shimitsu, Takeda
Harunobu (1521-1573) took the field against his father, who had
planned to disinherit him in favour of his younger brother. Gaining
the victory, Harunobu came into control of the province of Kai, which
had long been the seat of the Takeda family. This daimyo, commonly
spoken of as Takeda Shingen, the latter being the name he took on
receiving the tonsure, ranks among Japan's six great captains of the
sixteenth century, the roll reading thus:

Takeda Shingen (1521-1573)

Uesugi Kenshin (1530-1578)

Hojo Ujimasa (1538-1590)

Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582)

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598)

Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616)

The second of the above, Uesugi Kenshin, was not member of the great
Uesugi family which took such an important part in the affairs of the
Kwanto. He belonged to the Nagao, which originally stood in a
relation of vassalage to the Yamanouchi branch of the Uesugi in
Echigo, and his father attained an independent position. Kagetora, as
Kenshin was called in his youth, found himself engaged in his
twenty-first year in a contest with his elder brother, whom he
killed, and, by way of penance for the fratricide, he took the
tonsure under the name of Kenshin and would have retired from the
world had not his generals insisted on his remaining in command. It
was at this time that Kenshin became a member of the Uesugi sept. In
1505, the two branches of the Kwanto Uesugi joined hands against
their common enemy, Hojo Soun, and from that time the contest was
continued until 1551, when Ujiyasu, grandson of Soun, drove Uesugi
Norimasa from his castle of Hirai in Kotsuke. The vanquished general
fled to Echigo to seek succour from his family's old-time vassal,
Nagao Kagetora, already renowned under the name of Kenshin. Norimasa
bestowed the office of kwanryo as well as the uji of Uesugi on
Kenshin, who thenceforth became known as Uesugi Kenshin, and who thus
constituted himself the foe of the Hojo. At a somewhat earlier date,
Kenshin had been similarly supplicated by Murakami Yoshikiyo, whose
castle was at Kuzuo in Shinano, whence he had been driven by Takeda
Shingen.

ENGRAVING: UESUGI KENSHIN

It thus fell out that Uesugi Kenshin had for enemies the two captains
of highest renown in his era, Hojo Ujimasa and Takeda Shingen. This
order of antagonism had far-reaching effects. For Kenshin's ambition
was to become master of the whole Kwanto, under pretence of
re-es