The Chronicle
foundingThe fifth month of Eiroku 3 finds Japan without a government that governs: a Shogun who signs what he is told, an Emperor who cannot pay for his own rites, and sixty-six houses arming their own farmers. In the east Imagawa Yoshimoto has marched twenty-five thousand men into Owari against an Oda house with perhaps three thousand, while in the Kinai the Miyoshi reach for Kawachi and the great temples — Enryaku-ji among them — watch which lord will next come asking for their blessing, their silver, or their monks' spears.
the powersMiyoshi: Miyoshi Nagayoshi governs the capital region in the Shogun's name from Akutagawa-yama with seven provinces behind him and thirty thousand men to call on, and this summer he moves on Kawachi to crush the Hatakeyama who turned against him.
the powersImagawa: Imagawa Yoshimoto of Suruga has put twenty-five thousand men on the road into Owari, the largest army the east has seen in a generation, meaning to finish the Oda and secure Mikawa behind him.
the powersŌtomo: Ōtomo Yoshishige rules six Kyūshū provinces as the Shogun's appointed deputy, commands upward of thirty-five thousand levies and the Funai trade with the Portuguese, and means to hold Moji and Buzen against the Mōri.
the powersHōjō: Hōjō Ujiyasu's house, the best-governed domain in Japan, fields over twenty thousand men from Odawara and is closing the siege of Kururi to break the Satomi and bind the Kantō houses to his banner.
the powersTakeda: Takeda Shingen holds Kai and most of Shinano with some sixteen thousand men and no castle but his people's loyalty, and is raising Kaizu to hold the Chikuma line against the next Nagao incursion.
the powersMōri: Mōri Motonari, having destroyed the Ōuchi and paid for the Emperor's coronation, commands four western provinces and some seventeen thousand men together with the Murakami fleets, and reaches now for the Amago's Iwami silver.
the powersEnryaku-ji: The great temple on Mount Hiei above Kyōto, keeper of centuries of estates and its own armed monks, a power that lords court for its blessing and fear for its spears, standing apart from every house named above while the capital region tips toward war.
your standingYou hold Mount Hiei and its estates, a temple-state whose authority rests on sanctity, land-rents, and the warrior-monks who have burned rivals before and can again, not on provinces counted the way a daimyō counts them. Below you the Miyoshi tighten their grip on the five home provinces and reach for Kawachi, Kyōto's court and the fading Ashikaga Shogunate both need friends who can lend legitimacy its old weight, and rival temples — Kōfuku-ji contesting Yamato, the Honganji building its own armed province in Kaga — watch how far your reach extends. The choice before you is whether to stand on the mountain as arbiter and rentier of the capital's quarrels, lend your name and your sōhei to one of the houses now converging on Kyōto, or let the gathering storm below pass the mountain by until it is too large to ignore.'},