ABSTRACT
Military conflicts propelled historical change and punctuated most of the historical periods of premodern Japan. The civil or "public" wars that so often demarcate eras of historical change were initiated by edicts of or princes. These public and private wars entailed damage to property and the injury and deaths of participants, but the need to supply armies constituted the greatest systemic demand on state and society. Surviving documents concerning the wars of the 1180s, for example, reveal very little about the conflict per se, save for warrior depredation of "commissariat rice" for provisions. Surprisingly few reliable sources survive for the battles of the 1180s, commonly known as the Genpei Wars. The Kakuichi text of 1371, the most famous version of The Tale of the Heike, which recounts the battles of 1180-1185, contains fabrications. The fierce battles of 1600 and 1615 provided Japan with a modicum of stability and the enforced peace of the Tokugawa era.
