Virtual New Mutsu 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #19 Shinzan Kannon-do Hall

 

     Shinzan Kannon-do Hall is located about 1.5 kilometers north-north-west of Hoji-in Temple.  It is unknown when the hall was founded and why it belongs to Hoji-in Temple.

     The Southern Courts' forces were expelled from Mutsu Province in 1353.  Peace at last?  The reality is always ironical, and 4 guardian samurai coexisted in the province: Kira Mitsuie, Nihonmatsu Kuniakira, Ishido Yoshimoto (?-1354), and Shiba Iekane (1308-1356).  They let county steward samurai to carry out maintenance of the public order and compulsory execution to win the support of local powerful samurai.  They had bloody battles in short. 

     In 1379, infighting within the central shogunate broke out.  Ashikaga Ujimitsu (1359-1398), the 2nd Kanto Deputy Shogun, had an ambition to become a central shogun and tried to advance to Kyoto.  Uesugi Noriharu (?-1379), the Regent of the Kanto Deputy Shogunate, tried to persuade him not to, and finally killed himself to stop him on March 7th.  Ujimitsu still appointed Noriharu's brother, Norimasa (1335-1394), as the general of the Kanto Deputy Shogunate Army on the 21st of the same month.  Norimasa left Kamakura but stopped in Izu Province.  Ujimitsu finally gave up his ambition for the time being.  Norimasa became the next Regent on April 15th, and returned to Kamakura on the 28th of the same month.  The relationship between the deputy shogun and the regent became delicate.

     In 1392, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), the third Shogun of the Ashikaga Shogunate, unified the Southern and Northern Courts, and compromised with Ujimitsu.  Mutsu Province became under the control of the Kanto Deputy Shogunate.  Peace at last?  The central shogunate soon tried to establish direct master-servant relationships with powerful samurai in Mutsu, bypassing the Kanto Deputy Shogunate.

     In the Muromachi Period, whose central government was located at Muromachi in Kyoto, the Kanto area was half-independent and was governed by the regional government in Kamakura, which was ruled by the Kanto Deputy Shogun.  Both the central shoguns and the Kanto deputy shoguns were from the Ashikaga Clan.  The both rather rivaled each other and some Kanto deputy shoguns even tried to become central shoguns.

     To check the rivaling attempts, the central shoguns appointed some powerful samurai not only in the Kanto Region but also In Mutsu and Dewa Provinces, which were under the control of the Kanto Deputy Shogunate, to be directly feudatory to them.

     Those directly feudal to the central shoguns were called Kyoto Servants.  Although they resided within the jurisdiction of the Kanto Deputy Shogun, they neither had to serve the Kamakura office nor were supposed to be under the command of the Kanto Deputy Shogun.  

     The Kyoto Servants in Mutsu Province included the Date, Shina, Nambu, Shirakawa-Yuki, Iwaki, Iwahashi, Shibeha, Soma, and Shibeha (with different Chinese characters from the previous Shibeha) Families.  They often took anti-Kanto-Deputy-Shogun movements, and the central shogunate criticized them ostensibly but was actually pulling strings.  That, of course, irritated the Kanto Deputy Shoguns.  In 1400, the central shogunate appointed Osaki Yoshimochi (?-1400) to be a director general of Mutsu Province.  The appointment caused the deputy shogunate's attack on Yoshimochi, who soon killed himself.

     However, some county-level local samurai could have taken advantage of the struggle between the central and Kanto regional shoguns and maximized their revenues.

     It is unknown who ruled Kazawa Village in those days.  Hoji-in Temple was founded by Priest Myoyu in 1393, about 2 centuries after Shinzan Kannon-do Hall was organized into the New Mutsu 33 Kannon Pilgrimage in 1123.

Address: Nagasawamae-46 Hanaizumicho Kazawa, Ichinoseki, Iwate 029-3102

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Hoji-in Temple

Address: Oyanagi-61 Hanaizumicho Kazawa, Ichinoseki, Iwate 029-3102

Phone: 0191-82-3716