uesugi

Updated: June 3, 2025

These Uesugi families soon engaged in hostile rivalry, and the Ogigayatsu branch, being allied with Ota Dokwan, the founder of Yedo Castle, gained the upper hand, until the assassination of Dokwan, when the Yamanouchi became powerful. It was at this time close of the fifteenth century that there occurred in the Horigoe house one of those succession quarrels so common since the Onin era.

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

To him the ambition of winning the shogunate presented itself strongly, and was only abandoned when Uesugi Noriharu committed suicide to add weight to a protest against such an essay. Japanese annals contain many records of lives thus sacrificed on the altar of devotion and loyalty. From the outset the Uesugi family were the pillars of the Ashikaga kwanryo in Kamakura.

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

*Thus a frontal wound came to be designated by his name. The present Viscount Hojo is a descendant of Ujiyasu. Gaining the victory, Harunobu came into control of the province of Kai, which had long been the seat of the Takeda family. The second of the above, Uesugi Kenshin, was not member of the great Uesugi family which took such an important part in the affairs of the Kwanto.

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

Though it had been against him chiefly that Mochiuji raged, and though his death was certain had he fallen under the power of the Kamakura kwanryo, Mochiuji's fate caused him such remorse that he attempted to commit suicide and finally became a priest. Thenceforth, the title of governor-general of the Kwanto passed to the Uesugi, two of whom were appointed to act simultaneously.

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

The vanquished general fled to Echigo to seek succour from his family's old-time vassal, Nagao Kagetora, already renowned under the name of Kenshin. Norimasa bestowed the office of kwanryo as well as the uji of Uesugi on Kenshin, who thenceforth became known as Uesugi Kenshin, and who thus constituted himself the foe of the Hojo.

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

Indeed Rai Sanyo, in the Nihon-gwaishi, may almost be said to be the sole authority. He writes as follows: "The generalship of Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin was something quite new in the country at their time. Prior to their day the art of manoeuvring troops had been little studied. Armies met, but each individual that composed them relied on his personal prowess and strength for victory.

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