that, from the close of the seventh century, a wave of mining industry swept over Japan. Silver was procured from the provinces of Iyo and Kii; copper from Inaba and Suo, and tin from Ise, Tamba, and Iyo.

He steadily refused to cancel his veto, and after an abortive sojourn of twenty days at Koshigoe, Yoshitsune returned to Kyoto where his conduct won for him increasing popularity. Three months later, Yoritomo appointed him governor of Iyo. It is possible that had not the situation been complicated by a new factor, the feud between the brothers might have ended there.

It is difficult to trace the beginnings of Japanese piracy in Far Eastern waters, but certainly it dated from a remote past and reached its extreme in the middle of the sixteenth century. The records show that Murakami Yoshihiro, of Iyo province, obtained control of all the corsairs in neighbouring seas and developed great puissance.

Yoritomo received more gracious treatment than Yoshinaka, although the Kamakura chief could not yet venture to absent himself from the Kwanto for the purpose of paying his respects at Court. For the rest, in spite of Yoshinaka's brilliant success, he was granted only the fifth official rank and the governorship of the province of Iyo.

After the island of Awa, the producing couple gave birth to Awaji and subsequently to Shikoku, which is described as an island having four faces, namely, the provinces of Awa, Iyo, Tosa, and Sanuki.

Motochika obeyed, but on the death of Nobunaga and his son he constituted himself master of Shikoku until Hideyoshi deprived him of all save Tosa. From 1156 to 1581 the Kono family held the province of Iyo, but there is nothing of historical interest in their career. Connected with Kyushu are the families of Shoni, Otomo, Ryuzoji, Kikuchi and Shimazu.

This Taguchi had been originally an influential magnate of Iyo in Shikoku, whence he had accompanied the Taira retreat to Nagato, leaving his son with three thousand men to defend the family manors in Iyo. The son was so generously treated by the Minamoto that he threw in his lot with them and sent letters urging his father to adopt the same cause.

There they were attacked at dawn on the 24th by Yoshitsune, to whom there had arrived on the previous evening a re-enforcement of thirty war-junks, sent, not by Kagetoki, but by a Minamoto supporter who had been driven from the province of Iyo some time previously by the Taira. As usual, the impetuosity of Yoshitsune's onset carried everything before it.

This was apparently a Chinese innovation. Here, also, mention may be made of thermal springs. Their sanitary properties were recognized, and visits were paid to them by invalids. The most noted were those of Dogo, in Iyo, and Arima, in Settsu.