, and in, 1529, its lord-abbot, Kokyo, entered
Kaga, calling himself the "son of heaven" (Emperor) and assigning to
his steward, Shimoma Yorihide, the title of shogun. This was called
the "great revolt" (dai-ikki), and the movement of opposition
provoked by it was termed the "small revolt" (sho-ikki). Again
recourse was had to the most cruel methods. Men's houses were robbed
and burned simply because their inmates stood aloof from the
insurrection. Just at that time the septs of Hosokawa and Miyoshi
were engaged in a fierce struggle for supremacy. Kokyo threw in his
lot with Hosokawa Harumoto, and, at the head of fifty thousand
troops, attacked and killed Miyoshi Motonaga. Very soon, however, the
Hosokawa chief fell out with his cassocked allies. But he did not
venture to take the field against them single handed. The priests of
the twenty-one Nichiren temples in Kyoto, old enemies of the Ikko,
were incited to attack the Hongwan-ji in Osaka. This is known in
history as the Hokke-ikki, Hokke-shu being the name of the Nichiren
sect. Hiei-zan was involved in the attack, but the warlike monks of
Enryaku-ji replied by pouring down into the capital, burning the
twenty-one temples of the Nichiren and butchering three thousand of
their priests. Such were the ways of the Buddhists in the Sengoku
period.

THE KWANTO

During the Sengoku period (1490-1600) the Japanese empire may be
compared to a seething cauldron, the bubbles that unceasingly rose to
the surface disappearing almost as soon as they emerged, or uniting
into groups with more or less semblance of permanence. To follow in
detail these superficial changes would be a task equally interminable
and fruitless. They will therefore be traced here in the merest
outline, except in cases where large results or national effects are
concerned. The group of eight provinces called collectively Kwanto
first claims attention as the region where all the great captains and
statesmen of the age had their origin and found their chief sphere of
action. It has been seen that the fifth Ashikaga kwanryo, Shigeuji,
driven out of Kamakura, took refuge at Koga in Shimotsuke; that he
was thenceforth known as Koga Kubo; that the Muromachi shogun,
Yoshimasa, then sent his younger brother, Masatomo, to rule in the
Kwanto; that he established his headquarters at Horigoe in Izu, and
that he was officially termed Horigoe Gosho. His chief retainers were
the two Uesugi families--distinguished as Ogiga