Virtual Miura 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #3 Renjo-in Temple

      The wife of Miura Yoshiatsu (1451-1516) built a small hermitage, Renjo-in Hermitage, to pray for the repose of her late husband after he was killed as the last head of the clan and as the leader of the beseiged army in the Arai Castle.  The main deity, the image of Cintamanicakra, who usually has 6 arms and holds chintamani (a wish-fulfilling jewel) in one of the six, was believed to have been carved by Genshin (942-1017), and was the guardian Buddhist image of Yoshiatsu.

     Who were the Miura Clan, and by whom were they killed?

     Taira Takamochi (?-?), a great grandson of Emperor Kanmu (737-806), left the Imperial Family, became a subject, and moved from Kyoto to Kazusa Province as the vice-governor in 889.  His son, Yoshibumi (?-?), inhabited in Muraoka Village, somewhere in Kanto.  Yoshibumi’s grandson, Tamemichi (1010?-1083?), was awarded Miura County in Sagami Province from Minamoto Yoshiyori (988-1075).  Henceforth, they called themselves Miura.

     Since then, the Miura Clan survived countless wars, battles, fights, and conflicts until they were finally destroyed by the Later Hojo Clan in 1516.  It was this last three years that we can find evidence that the clan had strong enough sea forces to hold their castle on a tiny island just off the tip of Miura Peninsula.

     In 1180, when Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-1199) raised an army to fight the Taira Clan, all the Miura Clan banded together to support Yoritomo.  In the first battle at the foot of Mt. Ishibashi, one clan member, Sanada Yoshitada (1155-1180), was killed.  The clan’s stronghold, Kinugasa Castle, was attacked by Hatakeyama Shigetada (1164-1205), and Miura Yoshiaki (1092-1180), Tameyoshi’s great great grandson, was killed in the battle.  His son, Yoshizumi (1127-1200), fled across the sea to Awa Province, taking almost the same route that Yamato Takeru, an ancient Japanese legendary prince, took on his conquest of the eastern land.  This coincidence implies that powerful enough sea people had been there since ancient times.

     About half a century after the establishment of the Kamakura Shogunate, the Miura Clan lost conspiratorial power struggles against the Hojo Clan, and its 260 samurais and over 240 followers and family members committed a mass suicide in front of Yoritomo’s portrait painting enshrined in Hokke-do Temple in Kamakura.

     At the end of the Kamakura Shogunate, Miura Tokitsugu (?-1335) followed Ashikaga Takauji (1305-1358), who would later be the first shogun of the Muromachi Shogunate in 1336.  In 1333, the Kamakura Shogunate collapsed, and Tokitsugu was awarded with steward samurai positions in Musashi and Sagami Provinces.  However, when Hojo Tokiyuki (?-1353), the son of Takatoki (1303-1333), the last Regent of the Kamakura Shogunate, took arms against Takauji, Tokitsugu took Tokiyuki’s side only to be defeated by Takauji and to be slashed to death.  Tokitsugu was succeeded by his son, Takatsugu (?-1339), who had taken Takauji’s side.

     In 1416, when one third of the Muromachi Era had passed, the Deputy Shogun in Kamakura, Ashikaga Mochiuji (1398-1439), and his butler, Uesugi Zenshu (?-1417), got at war, Miura Takaaki (?-?) took Mochiuji’s side.  Mochiuji won, but, 10 years later, Takaaki was deprived of the position of the Sagami Province Guardian Samurai by Mochiuji.

    For a couple of more times, the Miura Clan betrayed others to survive, and survived from being betrayed, and finally had to face a new enemy during the Warring States Period; Ise Shinkuro (1432-1519).  He came from Kyoto to Suruga Province in 1469, which lay east to Sagami Province, to make a warring-state-period hero, and actually carried out his plan.  In 1493, he first started unifying Izu Province, which lay between Suruga and Sagami Provinces, and then raided Sagami Province.  In 1512, he reached Miura County, the easternmost part of the Sagami Province.

     In 1512, Ise Shinkuro (1432-1519) started his full-scale attack against the Miura Clan.  He first made a surprise attack on Okazaki Castle, which was located near the central eastern part of Sagami Province.  Miura Yoshiatsu (1451?-1516), who had been adopted by Tokitaka (1416-1494), who was the grandson of Takaaki (?-?), was forced to retreat to Sumiyoshi Castle, which was just at the root of Miura Peninsula.  Fortress by fortress, Yoshiatsu ran up withdrawals, only to hold the castle at the tip of the Peninsula; at Arai castle.

     Nevertheless, Yoshiatsu held the castle for over 3 years with the help of Miura Sea Forces.  They turned away Shinkuro’s landing forces many times, supplied military provisions and arms, and kept the contact with the Satomi Clan in Awa Province.

     In 1516, Shinkuro succeeded in cutting the castle up from the sea forces.  Yoshiatsu hopelessly announced to his men, “Whoever want to escape, just escape.  Whoever want to die, die in battle and let your names go down in history.”  With the words, he and his men opened the castle gate, and charged into the enemy.  After a short attack, some of them came back to the castle and committed harakiri suicides in their own time.  Yoshiatsu composed a death poem, “The defeating and the defeated are all earthenware.  Once broken, they are all back in dirt.”

     The wife of Miura Yoshiatsu was the daughter of Yokosuka Tsurahide.  The Yokosuka Family belonged to the Miura Clan, but Tsurahide broke with Yoshiatsu and  went over to Ise Shinkuro.  Tsurahide survived, and led the leftover of the Miura Sea Forces, which were then called the Misaki 10 Families.  And the wife of Yoshiatsu survived too, maybe as the daughter of Yoshitsura.  Renjo-in Temple has its own tanka poem as a member of Miura 33 Kannon Pilgrimage.

Past villages

Past fields

Will Avalokitesvara lead me to the far afterlife?

     Where did the wife go after her death?

Address: 13-14 Haramachi, Miura, Kanagawa 238-0223

Phone: 046-881-3572