ABSTRACT
NOBUNAGA'S STRATAGEM FOR SUBJUGATION.-In 1577 Oda Nobunaga was promoted Minister of the Right (the lord Keeper of the Seal) and at the same time General of the Right. In 1581 he held a parade of chargers in Kyoto, and made it public that he had set up the Feudal Government there, taking the place of Ashikaga. Although he had already subjugated Takeda of Kai Province and Kitabatake of Ise Province, and swept away his opponnets in Kinki, yet there were still not a few who had not submitted. In Echigo, Kenshin Uesugi had died of illness, but his son Kagekatsu was supreme lip in the north. In the eastern provinces Hojo was rising to power. In Shikoku, Motochika Chosokabe was extremely popular, and Terumoto Mori was ruling over the ten provinces of Sanyo and Sanin. In Kyushu the Shimazu and Otomo families were entirely independent. In the north-east the powerful families of Satake and Date were not yet subservient to the central administration. In the provinces near Kyoto what most worried Nobunaga was the Hongwanji Temple of Osaka, which was still very strong and inclined to make common cause with Mori, and Nobunaga feared that unless the I-Iongwanji Temple was brought under control there would be danger of the resuscitation of the remnant of the Miyoshi and Ashikaga families, who were in hiding near Kyoto. The Hongwanji Temple owed its security largely to the sea power of the lords in the middle provinces and Shikoku and to the backing of the Mori family. Nobunaga appointed Hashiba Hideyoshi, Governor-General of the middle provinces, to subjugate the south-west; Shibata Katsuie, Governor-General of Hokuriku, to subdue the north; and settled Takigawa Kazumasu at Kozuke to lead the eastern provinces. It was important to cut off the support given to the Hongwanji Temple from the local magnates in Shikoku, the middle provinces, and the neighbouring islands, and Kuki Yoshitaka was entrusted with this, with Noda and Fukushima in Settsu Province, as the naval base of operations. Yoshitaka once assembled his whole fleet at Sakai, and defeated every attempt to bring in provisions to the Hongwanji Temple at Osaka, where they became very scarce. Having succeeded in the naval policy, Nobunaga made up his mind to exterminate the Mori family, the root of all the opposition to him; for in 1573 ex-Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki fled from
Kyoto and, after roaming about many provinces, went stealthily to Bingo Province, and entrusted to Mori Terumoto the restoration of his former power. As a result, Mori combined with the Hongwanji Temple and made common cause with the malcontents in the provinces around Kyoto. On Nobunaga's orders Hideyoshi entered Harima and captured the castle of Miki, the outpost of the Mori clan.
