Nobunaga And The Fall Of The Buddhists
For more than two centuries the Ashikaga lorded it over Japan, as the
Hojo had done before them, and the mikados were tools in their strong
hands. Then arose a man who overthrew this powerful clan. This man,
Nobunaga by name, was a descendant of Kiyomori, the great leader of the
Taira clan, his direct ancestor being one of the few who escaped from
the great Minamoto massacre.
The father of this Taira chie
large estate. Nobunaga added to it, built himself a strong castle, and
became the friend and patron of the last of the Ashikaga, whom he made
shogun. (The Ashikaga were descendants of the Minamoto, who alone had
hereditary claim to this high office.) But Nobunaga remained the power
behind the throne, and, a quarrel arising between him and the shogun, he
deposed the latter, and became himself the ruler of Japan. After two
hundred and thirty-eight years of dominion the lordship of the Ashikaga
thus came to an end.
Of this great Japanese leader we are told, "He was a prince of large
stature, but of weak and delicate complexion, with a heart and soul that
supplied all other wants; ambitious above all mankind; brave, generous,
and bold, and not without many excellent moral virtues; inclined to
justice, and an enemy to treason. With a quick and penetrating wit, he
seemed cut out for business. Excelling in military discipline, he was
esteemed the fittest to command an army, manage a siege, fortify a town,
or mark out a camp of any general in Japan, never using any head but his
own. If he asked advice, it was more to know their hearts than to profit
by their advice. He sought to see into others and to conceal his own
counsel, being very secret in his designs. He laughed at the worship of
the gods, being convinced that the bonzes were impostors abusing the
simplicity of the people and screening their own debauches under the
name of religion."
Such was the man who by genius and strength of will now rose to the head
of affairs. Not being of the Minamoto family, he did not seek to make
himself shogun, and for forty years this office ceased to exist. He
ruled in the name of the mikado, but held all the power of the realm.
The good fortune of Nobunaga lay largely in his wise choice of men.
Under him were four generals, so admirable yet so diverse in military
ability that the people gave them the distinctive nicknames of "Cotton,"
"Rice," "Attack," and "Retreat." Cotton, which can be put to a multitude
of uses, indicated the fertility in resources of the first; while the
second made himself as necessary as rice, which people cannot live a day
without. The strength of the third lay in the boldness of his attacks;
of the fourth, in the skill of his retreats. Of these four, the first,
named Hideyoshi, rose to great fame. A fifth was afterwards added,
Tokugawa Iyeyasu, also a famous name in Japan.
It was through his dealings with the Buddhists that Nobunaga made
himself best known in history. He had lived among them in his early
years, and had learned to hate and despise them. Having been educated in
the Shinto faith, the ancient religion of Japan, he looked on the
priests of Buddhism as enemies to the true faith. The destruction of
these powerful sectaries was, therefore, one of the great purposes of
his life.
Nobunaga had other reasons than these for destroying the power of the
bonzes. During the long period of the Ashikagas these cunning
ecclesiastics had risen to great power. Their monasteries had become
fortresses, with moats and strong stone walls. Internally these were
like arsenals, and an army could readily be equipped from them with
weapons, while many of the priests were daring leaders. During the civil
wars they served the side that promised them the most spoil or power.
Rivals among them often fought battles of their own, in which hundreds
were killed and towns and temples burned. So great were their authority,
their insolence, and their licentiousness that their existence had
become an evil in the land, and Nobunaga determined to teach them a
lesson they would not soon forget.
Of the monasteries, the most extensive was that of Hiyeizan, on Lake
Biwa. Within its territory lay thirteen valleys and more than five
hundred temples, shrines, and dwellings, the grounds of which were
adorned in the highest style of landscape art. The monks here were
numbered by thousands, with whom religious service was a gorgeous
ceremonial mockery, and who revelled in luxury, feasted on forbidden
viands, drank to inebriety, and indulged in every form of
licentiousness. They used their influence in rousing the clans to war,
from which they hoped to draw new spoils for their unrighteous
enjoyments, while screening themselves from danger behind the cloak of
the priesthood.
It was against this monastery that the wrath of Nobunaga was most
strongly aroused. Marching against it in 1571, he bade his generals set
it on fire. The officers stood aghast at the order, which seemed to them
likely to call down the vengeance of Heaven upon their heads. With
earnest protests they begged him not to do so unholy an act.
"Since this monastery was built, now nearly a thousand years ago," they
said, "it has been vigilant against the power of the spirits of evil. No
one has dared in all that time to lift a hand against these holy
buildings. Can you design to do so?"
"Yes," answered Nobunaga, sternly. "I have put down the villains that
distracted the country, and I intend to bring peace upon the land and
restore the power of the mikado. The bonzes have opposed my efforts and
aided my enemies. I sent them a messenger and gave them the chance to
act with loyalty, but they failed to listen to my words, and resisted
the army of the emperor, aiding the wicked robbers. Does not this make
them thieves and villains? If I let them now escape, this trouble will
continue forever, and I have allowed them to remain on this mountain
only that I might destroy them. That is not all. I have heard that these
priests fail to keep their own rules. They eat fish and the
strong-smelling vegetables which Buddha prohibited. They keep
concubines, and do not even read the sacred books of their faith. How
can such as these put down evil and preserve holiness? It is my command
that you surround and burn their dwellings and see that none of them
escape alive."
Thus bidden, the generals obeyed. The grounds of the monastery were
surrounded, and on the next day the temples and shrines were set on fire
and the soldiers remorselessly cut down all they met. The scene of
massacre and conflagration that ensued was awful to behold. None were
spared, neither young nor old, man, woman, nor child. The sword and
spear were wielded without mercy, and when the butchery ended not a soul
of the multitude of inmates was left alive.
One more great centre of Buddhism remained to be dealt with, that of the
monastery and temple of Houguanji, whose inmates had for years hated
Nobunaga and sided with his foes, while they made their stronghold the
hiding-place of his enemies. Finally, when some of his favorite captains
had been killed by lurking foes, who fled from pursuit into the
monastery, he determined to deal with this haunt of evil as he had dealt
with Hiyeizan.
But this place was not to be so easily taken. It was strongly fortified,
and could be captured only by siege. Within the five fortresses of which
it was composed were many thousands of priests and warriors, women and
children, and a still more frightful massacre than that of Hiyeizan was
threatened. The place was so closely surrounded that all escape seemed
cut off, but under cover of the darkness of night and amid a fierce
storm several thousand of the people made their way from one of the
forts. They failed, however, in their attempt, being pursued, overtaken,
and slaughtered. Soon after a junk laden with human ears and noses came
close under the walls of the castle, that the inmates might learn the
fate of their late friends.
Vigorously the siege went on. A sortie of the garrison was repelled, but
a number of Nobunaga's best officers were killed. After some two months
of effort, three of the five fortresses were in the assailants' hands,
and many thousands of the garrison had fallen or perished in the flames,
the odor of decaying bodies threatening to spread pestilence through
camp and castle alike.
In this perilous condition of affairs the mikado sent a number of his
high officials to persuade the garrison to yield. A conference was held
and a surrender agreed upon. The survivors were permitted to make their
way to other monasteries of their sect, and Nobunaga occupied the
castle, which is still held by the government. These two great blows
brought the power of the bonzes, for that age, to an end. In later years
some trouble was made by them, but Nobunaga had done his work so
thoroughly that there was little difficulty in keeping them under
control.
There remains only to tell the story of this great captain's end. He
died at Kioto, the victim of treason. Among his captains was one named
Akechi, a brave man, but proud. One day, in a moment of merriment,
Nobunaga put the head of the captain under his arm and played on it with
his fan, saying that he would make a drum of it. This pleasantry was not
to the taste of the haughty captain, who nursed a desire for
revenge,--behind which perhaps lay a wish to seize the power of the
chief.
The traitor did not have long to wait. Nobunaga had sent most of his
forces away to quell a rebellion, keeping but a small garrison. With
part of this Akechi was ordered to Kiushiu, and left the city with
seeming intention to obey. But he had not gone far when he called his
officers together, told them of his purpose to kill Nobunaga, and
promised them rich booty for their assistance in the plot. The officers
may have had reasons of their own for mutiny, for they readily
consented, and marched back to the city they had just left.
Nobunaga resided in the temple of Hounoji, apparently without a guard,
and to his surprise heard the tread of many feet and the clash of armor
without. Opening a window to learn what this portended, he was struck by
an arrow fired from the outer darkness. He saw at once what had
occurred, and that escape was impossible. There was but one way for a
hero to die. Setting fire to the temple, he killed himself, and before
many minutes the body of the great warrior was a charred corpse in the
ashes of his funeral pile.
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