Posted by Dan (24.58.6.220) on October 16, 2004 at 15:02:22:
In Reply to: Another unidentified Yoshitoshi series posted by Noel Chiappa on October 15, 2004 at 22:16:20:
Hi Noel,
I believe the first characters are Ishiyama, so "Ishiyama taigun ki". This refers to the battles at Ishiyama between the devout followers of the Buddhist Ikko sect, who had established several large communes separate from government control and a fortress at Ishiyama, and Oda Nobunaga, who sent some 60,000 men to crush the Ikko movement in the 1570s. To show the popularity and strength of the movement, it took ten years to fully defeat the Ikko followers at Ishiyama. Thereafter, little was mentioned of this outlawed sect in Tokugawa, but in Meiji there seems to have been a revival of interest. The Ikko sect, which had driven out the daimyo and all representatives of the feudal government in several provinces in order to establish a new kind of society, was seen as a movement towards democratization and basic rights for all that aligned somewhat with Meiji ideals of nation. There is also a warrior chronicle in 7 or 8 volumes published in early Meiji called "Ishiyama gunki".