night to a farewell
banquet. The issue of the next day's combat was a foregone
conclusion. Masashige had but seven hundred men under his command. He
posted this little band at Minato-gawa, near the modern Kobe, and
with desperate courage attacked the van of the Ashikaga army.
Gradually he was enveloped, and being wounded in ten places he, with
his brother and sixty followers, entered the precincts of a temple
and died by their own hands.* Takauji and his captains, lamenting the
brave bushi's death, sent his head to his family; and history
recognizes that his example exercised an ennobling influence not only
on the men of his era but also on subsequent generations. After
Masashige's fall a similar fate must have overtaken Yoshisada, had
not one of those sacrifices familiar on a Japanese field of battle
been made for his sake. Oyamada Takaiye gave his horse to the Nitta
general and fell fighting in his stead, while Yoshisada rode away. At
first sight these sacrifices seem to debase the saved as much as they
exalt the saver. But, according to Japanese ethics, an institution
was always more precious than the person of its representative, and a
principle than the life of its exponent. Men sacrificed themselves in
battle not so much to save the life of a commanding officer, as to
avert the loss his cause would suffer by his death. Parity of
reasoning dictated acceptance of the sacrifice.

*Kusunoki Masashige is the Japanese type of a loyal and true soldier.
He was forty-three at the time of his death. Three hundred and
fifty-six years later (1692), Minamoto Mitsukuni, feudal chief of
Mito, caused a monument to be erected to his memory at the place of
his last fight. It bore the simple epitaph "The Tomb of Kusunoki, a
loyal subject."

ENGRAVING: OSONAE (New Year Offering to Family Tutelary Deity)

ENGRAVING: PALANQUINS (Used in Old Japan Only by the Nobility)

CHAPTER XXX

THE WAR OF THE DYNASTIES

OCCUPATION OF KYOTO BY ASHIKAGA

IN July, 1336, Takauji entered Kyoto and established his headquarters
at the temple Higashi-dera. Go-Daigo had previously taken refuge at
the Hiei-zan monastery, the ex-Emperors, Hanazono and Kogon,
remaining in the capital where they looked for the restoration of
their branch of the Imperial family. The Ashikaga leader lost no time
in despatching a force to attack Hiei-zan, but the Imperialists,
supported by the cenobites, resisted stoutly, and no impression was
made on the defences fo