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With Yoshisada to Echizen went the Crown Prince and his brother Takanaga. They entrenched themselves at Kana-ga-saki, on the seacoast, whence Yoshisada's eldest son, Yoshiaki, was despatched to Echigo to collect troops, and a younger brother, Yoshisuke, to Soma-yama on a similar errand. Almost immediately, Ashikaga Takatsune with an army of twenty thousand men laid siege to Kanaga-saki.
This actual declaration did not come, however, until the arrival of an officer from Kamakura, carrying a requisition for a great quantity of provisions to victual an army which the Hojo were hastily equipping to recover Rokuhara. The officer was put to death, and Yoshisada with his brother, Yoshisuke, set their forces in motion for Kamakura. Menaced thus closely, the Hojo made a supreme effort.
The names of such members of the Fujiwara family as Mimori, Otsugu, Yoshino, Sadanushi, Nagara, Yoshisuke, and Yasunori, who wrought and ruled in the period from Heijo and Saga to Montoku and Seiwa, might justly stand high in any record.* *The office of Kwampaku was continued from the time of its creation, 882, to 1868. The Emperor Uda, as already stated, owed everything to the Fujiwara.
But Yoshiaki and Yoshisuke turned in their tracks and delivered a rear attack which scattered the besiegers. This success, however, proved only temporary. The Ashikaga leader's deep resentment against Yoshisada inspired a supreme effort to crush him, and the Kana-ga-saki fortress was soon invested by an overwhelming force on sea and on shore. Famine necessitated surrender.
Yoshiaki and Prince Takanaga committed suicide, the latter following the former's example and using his blood-stained sword. The Crown Prince was made prisoner and subsequently poisoned by Takauji's orders. Yoshisada and his brother Yoshisuke escaped to Soma-yama and rallied their partisans to the number of three thousand.
One, under Yoshisada's direct orders, marched by the Tokaido, or eastern littoral road; the other, under Yoshisada's brother, Wakiya Yoshisuke, with Prince Takanaga for titular general, advanced along the Nakasen-do, or inland mountain-road. The littoral army, carrying everything before it, pushed on to the capital of Izu, and had it forced its attack home at once, might have captured Kamakura.
He despatched his brother, Yoshisuke, with twenty thousand men, remaining himself to cover the rear of the expedition. But Otoko-yama surrendered before this succour reached it, and the Nitta brothers then combined their forces to operate against the Ashikaga. Nothing decisive resulted, and in September, 1338, Yoshisada fell in an insignificant combat near the fortress of Fujishima in Echizen.
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