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Among this group of notables the most memorable in a historical sense are Minamoto Tametomo and Taira Kiyomori. Of the latter there will presently be occasion to speak again. The former was one of those born warriors illustrated by Yamato-dake, Saka-no-ye no Tamura-maro, and Minamoto no Yoshiiye.
This name grew to be a terror to the enemy, and it was mainly through his prowess that his father and their scanty remnant of troops escaped over roads where the snow lay several feet deep. On a subsequent occasion in the same campaign, Yoshiiye had Sadato at his mercy and, while fixing an arrow to shoot him, composed the first line of a couplet, "The surcoat's warp at last is torn."
Among these six, however, was his eldest son, Yoshiiye, one of the most skilful bowmen Japan ever produced. Yoshiiye's mother was a Taira. When she became enceinte her husband dreamed that the sacred sword of the war deity, Hachiman, had been given to him, and the boy came to be called Hachiman Taro.
In the year 1081, the priest-soldiers of the latter set the torch to the former, and, flocking to Kyoto in thousands, threw the capital into disorder. Order was with difficulty restored through the exertions of the kebiishi and the two Minamoto magnates, Yoshiiye and Yoshitsuna, but it was deemed expedient to guard the palace and the person of the Emperor with bushi.
Takatoki, appreciating that a crisis had now arisen in the fortunes of the Hojo, ordered Ashikaga Takauji to lead a powerful army westward. Takauji represented a junior branch of the Minamoto family. He was descended from the great Yoshiiye, and when Yoritomo rose against the Taira, in 1180, he had been immediately joined by the then Ashikaga chieftain, who was his brother-in-law.
It has been shown in the story of the Three Years' War, and specially in the paragraph entitled "The Fujiwara of the North," that the troops of Fujiwara Kiyohira and Minamoto Yoshiiye had fought side by side, and that, after the war, Kiyohira succeeded to the six districts of Mutsu, which constituted the largest estate in the hands of any one Japanese noble.
Sadato, without a moment's hesitation, capped the line, "The threads at last are frayed and worn,"* and Yoshiiye, charmed by such a display of ready wit, lowered his bow. Yoshiiye's magnanimity towards Sadato at the fortress of Koromo-gawa has always been held worthy of a true bushi. *The point of this couplet is altogether lost in English.
The idea of behaving treacherously in the face of such trust was unendurable, and thereafter Muneto served Yoshiiye with faith and friendship. The confidence that the Minamoto hero reposed in the brother of his old enemy and the way it was requited these, too, are claimed as traits of the bushi. Yet another canon is furnished by Yoshiiye's career the canon of humility.
The same post was subsequently bestowed on Yorinobu's son, Yoriyoshi, and on the latter's son, Yoshiiye, known by posterity as "Hachiman Taro," Japan's most renowned archer, to whom the pre-eminence of the Minamoto family was mainly due. Tadatsune had another son, Tsunemasa, who was appointed vice-governor of Shimosa and who is generally spoken of as Chiba-no-suke.
When about to attack the fortress of Kanazawa, to which the approaches were very difficult, Yoshiiye observed a flock of geese rising in confusion, and rightly inferred an ambuscade of the enemy. His comment was, "Had not Oye Masafusa taught me strategy, many brave men had been killed to-night." Yet one more typical bushi may be mentioned in connexion with this war.
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