was a

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They ...

who fought for the Southern Court in Japan's Nanboku-chō Wars, and is famed for his skills as a leader and military strategist, though he later sought a diplomatic solution and was regarded a traitor by many of his comrades. He was the brother of Kusunoki Masatsura and Kusunoki Masatoki, and son of

Kusunoki Masashige was a Japanese samurai of the Kamakura period remembered as the ideal of samurai loyalty. Kusunoki fought for Emperor Go-Daigo in the Genkō War to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate and restore power in Japan to the Imperial Court. Kusunoki ...

Military career

Alongside his brother Masatsura,

Nitta Yoshisada was a samurai lord of the Nanboku-chō period Japan. He was the head of the Nitta clan in the early fourteenth century, and supported the Southern Court of Emperor Go-Daigo in the Nanboku-chō period. He famously marched on Kamakura, besieging ...

and a number of other great generals, he battled the Ashikaga forces in Kamakura, and a number of other occasions, including the defense of Kyoto; he also headed for a time the loyalist base at Tōjō in

Kawachi province was a province of Japan in the eastern part of modern Osaka Prefecture. It originally held the southwestern area that was split off into Izumi Province. It was also known as . Geography The area was radically different in the past, with Kawac ...

. Following the death of his brothers at the 1348

battle of Shijōnawate The 1348 Battle of Shijōnawate () was a battle of the Nanboku-chō period of Japanese history, and took place in Yoshino, Nara. It was fought between the armies of the Northern and Southern Court of Japan. Overview On February 4, 1348, the wa ...

, Masanori continued to oppose the armies of the

Northern Court The , also known as the Ashikaga Pretenders or Northern Pretenders, were a set of six pretenders to the throne of Japan during the Nanboku-chō period from 1336 through 1392. The present Imperial House of Japan is descended from the Northern Cou ...

Ashikaga clan The was a prominent Japanese samurai clan which established the Muromachi shogunate and ruled Japan from roughly 1333 to 1573. The Ashikaga were descended from a branch of the Minamoto clan, deriving originally from the town of Ashikaga ...

pretenders to the throne. In 1352, he helped lead Loyalist forces in the capture of Kyoto. In 1353, as Yamana Tokiuji, a recent convert to the loyalist cause, approached the capital, Masanori led a force to seize certain neighboring areas such as Tennōji and Yahata, while other forces mobilized in other directions. In July of that year, he pressed north from Yahata, towards Kyoto, burning towns as he went, while Yamana approached from Nishiyama to the west of the city. Though they managed to seize the capital, Shōgun

Ashikaga Yoshiakira was the second '' shōgun'' of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned from 1358 to 1367 during the Muromachi period of Japan. Yoshiakira was the son of the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Muromachi shogunate, Ashikaga Takauji. His mother was ...

escaped, and the loyalists were driven from the city the following month. Regrouping and continuing the war, Masanori fought Yoshiakira again two years later, at Kaminami, just west of Yamazaki, where both sides suffered heavy losses, and Masanori and Yamana were eventually forced to retreat. Several years later, Masanori defended the fortress at Akasaka, his father's birthplace, but ultimately withdrew; the fact that he was not pursued, and that the Northern Court army did not engage in further actions in the nearby areas immediately afterwards is noted as strange by

George Bailey Sansom Sir George Bailey Sansom (28 November 1883 – 8 March 1965) was a British diplomat and historian of pre-modern Japan, particularly noted for his historical surveys and his attention to Japanese society and culture. Early life Sansom was born ...

, but he offers no explanation. In 1369, after taking Kyoto and being forced out for the fourth time, Masanori gave up, and sought a diplomatic solution; however, despite the looming defeat of the Southern Court, his allies behaved in the negotiations as though they had the upper hand, and the shogunate (the Northern Court) was suing for peace. As a result, the shogunate representatives quickly grew impatient and nonplussed, and rejected the negotiations outright. Considered a traitor by his family and Southern Court sympathizers at Court, Masanori continued along his path nevertheless, weary of battle and uncaring as to the opinions of those who had not laid their own lives on the line in battle year after year. Peace agreements were reached soon afterwards, largely as a result of the mutual respect garnered by Masanori and

Hosokawa Yoriyuki was a samurai of the Hosokawa clan, and prominent government minister under the Ashikaga shogunate, serving as Kyoto Kanrei (Shōgun's Deputy in Kyoto) from 1367 to 1379. The first to hold this post, he solidified the power of the shogunate, as ...

, a shogunate official, for one another. Though this peace would prove temporary and unstable, it marked the end of Masanori's time as a strategist and general. Surviving documents in the Tannowa collection reveal that Kusunoki Masanori was left-handed.

References

External links

Tannowa Collection: The Kyoto Princeton Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kusunoki, Masanori 1390 deaths Samurai Year of birth unknown

Military career

References

Further reading

External links