The Gosannen War (後三年合戦, ''gosannen kassen''), also known as the Later Three-Year War, was fought in the late 1080s in Japan's

Mutsu Province was an old province of Japan in the area of Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori Prefectures and the municipalities of Kazuno and Kosaka in Akita Prefecture. Mutsu Province is also known as or . The term is often used to refer to the comb ...

on the island of

Honshū , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separa ...

History

The Gosannen War was part of a long struggle for power within the warrior clans of the time. The ''Gosannen kassen'' arose because of a series of quarrels within the Kiyohara clan (sometimes referred to as "Kiyowara"). The long-standing disturbances were intractable. When Minamoto no Yoshiie, who became Governor of Mutsu province in 1083, tried to calm the fighting which continued between

Kiyohara no Masahira The was a powerful clan of the far north of Japan during the Heian period, descended from Prince Toneri, son of Emperor Tenmu (631–686). Kiyohara no Fusanori (9th century) had two sons: the elder was the ancestor of the samurai branch fam ...

, Iehira, and Narihira. Negotiations were not successful; and so Yoshiie used his own forces to stop the fighting. He was helped by

Fujiwara no Kiyohira was a samurai of mixed Japanese-Emishi parentage of the late Heian period (794–1185), who was the founder of the Hiraizumi or Northern Fujiwara dynasty that ruled Northern Japan from about 1100 to 1189. Biography Kiyohira was the son of Fuji ...

. In the end, Iehira and Narihira were killed. During the Siege of Kanezawa, 1086–1089, Yoshiie avoided an ambush by noticing a flock of birds take flight from a forest.

In art

Much of the war is depicted in an '' e-maki'' narrative handscroll, the ''Gosannen Kassen E-maki'', which was created in 1171.Varley, p. 41. The artwork is owned today by the

Watanabe Museum Watanabe ( and other variantsSee #Miscellaneous) is a Japanese surname derived from the noble and samurai Watanabe clan, a branch of the Minamoto clan, descending from the Emperor Saga (786-842), the 52nd Emperor of Japan, and refers to a locat ...

Tottori city is the capital and the largest city of Tottori Prefecture in the Chūgoku region of Japan. Within Japan the city is best known for its sand dunes which are a popular tourist attraction, drawing visitors from outside the prefecture. The sand du ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

History

In art

See also

References

Further reading