United States or Slovenia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A few years later, the Shin believers in Echizen joined these revolters, and marched through the province, looting and burning wherever they passed. No measure of secular warfare had been more ruthless than were the ways of these monks. The high constable, Asakura Norikage, now took the field, and after fierce fighting, drove back the fanatics, destroyed their temples, and expelled their priests.
Hence it became the scene of much disturbance, in which the Hosokawa, the Kyogoku, the Rokkaku, and the Asai families all took part. Finally, in the middle of the sixteenth century, the Asai gained the ascendancy by obtaining the assistance of the Asakura of Echizen.
The Asai sept received assistance from no less than ten temples in Omi; the Asakura family had the ranks of its soldiers recruited from monasteries in Echizen and Kaga; the Saito clan received aid from the bonzes in Izumi and Iga, and the priests of the great temple Hongwan-ji in Osaka were in friendly communication with the Mori sept in the west, with the Takeda in Kai, and with the Hojo in Sagami.
It was this baron that had attacked the palace of Nijo when Yoshiteru, the shogun, had to commit suicide, and Shingen's object in approaching him was to sow seeds of discord between the shogunate and Nobunaga. Most imminent of all perils, however, was the menace of the Asai family in Omi, and the Asakura family in Echizen.
But from a military point of view Ieyasu was incomparably weaker than Shingen. In 1570, Nobunaga determined to put his fortunes to a final test. Having concentrated a large body of troops in Kyoto, he declared war against Asakura Yoshikage, who had refused to recognize the new shogun.
It is significant of the time that this outrage received no punishment. Kenju escaped through Omi to Echizen, where the high constable, an Asakura, combining with the high constable, a Togashi, of the neighbouring province of Kaga, erected a temple for the fugitive abbot, whose favour was well worth courting. The Ikko-shu, however, had its own internal dissensions.
A glance at the map shows that the Asai were in a position to sever Nobunaga's communications with his base in Mino, and that the Asakura were in a position to cut off his communications with Kyoto. In this perilous situation Nobunaga's sole resource lay in Tokugawa Ieyasu and in the latter's alliance with the Uesugi, which compact the Owari chief spared no pains to solidify.
In Echizen, Owari, and Totomi the great Shiba family was subjected to weakening onsets by the Asakura, the Oda, and the Imagawa. In Kaga, the Togashi house was divided against itself. In Kyushu there were bitter struggles between the Shimazu and the Ito, the Sagara and the Nawa, and the Otomo, the Shoni, and the Ouchi. Finally, Shinano, Suruga, and Mikawa were all more or less convulsed.
This latter province, conterminous with the north of Omi, was originally under the control of the Shiba family, but the Asakura subsequently obtained the office of high constable, and acquired a great access of power at the time of the Ikko revolt by driving the turbulent priests from the province.
Word Of The Day