User:Soranin/Sandbox4
Groups
Iga ikki
Iga at this time is ruled by an independent league or ikki that did not recognize any daimyo's hegemony and even gone so far as to expel the military governor of the province that had been appointed by the Ashkaga.[1]
we have the names of a couple of the senior leaders, if you will, but it really was more of a collective than any hierarchical organization that we would associate with like there being a daimyo and samurai underneath him and so forth. That's not to say that there wasn't a hierarchy there was, but it's really hard to just name one person as an acting figure on the Iga side of things. And part of this is because of the way that they constructed it. This is born out of sort of the chaos resulting in the wake of the Onin War of 1467 to 1477.[1]
In response to this as a way to limit internal conflict in their own ranks, in 1494 we see two documents. They're not quite constitutions in the way that we would think of it, but they kind of form the rules for local life within Iga as a community. The first one is a document signed by 350 commoners, peasants, villagers, and so forth. And it's an agreement to abide by specific rules that limit conflict over rice paddy land, access to forests, mountains, and fields, and it kind of gives a general code of conduct. So in the absence of authority coming from the center, they decide to create their own sort of rules for them to live by. And then later on that same year, we see another document signed by 46 people representing families of note from Iga Province.[1]
So these 46 families sign an oath, vowing not to fight over taxes or the collection thereof to work together to prevent insubordination of the peasants underneath them. And these two groups form a united front in coordination to maintain local order and peace and limit the amount of violence, whether it's internal or whether it's coming from external sources like bandits or even larger warrior organizations like Daimyo from a neighboring province who wants to move in. [...] There is a hierarchy. There are the upper class. Those 46 samurai families are in charge and so forth. But it is much more of a collective, we driven organization than certainly the Daimyo houses that we are normally associated with this period. Other leagues like this have risen up in other places at this time, fairly common in the absence of central authority for locals to take measures to protect themselves. But most other places, they didn't last very long [...] So it was much easier for the Iga Iki to keep outsiders out than it would have been for other similar organizations, which is why they lasted as long as they did.[1]
Some advantages that the Iga ikki had. One is this long experience with unconventional warfare, we'll say. Another is that because of their makeup, it's not quite egalitarian or democratic in the way that we would think of it, but they're led by lower level warriors, localized power base holding warriors, but they integrate the commoner population, if you will, into their organization. Often you'll hear people talk about the Iga Shinobi clan or ninja clan or something like that. And that's misleading because this wasn't a family based organization in the way that we think of like the Oda being a military and political entity organized around the Oda family. That's not what this was, but they were able to conscript almost the members of the community from all levels, give them military training and utilize them in ways that we don't necessarily see to the same extent in other locations. So it wasn't just these 46 families that signed the oath document saying that they would work together and their household warriors. It was a mobilization of the entire community in essence to resist external aggression.[1]
Ikkō-ikki
Another group that around this time rises up to challenge his authority and one that will probably his longest running enemy is what's known as the Ikkō-ikki or the Ikko League. This was a confederation of followers of the true Pure Land Sept of Buddhism. And its headquarters was the Ishiyama Hongan-ji, which was located in what is now present day Osaka. But it had groups of adherents called these Ikki or leagues scattered throughout the provinces of central Japan. And in 1570, Nobunaga starts a war with them because the self-defense groups, these Ikki and the Ishiyama Hongan-ji itself resisted political and military control by local warrior rule. In fact, in 1486, the Ikko Ikki of Kaga Province overthrew the local dainyo and ruled the province without any samurai rule for almost 100 years.[2]
For 10 years until 1580, he's in this constant on and off war with the Ishiyama Hongan-ji and their ikko followers in various locations throughout the provinces. And they're really the linchpin of the various coalitions that are opposing Nobunaga. You know, at this point, these are kind of like the main enemies that he's looking at.[2]
But in 1571, he realizes that the only way to solve his problem of encirclement is to break kind of the circle. So he starts with Mount Hiei, the Enuryakuchi temple complex that had given refuge to his enemies. And in the fall, he brings them out and has his troops advance up deliberately. And according to eyewitness accounts from the time that are written down, his troops are killing anything that's alive, whether it be monks, laymen, women, children, reportedly even every animal that's on the mountain. And they burn almost every building of this massive temple complex.[2]
The Ikko-ikki finally surrenders through the agency of the Court, the court noble is sent by the emperor to broker a settlement and a surrender by the Ishiyama Hongan-ji, which ends that.[2]