Virtual Sakai 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #4 Kiun-ji Temple

 

     It is unknown when Kiun-ji Temple was founded and when and why it was abolished, but it was located somewhere around the Sakai 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #3 Senzo-in Temple and the #5 Joan-ji Temple.

     As the posthumous Buddhist name of Miyoshi Yukinaga (1458-1520), was Kiun, the temple could have had something to do with him.

     For your information, in 1467, Miyoshi Yukinaga (1458-1520) was only 9 years old.  Hosokawa Katsumoto (1430-1473) and Yamana Mochitoyo (1404-1473) started the Onin War, which lasted till 1477.  In the war, Hosokawa Shigeyuki (1434-1511) advanced to Kyoto to support Katsumoto in 1467.  Yukinaga was sent to Kyoto to work for Shigeyuki's camp.  At the age of 9?  Presumably, he functioned as a partner of male homosexuality.  After coming into his adolescence, he might have become rebellious.  He abruptly fled and came back to Awa Province in 1471.  He even shut himself in the hills of the Iya Valley.  Finally, he was brought back by Shigeyuki's son, Masayuki (1455-1488).

     After the Onin War, Yukinaga showed his talent.  Shigemoto stayed in Kyoto and so did Yukinaga.  After the war, the shogunate lost its authority.  Not only local samurai but even peasants became rebellious.  Yukinaga was good at enticing and organizing those with rebellious minds.  Soon, he was suspected to be a wirepuller of frequent uprisings of peasants, carriers, and other townspeople around Kyoto.

     On June 11th, 1485, Yukinaga tried to rescue his man who was captured as a robber.  The attempt was stopped by Hosokawa Masamoto (1466-1507), Katsumoto's son.  In August in the same year, an uprising broke out in Kyoto.  Yukinaga was suspected to be the ringleader of it, and his lodging was surrounded by Masamoto and Taga Takatada (1425-1486), a chief of the Police Department, on August 8th.  The information of the domiciliary visit, however, had been leaked to Yukinaga, and he had asked Masayuki for his protection the previous night.  Masamoto and Takatada then surrounded the residence of Masayuki.  He dodged their accusation, and Masamoto and Takatada withdrew.  Unbelievably, Yukinaga started provoking people just the following day, and robbed pawn shops of pledge on 14th.

     Masayuki's favor to Yukinaga made even some of Masayuki's vassals jealous, and they pulled out back to Awa Province.  In October, Masayuki and Yukinaga, far from regretting what they had done, went back to Awa Province and suppressed them.  After these incidents, Yukinaga became a man in the news in Kyoto.

     When Masayuki died young in 1488, his brother, Yoshiharu (1468-1495), succeeded to the Guardian Samurai of Awa Province, and Yukinaga became a vassal of him.  Meanwhile, Masamoto didn't have a son and adopted Yoshiharu's second son, Sumimoto (1489-1520), as the Awa-Hosokawa Family was second to Keicho-Hosokawa Family.  On February 19th, 1506, Yukinaga was dispatched to Kyoto as Sumimoto's butler to command an advance party.  Accordingly, he became a vassal of the Keicho-Hosokawa Family.  In August, he advanced to Yamato Province under Masamoto's order.  Yukinaga was as shrewd as ever.  He embarked on the conflicts over taxation powers as a butler of Sumimoto.  It meant he took risks for Sumimoto in power struggles among central powerful families, and that gave him important lessons.  Those experiences and his own potential to organize rebellious moods brought him up to be an important figure even in the central political circles.  His up-and-coming emergence, however, raised jealousies and envy among conventional central samurai of his peers, such as Hosokawa Hisaharu (?-1519), the head of Awaji-Hosokawa Family, and Kozai Motonaga (?-1507), who was dispatched from Masamoto to Sumimoto as another butler.

     Hosokawa Masamoto (1466-1507) brought the height of the Keicho-Hosokawa Family, but, absorbed in Shugen-do, Japanese mountain asceticism, neither married nor had his biological child.  He adopted 2 sons, and that brought about infighting within the Keicho-Hosokawa Family and their vassals, and, geopolitically speaking, the war around Kyoto.  In the meanwhile, Yukinaga grew up to be broad-minded and appealed even to local samurai not only around Kyoto in Yamashiro Province and Sakai in Izumi Province, but also in surrounding provinces, such as Settsu, Kawachi, and Omi Provinces.

     Masamoto first adopted Sumiyuki (1489-1507) on February 13th, 1491, the second son of Kujo Masamoto (1445-1516), the Prime Minister of the Imperial Court.  As Sumiyuki reached his puberty, the relationship between the two became strained, and Masamoto adopted Sumimoto (1489-1520) in May, 1503.  Sumimoto's father, Yoshiharu (1468-1495), was the head of the Awa-Hosokawa Family and the Guardian Samurai of Awa Province.

     The adoption of 2 boys caused distraction among the vassals of Masamoto.  His old vassals, such as Kozai Motonaga (?-1507) and Yakushiji Nagatada (?-1507), had believed Sumiyuki would become the next head of the Keicho-Hosokawa Family.  Yukinaga, on the other hand, supported Sumimoto as a matter of course.  On May 29th, 1507, Motonaga and Nagatada tempted Masamoto's secretary to assassinate him.  Sumimoto and Yukinaga were staying in Budha-ji Temple in Kyoto.  On 24th, Motonaga and Nagatada attacked the temple.  Yukinaga guarded Sumimoto, and fled to Aochi Castle in Omi Province.  Aochi Nagatsuna sent them further east, counting on Yamanaka Tametoshi in Koga County, Omi Province.

     Motonaga and Nagatada put Sumiyuki forward as the new head of the Keicho-Hosokawa Family.  Sumiyuki blatantly and unashamedly held the funeral of the late Masamoto, and was accepted as the head of Keicho-Hosokawa Family by Ashikaga Yoshizumi (1481-1511), the 11th Shogun.  However, other branch-Hosokawa Families were discontented with the situation.  Hosokawa Takakuni (1484-1531) from the Yashu-Hosokawa Family, who were based in Bicchu Province, successfully put those families together, and killed Motonaga and Nagatada on August 1st.  The following day, Yukinaga and Sumimoto returned to Kyoto.  Sumimoto met with Yoshizumi, and was approved of his inauguration to the head of the Keicho-Hosokawa Family.

     Takakuni, however, wasn't a simple person.  He claimed that he had been adopted by Masamoto, and looked for a chance to be the head of the Keicho-Hosokawa Family.

     A chance came along with the form of a pinch for Takakuni.  The 10th Shogun, Yoshitane (1466-1523), lived in exile in Suo Province under Ouchi Yoshioki (1477-1529).  The assassination of Masamoto and the disorder in the aftermath seemed a chance for Yoshitane and Yoshioki. On November 25th, they left Suo Province.  In December, they reached Bingo Province, which lay just west to Bicchu Province, where Takakuni was based.  For those in Kyoto, the advance of Yoshitane and Yoshioki should have looked like a pinch.  Actually, Sumimoto dispatched Takakuni to negotiate with Yoshioki over peace.  Takakuni, however, saw a chance in the pinch.  On March 17th, 1508, Takakuni abruptly insisted that he should visit Ise Shrine to pray for peace, and he actually did visit Ise Province, counting on his cousin, Niki Takanaga, there.  Accordingly, the peace negotiations collapsed.  Takakuni got a consensus with powerful and influential local samurai around Kyoto, such as Itami Motosuke (?-1529), Naito Sadamasa (?-1525), Kagawa Mototsuna, and Kozai Kunitada, that Yoshitane should take over Yoshizumi's shogunate.  They entered Kyoto on April 9th.  Under their pressure, Sumimoto and Yukinaga escaped to Koga County again, and Yoshizumi fled to Omi Province.  They joined Yoshitane and Yoshioki, and seized power together.  Takakuni was appointed to be the head of the Keicho-Hosokawa Family.

     On April 27th, 1508, Ashikaga Yoshitane (1466-1523) and Ouchi Yoshioki (1477-1529) landed on Sakai, Izumi Province.  On May 5th, Yoshitane approved Hosokawa Takakuni to be the head of the Keicho-Hosokawa Family.  On June 8th, Yoshitane and Yoshioki entered Kyoto.  On July 1st, Yoshitane became the Shogun, and rewarded Yoshioki for his military contribution with the Sakai-Minami Manor in Izumi Province.  Then Yoshioki revealed his nature, or the Ouchi Clan's character.

     The Ouchi Clan was a kind of a transit trader.  They had benefited from importing advanced and sophisticated products from the continent and selling them to the Royal Families, aristocratic families, temples, and shrines.  As the head of the clan, Yoshioki wasn't interested in a manor around Kyoto or Sakai.  He returned the manor, which had been misappropriated by samurai, to the original owner, Sokoku-ji Temple.  That, despite Yoshioki's intentions, opened Pandora's box.  For example, Todai-ji Temple demanded Yoshioki to give back their original manor in Suo Province.  Yoshioki's "goodwill" was favored by temples but provoked dissatisfaction among his local samurai.

     In a seesaw battle against Miyoshi Yukinaga, Yoshioki fought rather advantageously for 4 years.  His efforts paid.  The Ashikaga Shogunate authorized him to trade with the Ming Dynasty.  The authorization didn't satisfy Yoshioki's local samurai at all, but provoked Takakuni's hostility toward Yoshioki.  The hostility led to the Nimbo Incident in 1523.

     In 1513, Yoshioki's dissatisfied samurai withdrew from the battlefront in Kyoto and revolted against him especially in Aki Province, which was located along the Seto Inland Sea between Suo Province and Kyoto.  The resistance meant the instability of the sea lane in the Seto Inland Sea.  In the same year, along the Sea of Japan, Amago Tsunehisa (1458-1541) started invading Yoshioki's territory to capture silver mines.  In 1518, Yoshioki returned to Suo Province, and died in 1528.  His son, Yoshitaka (1507-1551), was cornered by his vassal, Sue Harukata (1521-1555), and killed himself along with his family.  The Ouchi Clan collapsed.

     Let's get back to the Miyoshi Family.  Seesaw battles went on between the 2 camps, yet Yukinaga gradually lagged behind.  On August 27th, 1509, Yukinaga's 2 elder sons, Nagahide and Yorizumi, were cornered and committed suicide.  On May 11th, 1520, Yukinaga and his 2 younger sons were killed.