miyoshi

Updated: May 23, 2025

Yet once more the untiring Takakuni, aided by Miyoshi Norinaga, Motonaga's son, called also Chokei, drives Yoshiharu and Harumoto from the metropolis, and presently a reconciliation is effected by the good offices of Rokkaku Sadayori, the real power of the kwanryo being thenceforth exercised by the Miyoshi family. Japanese historians have well called it an age of anarchy.

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

Soon the Miyoshi brothers, Motonaga and Masanaga, engage in a fierce quarrel about their inheritance, and the former, with Yoshikore as candidate for the shogunate and Hatakeyama as auxiliary, raises the standard against Harumoto, who, aided by the soldier-priests of Hongwan-ji, kills both Yoshitaka and Motonaga and takes Yoshikore prisoner.

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

There is no more treacherous episode in the Middle Ages than Matsunaga Hisahide's poisoning of his liege lord to compass the downfall of the Miyoshi family and slaying the shogun, Yoshiteru, to overthrow the Ashikaga, though he enjoyed the confidence of both.

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

This was an almost inevitable result of the exceptional facilities given to petitioners under the Daika and Daiho systems. Miyoshi Kiyotsura urged that all petitioning and all resulting inquiries by specially appointed officials should be interdicted, except in matters relating to political crime, and that all offenders should be handed over to the duly constituted administrators of justice.

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

The details of his campaign have little interest except as indicating that the provincial officials followed the example of Kyoto in suffering local disturbances to settle themselves, and that the abuses catalogued in the Miyoshi memorial were true to fact.

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

This body of councillors included Tokimasa and his son, Yoshitoki; Oye no Hiromoto, Miyoshi Yasunobu; Nakahara Chikayoshi, Miura Yoshizumi, Wada Yoshimori, Hiki Yoshikazu, and five others. But though they deliberated, they did not decide. All final decision required the endorsement of the lady Masa and her father, Hojo Tokimasa.

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

Men's houses were robbed and burned simply because their inmates stood aloof from the insurrection. Just at that time the septs of Hosokawa and Miyoshi were engaged in a fierce struggle for supremacy. Kokyo threw in his lot with Hosokawa Harumoto, and, at the head of fifty thousand troops, attacked and killed Miyoshi Motonaga.

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

A rumour was busily circulated that this meant a plot for the dethronement of Daigo in favour of Tokiyo. Miyoshi Kiyotsura, an eminent scholar, acting subtly at the instance of the Fujiwara, addressed a seemingly friendly letter to Michizane, warning him that his career had become dangerously rapid and explaining that the stars presaged a revolution in the following year.

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

If the Miyoshi vassals plotted against their chiefs, so did the latter against the Hosokawa; so did the Hosokawa against the Ashikaga; so did the Ashikaga against the Imperial family, and so did one branch of the Imperial family against another. Everywhere there was lack of loyalty. The loyalty wanting among masters was equally deficient among servants.

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

Therefore he adopted three sons: the first, Sumiyuki, being the child of the regent, Fujiwara Masamoto; the second and third, Sumimoto and Takakuni, being kinsmen of his own. The first of these three was entrusted to Kasai Motochika; the last two were placed in the care of Miyoshi Nagateru. These guardians were Hosokawa's principal vassals in Shikoku, where they presently became deadly rivals.

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