Former Nine Years War
| date | 1051 to 1063 |
|---|---|
| place | Mutsu Province , Tohoku Region , Japan |
| output | Victory for the emperor |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
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Japanese imperial rule |
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| Commander | |
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Abe no Yoritoki ,
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The Former Nine Years War (also Zenkunen War , Japanese 前 九年 の 役 Zenkunen no Eki ) was a military conflict of the Heian period in Japan 's Mutsu province at the northern end of the main island of Honshu from 1051 to 1063. In essence, it was like in many conflicts of that time such as the Gosannen War and Genpei War , about power struggles between clans of the samurai.
Most of the Japanese provinces were overseen by a governor, but in Mutsu (in what is now the Tohoku region ) a military general had been tasked with bringing under control the indigenous Emishi tribes who were subjugated by the Japanese in the region in the ninth century . Historically, this general post has always been occupied by a member of the Abe clan and there have been many conflicts between him and the governor over the administrative control of the province.
In 1050, the general-designate to oversee the Emishi was Abe no Yoritoki . He collected taxes and confiscated property on his own, hardly ever paying heed to the provincial governor's wishes. The governor asked the capital in Kyoto for help, which resulted in Minamoto no Yoriyoshi being appointed both governor and commander of the natives. On the enterprise to stop Abe, he brought his 15-year-old son Minamoto no Yoshiie with him.
The fighting lasted twelve years, including about three years of temporary armistice and unstable peace. There were many stormy skirmishes but only a few major battles until the Battle of Kawasaki in 1057. Abe no Yoritoki had been killed shortly before and the Minamoto were now fighting his son, Abe no Sadato , who defeated them at Kawasaki and through a snow storm pursued.
The troops of the imperial government, led by the Minamoto, struggled for some time due to the harsh climate and terrain, but were finally able to regroup, not least through new troops from the governor of Dewa Province , a member of the Kiyohara Clans . In 1062, Minamoto no Yoriyoshi led the attack on the Abe fortress at the Siege of Kuriyagawa with his son . The water supply was diverted, the earth walls and fences were stormed and the fortress was set on fire. After two days of fighting, Sadato surrendered.
Minamoto no Yoshiie is therefore also regarded as the founder of the warlike legacy of the Minamoto clan and was revered in later times as a particularly powerful ancestral spirit ( Kami ) of the clan. As a kami and legend, he is often referred to as Hachimantarō ("child of Hachiman ", the god of war).
A famous renga of the cocoon Chomonjū was switched between Sadato and Yoshiie when Sadato was forced to flee his fortress on the Koromo River. Yoshiie said, Koromo no tate wa hokorobinikeri , “Koromo castle is destroyed” (“The threads of your robe have come loose”), to which Sadato replied, toshi o heshi ito no midare no kurushisa ni , “over the years the threads have been loosened confused and this hurts me. "
Individual evidence
- ^ Hiraizumi Tourism Association website
- ^ William Ritchie Wilson: The Way of the Bow and Arrow. The Japanese Warrior in Konjaku Monogatari . In: Sophia University (ed.): Monumenta Nipponica . tape 28 , no. 2 , 1973, p. 178 , doi : 10.2307 / 2383862 ( jstor.org ).
- ↑ George Sansom: A history of Japan to 1334 . Ed .: Stanford University Press. 1958, ISBN 0-8047-0523-2 , pp. 249-251 .
- ↑ Hiroaki Sato: Legends of the Samurai . Ed .: Overlook Duckworth. 1995, ISBN 978-1-59020-730-7 , pp. 97-99 .
- ↑ Stephen Turnbull: The Samurai Sourcebook . Ed .: Cassell & Co. 1998, ISBN 1-85409-523-4 , pp. 199 .