Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 26, 2025
He would have taken with him the cloistered Emperor, but Go-Shirakawa secretly made his way to Hiei-zan and placed himself under the protection of Yoshinaka, rejoicing at the opportunity to shake off the Taira yoke. On August 14, 1183, the evacuation of Kyoto took place.
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 Masashige and Nawa Nagatoshi, who had given asylum to Go-Daigo at the time of the escape from Oki. The cenobites of Hiei-zan also took the field in the Imperial cause.
Hiei-zan was involved in the attack, but the warlike monks of Enryaku-ji replied by pouring down into the capital, burning the twenty-one temples of the Nichiren and butchering three thousand of their priests. Such were the ways of the Buddhists in the Sengoku period. To follow in detail these superficial changes would be a task equally interminable and fruitless.
What weighed most with the Taira leader, however, was the propinquity of the three great monasteries; Hiei-zan on the north, Miidera on the east, and Nara on the south. In fact, the city lay at the mercy of the soldier-priests. At any moment they might combine, descend upon the capital, and burn it before adequate succour could be marshalled.
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 Ashikaga'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.
Scattered throughout the empire and apparently crippled for all time, the monks of Hiei-zan very soon gave evidence of the vitality of their faith by commencing a vigorous propaganda for the restoration of the great monastery.
Further, the priests were constantly enriched with donations of land and money, in addition to the rents and taxes obtained from their own domains, and thus it resulted that several of the great monasteries possessed much wealth. To that fact is to be attributed the numerous establishments of soldier-priests maintained at Enryaku-ji, on Hiei-zan, and at Kofuku-ji, in Nara.
Meanwhile, his trust in Yorimasa remaining still unshaken, he sent him to attack Onjo-ji, which mission the old Minamoto warrior fulfilled by entering the monastery and joining forces with the prince. Yorimasa took this step in the belief that immediate aid would be furnished from Hiei-zan. But before his appeal reached the latter, Kiyomori's overtures had been accepted.
It is to be noted that, at this time, Christian propagandism in Kyushu had not yet begun to be disfigured by acts of violence. Vilela carried letters of introduction from the Bungo feudatory, but before he reached the capital the Buddhist abbot of Hiei-zan had died, and his successor did not show the same liberal spirit of inquiry.
For the invading troops to hold their own upon Hiei-zan throughout the winter would have been even more difficult than for Nobunaga's army to cut off their avenues of retreat and supply. In these circumstances peace presented itself to both sides as the most feasible plan, and the forces of Nagamasa and Yoshikage were allowed to march away unmolested to Omi and Echizen, respectively.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking