his little gem of thought has gleamed on Tadanori's memory through
all the centuries and has brought vicarious fame even to his slayer,
Tadazumi. Still more profoundly is Japanese sympathy moved by the
episode of Taira no Atsumori and Kumagaye Naozane. Atsumori, a
stripling of fifteen, was seized by Naozane, a stalwart warrior on
the Minamoto side. When Naozane tore off the boy's helmet,
preparatory to beheading him, and saw a young face vividly recalling
his own son who had perished early in the fight, he was moved with
compassion and would fain have stayed his hand. To have done so,
however, would merely have been to reserve Atsumori for a crueller
death. He explained his scruples and his sorrows to the boy, who
submitted to his fate with calm courage. But Naozane vowed never to
wield weapon again. He sent Atsumori's head and a flute found on his
person to the youth's father, Tsunemori, and he himself entered the
priesthood, devoting the remaining years of his life to prayers for
the soul of the ill-fated lad. Such incidents do not find a usual
place in the pages of history, but they contribute to the
interpretation of a nation's character.

BATTLE OF YASHIMA

The battle of Ichi-no-tani was not by any means conclusive. It drove
the Taira out of Harima and the four provinces on the immediate west
of the latter, but it did not disturb them in Shikoku or Kyushu, nor
did it in any way cripple the great fleet which gave them a signal
advantage. In these newly won provinces Yoritomo placed military
governors and nominated to these posts Doi Sanehira and Kajiwara
Kagetoki, heroes, respectively, of the cryptomeria forest and the
hollow tree. But this contributed little to the solution of the vital
problem, how to get at the Taira in Shikoku and in Kyushu. Noriyori
returned to Kamakura to consult Yoritomo, but the latter and his
military advisers could not plan anything except the obvious course
of marching an army from Harima westward to the Strait of
Shimonoseki, and thereafter collecting boats to carry it across to
Kyushu. That, however, was plainly defective strategy. It left the
flank of the westward-marching troops constantly exposed to attack
from the coast where the Taira fleet had full command of the sea; it
invited enterprises against the rear of the troops from the enemy's
position at Yashima in Shikoku, and it assumed the possibility of
crossing the Strait of Shimonoseki in the presence of a greatly
superior nav