mitsukuni

Updated: May 21, 2025

This marked the commencement of a vigorous revival of Japanese literature in the Bakufu capital. Moreover, in Osaka a scholar named Keichu Ajari published striking annotations of the celebrated anthologies, the Manyo-shu and the Kokin-shu, which attracted the admiration of Tokugawa Mitsukuni, baron of Mito. He invited Keichu to his castle and treated him with marked consideration.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Again, history says that Mitsukuni, daimyo of Mito, repaired to the Inaba mansion after the incident, and expressed to Masayasu's mother his condolences and his applause. Finally, after Masatoshi's death, his son was degraded in rank and removed to a greatly reduced estate. All these things are difficult to explain except on the supposition that the shogun himself was privy to the assassination.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

The Tokugawa baron of Mito, known in history as Komon Mitsukuni, on receiving evidence as to the monstrous severity with which the law protecting animals was administered, collected a large number of men and organized a hunting expedition on a grand scale.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

It ended in the resignation of its author and the complete defeat of its purpose. Nariaki inherited the literary tastes of his ancestor, Mitsukuni, and at his court a number of earnest students and loyal soldiers assembled.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

*Kusunoki Masashige is the Japanese type of a loyal and true soldier. He was forty-three at the time of his death. Three hundred and fifty-six years later , 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."

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

This profound study of ancient history could not fail to expose the fact that the shogunate usurped powers which properly belonged to the sovereign and to the sovereign alone. But Mitsukuni and his collaborators did not give prominence to this feature. They confined themselves rather to historical details.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era