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Mōri Motonari
was a prominent ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) in the western Chūgoku region of Japan during the Sengoku period of the 16th century. The Mōri clan claimed descent from Ōe no Hiromoto (大江広元), an adviser to Minamoto no Yoritomo. Motonari was called the "Beggar Prince". He was known as a great strategist who began as a small local warlord ('' jizamurai'') of Aki Province and extended his clan's power to nearly all of the Chūgoku region through war, marriage, adoption and assassination. Sandwiched between the powerful Amago and Ōuchi clans, Motonari led his clan by carefully balancing actions and diplomacy. Eventually, Motonari succeeded in defeating both and controlled the entire Chūgoku region. In his later years, he crushed the Ōtomo clan of Bungo Province in Kyūshū. Motonari ruled from Yoshida-Kōriyama Castle, the clan's main bastion since the early 14th century. His descendants became lords of the Chōshū Domain. Early life Mōri Motonari was born on April 1 ...
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List Of Japanese Court Ranks, Positions And Hereditary Titles
The court ranks of Japan, also known in Japanese as ''ikai'' (位階), are indications of an individual's court rank in Japan based on the system of the state. ''Ikai'' as a system was originally used in the Ritsuryo system, which was the political administration system used in ancient China, and the indication of the rank of bureaucrats and officials in countries that inherited (class system). Currently, the Japanese court ranks and titles are now one of the types of honours conferred to those who have held government posts for a long time and to those who have made distinguished achievements. In recent times, most appointments, if not all, are offered posthumously. A recent recipient of such a court rank is the late former prime minister Shinzo Abe Shinzo Abe ( ; ja, 安倍 晋三, Hepburn: , ; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and agai ...
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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 toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans an archipelago of 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa. Tokyo is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the most densely populated and urbanized. About three-fourths of the country's terrain is mountainous, concentrating its population of 123.2 million on narrow coastal plains. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most p ...
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Chūgoku Region
The , also known as the region, is the westernmost region of Honshū, the largest island of Japan. It consists of the prefectures of Hiroshima, Okayama, Shimane, Tottori, and Yamaguchi. In 2010, it had a population of 7,563,428. History ''Chūgoku'' literally means "middle country", but the origin of the name is unclear. Historically, Japan was divided into a number of provinces called ''koku'', which were in turn classified according to both their power and their distances from the administrative center in Kansai. Under the latter classification, most provinces are divided into , , and . Therefore, one explanation is that ''Chūgoku'' was originally used to refer to the collection of "middle countries" to the west of the capital. However, only five (fewer than half) of the provinces normally considered part of Chūgoku region were in fact classified as middle countries, and the term never applied to the many middle countries to the east of Kansai. Therefore, an alternative ex ...
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Daimyō
were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominally to the emperor and the ''kuge''. In the term, means 'large', and stands for , meaning 'private land'. From the ''shugo'' of the Muromachi period through the Sengoku to the ''daimyo'' of the Edo period, the rank had a long and varied history. The backgrounds of ''daimyo'' also varied considerably; while some ''daimyo'' clans, notably the Mōri, Shimazu and Hosokawa, were cadet branches of the Imperial family or were descended from the ''kuge'', other ''daimyo'' were promoted from the ranks of the samurai, notably during the Edo period. ''Daimyo'' often hired samurai to guard their land, and they paid the samurai in land or food as relatively few could afford to pay samurai in money. The ''daimyo'' era ended soon after the Meiji Restora ...
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Battle Of Tatarahama (1569)
The 1569 Battle of Tatarahama was part of the struggles between the Ōtomo and Mōri samurai clans during Japan's Sengoku period, for control of the island of Kyūshū. History The battle took place in the aftermath of a successful siege by the Mōri of the Ōtomo's Tachibana castle, which sat just outside the boundaries of today's Fukuoka City. The two armies met on the shores of Hakata Bay, at Tatarahama, but were evenly matched, and both retreated. In order to end the deadlock, the Ōtomo made an alliance with the Amago clan. The Mōri clan's battles with this larger allied force occupied it to such an extent that Yamanaka Yukimori and Amago Katsuhisa, as part of their arrangement with the Ōtomo, were able to take Izumo province, some distance away on Honshū, and that the Mōri became pressured into abandoning Tachibana. References *''This article's content is derived largely from that on the corresponding article on the Japanese Wikipedia.'' See also * Battle of ...
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Siege Of Tachibana
The 1569 siege of Tachibana was one of many battles fought for control of the island of Kyūshū during Japan's Sengoku period. Mōri Motonari led the assault on the Ōtomo clan's Tachibana castle, which was held by Hetsugi Akitsura. The Mōri, who were one of the few Sengoku-period clans to make effective or extensive use of artillery, used cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder du ...s to secure their victory. References See also * Battle of Tatarahama (1569) {{coord missing, Japan Mōri clan Tachibana Tachibana 1569 in Japan Conflicts in 1569 ...
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Gassantoda Castle
Gassantoda Castle (月山富田城, ''Gassantoda-jō'') was a Japanese castle located in Yasugi, Shimane Prefecture. History It is believed the castle was built in the Heian period but this is unclear. Later the castle served as the seat of the powerful Amago clan. It was a mountain castle (''yamashiro'') regarded as the most impregnable castle in all of Japan, and for the next two centuries was considered the most important castle in the San'in region. Gassantoda Castle was besieged by the Ōuchi clan and Mōri clan in the Siege of Toda Castle, but the Amago managed to repel them. In 1566, after several failed assaults and a prolonged siege, the castle fell to Mōri Motonari, ending the Amago clan as a force in the region. This victory confirmed Motonari's rise to the position of most powerful warlord in Western Japan, and the castle would become one of several castles in the region occupied by the Mōri. In 1600, ownership of the castle was passed to Horio Tadauji for supportin ...
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Battle Of Miyajima
The 1555 was the only battle to be fought on the sacred island of Miyajima; the entire island is considered to be a Shinto shrine, and no birth or death is allowed on the island. Extensive purification rituals took place after the battle, to cleanse the shrine and the island of the pollution of death. The Battle of Miyajima was the turning point in a campaign for control of the Ōuchi clan and of Aki Province, a strategically important province for establishing control of western Honshu. It was an important step for the Mōri clan in taking the foremost position in western Japan, and cemented the reputation of Mōri Motonari as a cunning strategist. Background In 1551, Sue Harukata revolted against his lord Ōuchi Yoshitaka in the Tainei-ji incident, forcing him to commit seppuku. Sue installed the next lord of the clan, Ōuchi Yoshinaga (younger brother of Ōtomo Sōrin), but effectively led the Ōuchi family and its armies, intent on military expansion. In 1554, Mōri Moto ...
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Battle Of Oshikibata
The was a preliminary round of the battle of Miyajima which was to follow. Mōri Motonari sought to avenge Sue Harukata's coup against their lord, Ōuchi Yoshitaka, and succeeded. Following the battle of Miyajima, the Mōri clan The Mōri clan (毛利氏 ''Mōri-shi'') was a Japanese samurai clan descended from Ōe no Hiromoto. Ōe no Hiromoto was descended from the Fujiwara clan. The family's most illustrious member, Mōri Motonari, greatly expanded the clan's power ... gained all the Ōuchi lands, and replaced them as one of the most powerful families in the country. Further reading *Sansom, George (1961). ''A History of Japan: 1334–1615''. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Notes References *Turnbull, Stephen (1998). 'The Samurai Sourcebook'. London: Cassell & Co. 1554 in Japan Oshikibata Mōri clan Ōuchi clan Oshikibata {{Japan-battle-stub ...
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Siege Of Toda Castle
The was a battle during the Sengoku period (16th century) of Japan. The siege of the castle was personally led by Ōuchi Yoshitaka against Gassantoda Castle located within Izumo Province, under the control of Amago Haruhisa. In this battle Mori Motonari penetrated deep into the Amago clan territory but their supply line was broken and Kikkawa Okitsune (吉川興経) betrayed them. Motonari surrounded Gassantoda castle (富田城) but the Ōuchi troops retreated. During the retreat Motonari almost lost his life, but his general, Watanabe Hajime tried to sacrifice his life, so he can get away by fighting to the death. Motonari returned safely to Aki Province. After a long, hard-fought siege, Haruhisa ended in victory, and as a result of the battle, the power of the Ōuchi clan weakened. Yoshitaka, who had failed in his attempt, withdrew to Yamaguchi, in which he indulged himself with "more and more in pleasures", until he was deposed by his retainer, Sue Harukata, in the T ...
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Siege Of Koriyama
took place from September, 1540 until January, 1541 in Yoshida, Aki Province, Japan during the Sengoku period. Amago Haruhisa, with 30,000 men, attacked Kōriyama Castle, which belonged to Mōri Motonari and was defended by 8,000 men. When the Ōuchi clan sent an army under the command of Sue Harukata to relieve the siege, the Amago were forced to leave. Background By the end of the 1530s, Mōri Motonari had cut ties with the Amago clan (also known as Amago) and realigned himself with the Ōuchi. Taking advantage of the growing weakness of the Takeda clan of Aki, Motonari grew ever more powerful in Aki Province. By 1540, the old lord of the Amago, Tsunehisa had nominally retired and turned over the leadership of the clan to his grandson, Haruhisa (also known as Akihisa.) In that year Amago Haruhisa conceived of a plan to destroy Mōri Motonari and bring Aki province under the sway of the Amago. When a council of the Amago retainers was called to discuss the planned campai ...
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