Podcasts about Aston

This week, the Ramseys are joined by pop royalty and parenting pros, Aston & Sarah Merrygold. The couple discuss the highs and lows of soft play, the joys of touring and how Sarah and Aston met! And of course, Chris and Rosie ask Aston about the legendary JLS condoms! All of this plus a brilliant PKMA... Find details to the JLS tour at jlsofficial.com Send in your weird and wonderful stories to shaggedmarriedannoyed.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Graham and Luke return in the break between Mexico and Brazil to talk all things F1 and beyond! This week we talk:Afterthoughts from Mexico (6:22)FIA announce cost cap findings (14:46)Potential race-strategy variances being discussed for 2026 (16:38)Laura Villars wins court hearing to discuss failure of the FIA Presidential election process (22:53)Felipe Massa's court case over 2008 championship (26:52)Russell reveals performance based activation for 2027 contract (33:32)Aston announce a new reserve driver (38:16)Audi have reportedly won the Freddie Slater-sweepstakes (40:47)Formula E preseason testing and women's test (50:53)Jenson Button's farewell from professional racing: a retrospective on his motorsport career (59:00)Previewing the Brazilian Grand Prix (72:24)

Today's episode features a special guest: Jackie Aston, LCSW-C, who provides therapy to individuals and couples in D.C. and Maryland. We discuss the fascinating link between porn use in men and eating disordered behaviors in their partners. What is the commonality between these behaviors and why would they manifest in similar types of individuals? Really interesting discussion with Jackie Aston, and definitely something most of us have not considered!More about Jackie: https://www.candgtherapy.com/aboutFollow her on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/jackie_aston_therapist

En esta entrega de nuestro podcast presentamos 'Afterglow', el disco que acaba de lanzar la banda Aston Grey Project. En el repaso a otras novedades de la música Smooth Jazz suenan los recientes trabajos de Jeff Bradshaw, Aaron McCoy, Brian Culbertson, D.S. Wilson y Torsten Goods. En el bloque para el recuerdo recuperamos unos cuantos álbumes de la década de los 70 del trompetista canadiense Maynard Ferguson, un músico fallecido en el año 2006.

This episode we start to get more into the material culture of the period with court fashion, as we look at the court robes that went along with the updated court ranks.  Granted, we only have a few resources, but from those it does seem like we can construct at least a plausible idea of what the court may have looked like at this time. For more discussion, check out the blogpost:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-137   Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is Episode 137:  Courtly Fashion. In the New Year's ceremony, the court officials lined up in front of the Kiyomihara Palace, arranged by their relative court rank, dressed in their assigned court robes.  The effect was impressive—the rows of officials painting the courtyard like the bands of color in a rainbow, albeit one with only a couple of hues.  The fact that they were all wearing the same style of dress and black, stiffened gauze hats only added to the effect.  The individual officers were all but lost in what was, at least in outward form, a single, homogenous machine of government, just waiting for the command of their monarch to attend to the important matters of state. We are covering the reign of Ohoama no Ohokimi, aka Ama no Nunahara oki no mabito no Sumera no Mikoto, aka Temmu Tennou.  Last episode we went over the changes he had made to the family titles—the kabane—as well as to the courtly rank system.  For the former, he had consolidated the myriad kabane and traditional titles across Yamato into a series of eight—the Yakusa no Kabane.   These were, from highest to lowest: Mabito, Asomi, Sukune, Imiki, Michinoshi, Omi, Muraji, and Inaki.  By the way, you might notice that "Mabito" actually occurs in Ohoama's posthumous name:  Ama no Nunahara oki no mabito, which lends more credence to the idea that that kabane was for those with a special connection to the royal lineage. Besides simplifying and restructuring the kabane, Ohoama also reformed the court rank system.  He divided the Princely ranks into two categories:  Myou, or Bright, and Jou, or Pure.  For the court nobles the categories were:                Shou – Upright                Jiki – Straight                Gon – Diligent                Mu – Earnest                Tsui – Pursue                Shin – Advancement Each category was further divided into four grades (except for the very first princely category, Myou, which was only two).  Each grade was then further divided into large, "dai", or broad, "kou". And this brings us to our topic today. Along with this new rank system, Ohoama's administration also instituted a new set of court sumptuary laws. Some are vague in the record—we can just make assumptions for what is going on based on what we know from later fashion choices.  Others are a little more clear.  We'll take a look at those sumptuary laws, particularly those that were directly associated with the new court rank system, but we'll also look at the clothing styles more generally. To start with, let's talk about what we know about clothing in the archipelago in general.  Unfortunately, fabric doesn't tend to survive very well in the generally acidic soils of the Japanese archipelago.  Cloth tends to break down pretty quickly.  That said, we have fragments here and there and impressions in pottery, so we have some idea that there was some kind of woven fabric from which to make clothing out of. And before I go too far I want to give a shout out to the amazing people at the Kyoto Costume Museum.  They have a tremendous website and I will link to it in the comments.  While there may be some debate over particular interpretations of historical clothing, it is an excellent resource to get a feel for what we know of the fashion of the various periods.  I'll also plug our own website, SengokuDaimyo.com, which has a "Clothing and Accessory" section that, while more geared towards Heian and later periods, may still be of some use in looking up particular terms and getting to know the clothing and outfits. At the farthest reaches of pre-history, we really don't have a lot of information for clothing.  There is evidence of woven goods in the Jomon period, and we have Yayoi burials with bits of cloth here and there, but these are all scraps.  So at best we have some conjecture as to what people were wearing, and possibly some ability to look across the Korean peninsula and see what people had, there. There are scant to no reliable records from early on in Japanese history, and most of those don't really do a great job of describing the clothing.  Even where we do get something, like the Weizhi, one has to wonder given how they tended to crib notes from other entries. There is at least one picture scroll of interest: Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, or Liáng -Zhígòngtú.  It is said to have been painted by Xiao Yi in the early 6th century, and while the original no longer exists there is an 11th century copy from the time of the Song Dynasty.  The scroll shows  various ambassadors to the Liang court, including one from Wa.  The Wa ambassador is shown with what appears to be a wide piece of cloth around his hips and legs, tied in front.  His lower legs are covered in what we might call kyahan today: a rather simple wrap around leg from below the knee to the foot.  He has another, blue piece of cloth around his shoulders, almost like a shawl, and it is also tied in front.  Then there is a cloth wrapped and tied around his head. It's hard to know how much of this depiction is accurate and how much the artist was drawing on memory and descriptions from things like the Weizhi or Wei Chronicles, which stated that the Wa people wore wide cloths wrapped around and seamlessly tied As such, it may be more helpful to look at depictions actually from the archipelago: specifically, some of the human-figured haniwa, those clay cylinders and statues that adorned the burial mounds which gave the kofun period its name.  Some of these haniwa are fairly detailed, and we can see ties, collars, and similar features of clothing. These haniwa primarily seem to cluster towards the end of the Kofun period, in the later 6th century, so it is hard to say how much they can be used for earlier periods, though that is exactly what you will typically see for periods where we have little to know evidence.  I'm also not sure how regional certain fashions might have been, and we could very much be suffering from survivorship bias—that is we only know what survived and assume that was everything, or even the majority. Still, it is something. Much of what we see in these figures is some kind of upper garment that has relatively tight sleeves, like a modern shirt or jacket might have, with the front pieces overlapping create a V-shaped neckline.  The garment hem often hangs down to just above the knee, flaring out away from the body, and it's held closed with ties and some kind of belt, possibly leather in some cases, and in others it looks like a tied loop of cloth.  There is evidence of a kind of trouser, with two legs, and we see ties around the knee.  In some cases, they even have small bells hanging from the ties.  Presumably the trousers might have ties up towards the waist, but we cannot see that in the examples we have. We also see individuals who have no evidence of any kind of bifurcated lower garment.  That may indicate an underskirt of some kind, or possibly what's called a "mo"—but it could also be just a simplification for stability, since a haniwa has a cylindrical base anyway.  It is not always obvious when you are looking at a haniwa figure whether it depicts a man or woman: in some cases there are two dots on the chest that seem to make it obvious, but the haniwa do come from different artisans in different regions, so there is a lot of variability. We also see evidence of what seem to be decorative sashes that are worn across the body, though not in all cases.  There are various types of headgear and hairstyles.  Wide-brimmed and domed hats are not uncommon, and we also see combs and elaborate hairstyles depicted.  On some occasions we can even see that they had closed toed shoes.  For accessories, we see haniwa wearing jewelry, including necklaces (worn by both men and women), bracelets, and earrings.  In terms of actual human jewelry, early shell bracelets demonstrate trade routes, and the distinctive magatama, or comma shaped jewel, can be found in the archipelago and on the Korean peninsula, where it is known as "gogok".  Based on lines or even colored pigment on the haniwa, it appears that many of these outfits were actually quite heavily decorated.  Paint on the outfits is sometimes also placed on the face, suggesting that they either painted or tattooed themselves, something mentioned in the Wei Chronicles.  We also have archaeological examples of dyed cloth, so it is interesting that people are often depicted in undyed clothing.  There is one haniwa that I find particularly interesting, because they appear to be wearing more of a round-necked garment, and they have a hat that is reminiscent of the phrygian cap: a conical cap with the top bent forward.  These are traits common to some of the Sogdians and other Persian merchants along the silk road, raising the possibility that it is meant to depict a foreigner, though it is also possible that it was just another local style. If we compare this to the continent, we can see some immediate difference.  In the contemporaneous Sui dynasty, we can see long flowing robes, with large sleeves for men and women.  The shoes often had an upturned placket that appears to have been useful to prevent one from tripping on long, flowing garments.  Many of these outfits were also of the v-neck variety, with two overlapping pieces, though it is often shown held together with a fabric belt that is tied in front.  The hats appear to either be a kind of loose piece of fabric, often described as a turban, wrapped around the head, the ends where it ties together trailing behind, or black lacquered crowns—though there were also some fairly elaborate pieces for the sovereign. As Yamato started to import continental philosophy, governance, and religion, they would also start to pick up on continental fashion.  This seems particularly true as they adopted the continental concept of "cap rank" or "kan-i". Let's go over what we know about this system, from its first mention in the Chronicles up to where we are in Ohoama's reign. As a caveat, there is a lot we don't know about the details of these garments, but we can make some guesses. The first twelve cap-ranks, theoretically established in 603, are somewhat questionable in their historicity, as are so many things related to Shotoku Taishi.  And their names are clearly based on Confucian values:  Virtue, Humanity, Propriety, Faith, Justice, and Wisdom, or Toku, Nin, Rei, Shin, Gi, and Chi.  The five values and then just "Virtue", itself. The existence of this system does seem to be confirmed by the Sui Shu, the Book of Sui, which includes a note in the section on the country of Wa that they used a 12 rank system based on the Confucian values, but those values were given in the traditional Confucian order vice the order given in the Nihon Shoki.   The rank system of the contemporaneous Sui and Tang dynasties was different from these 12 ranks, suggesting that the Yamato system either came from older dynasties—perhaps from works on the Han dynasty or the Northern and Southern Dynasty, periods—or they got it from their neighbors, Baekje, Silla, and Goguryeo.  There does seem to be a common thread, though, that court rank was identifiable in one's clothes. As for the caps themselves, what did they look like?  One would assume that the Yamato court just adopted a continental style cap, and yet, which one? It isn't fully described, and there are a number of types of headwear that we see in the various continental courts. Given that, we aren't entirely sure exactly what it looked like, but we do have a couple of sources that we can look at and use to make some assumptions.  These sources l ead us to the idea of a round, colored cap made of fabric, around the brim that was probably the fabric or image prescribed for that rank.  It is also often depicted with a bulbous top, likely for the wearer's hair, and may have been tied to their top knot.     Our main source for this is the Tenjukoku Mandala Embroidery (Tenjukoku-mandara-shuuchou) at Chuuguuji temple, which was a temple built for the mother of Prince Umayado, aka Shotoku Taishi.    This embroidery was created in 622, so 19 years after the 12 ranks would have been implemented. It depicts individuals in round-necked jackets that appear to have a part straight down the center.  Beneath the jacket one can see a pleated hem, possibly something like a "hirami", a wrapped skirt that is still found in some ceremonial imperial robes.  It strikes me that this could also be the hem of something like the hanpi, which was kind of like a vest with a pleated lower edge.  Below that we see trousers—hakama—with a red colored hem—at least on one figure that we can see.  He also appears to be wearing a kind of slipper-like shoe. As for the women, there are a few that appear to be in the mandala, but it is hard to say for certain as the embroidery has been damaged over the years. That said, from what we can tell, women probably would have worn something similar to the men in terms of the jacket and the pleated under-skirt, but then, instead of hakama, we see a pleated full-length skirt, or mo.  We also don't have a lot of evidence for them wearing hats or anything like that. The round necked jacket is interesting as it appears to be similar to the hou that was common from northern China across the Silk Road, especially amongst foreigners.  This garment  came to displace the traditional robes of the Tang court and would become the basis for much of the court clothing from that period, onwards.  The round necked garment had central panels that overlapped, and small ties or fastenings at either side of the neck to allow for an entirely enclosed neckline.  This was more intricate than just two, straight collars, and so may have taken time to adopt, fully. The next change to the cap-rank system was made in 647, two years into the Taika Reform.  The ranks then were more directly named for the caps, or crowns—kanmuri—and their materials and colors.  The ranks translate to Woven, Embroidered, Purple, Brocade, Blue, Black, and finally "Establish Valor" for the entry level rank. The system gets updated two years later, but only slightly.  We still see a reference to Woven stuff, Embroidery, and Purple, but then the next several ranks change to Flower, Mountain, and Tiger—or possibly Kingfisher.  These were a little more removed from the cap color and material, and may have had something to do with designs that were meant to be embroidered on the cap or on the robes in some way, though that is just speculation based on later Ming and Qing court outfits. Naka no Ohoye then updates it again in 664, but again only a little.  He seems to add back in the "brocade" category, swapping out the "flower", and otherwise just adds extra grades within each category to expand to 26 total rank grades. And that brings us to the reforms of 685, mentioned last episode.  This new system was built around what appear to be moral exhortations—Upright, Straight, Diligent, Earnest, etc.  And that is great and all, but how does that match up with the official robes? What color goes with each rank category?  Fortunately, this time around, the Chronicle lays it out for us pretty clearly. First off we are given the color red for the Princely ranks—not purple as one might have thought.  Specifically, it is "Vermillion Flower", hanezu-iro, which Bentley translates as the color of the "Oriental bush" or salmon.  In the blogpost we'll link to a table of colors that the founder of Sengoku Daimyo, Anthony Bryant, had put together, with some explanation of how to apply it.  I would note that there is often no way to know exactly what a given color was like or what shades were considered an acceptable range.  Everything was hand-dyed, and leaving fabric in the dye a little longer, changing the proportions, or just fading over time could create slightly different variants in the hue, but we think we can get pretty close. From there we have the six "common" ranks for the nobility.  Starting with the first rank, Upright, we have "Dark Purple".  Then we have "Light Purple".  This pattern continues with Dark and Light Green and then Dark and Light Grape or Lilac.  Purple in this case is Murasaki, and green here is specifically Midori, which is more specifically green than the larger category of "Aoi", which covers a spectrum of blue to green.  The grape or lilac is specifically "suou", and based on Bentley's colors it would be a kind of purple or violet. The idea is that the official court outfits for each rank would be the proper color.  And yes, that means if you get promoted in rank, your first paycheck—or rice stipend—is probably going to pay for a new set of official clothes.  Fortunately for the existing court nobles at the time, in the last month of 685, the Queen provided court clothing for 55 Princes and Ministers, so they could all look the part. And the look at court was important.  In fact, several of the edicts from this time focus specifically on who was allowed—or expected—to wear what.  For instance, in the 4th month of 681, they established 92 articles of the law code, and among those were various sumptuary laws—that is to say, laws as to what you could wear.  We are told that they applied to everyone from Princes of the blood down to the common person, and it regulated the wearing of precious metals, pearls, and jewels; the type of fabric one could use, whether purple, brocade, embroidery, or fine silks; and it also regulated woollen carpets, caps, belts, and the colors of various things. And here I'd like to pause and give some brief thought to how this played into the goals of the court, generally, which is to say the goal of creating and establishing this new system of governance in the cultural psyche of the people of the archipelago.  From the continental style palaces, to the temples, and right down to the clothing that people were wearing, this was all orchestrated, consciously or otherwise, to emphasize and even normalize the changes that were being introduced.  When everything around you is conforming to the new rules, it makes it quite easy for others to get on board. The court had surrounded themselves with monumental architecture that was designed along continental models and could best be explained through continental reasoning.  Even if they weren't Confucian or Daoist, those lines of reasoning ran through the various cultural and material changes that they were taking up.  Sure, they put their own stamp on it, but at the same time, when everything is right in front of you, it would become that much harder to deny or push back against it. And when you participated in the important rituals of the state, the clothing itself became a part of the pageantry.  It reinforced the notion that this was something new and different, and yet also emphasized that pushing against it would be going against the majority.  So court uniforms were another arm of the state's propaganda machine, all designed to reinforce the idea that the heavenly sovereign—the Tennou—was the right and just center of political life and deserving of their position.  Getting back to the sumptuary laws and rank based regulations: It is unfortunate that the record in the Nihon Shoki doesn't tell us exactly how things were regulated, only that they were, at least in some cases.  So for anything more we can only make assumptions based on later rules and traditions.  A few things we can see right away, though.  First is the restriction of the color purple.  Much as in Europe and elsewhere in the world, getting a dark purple was something that was not as easy as one might think, and so it tended to be an expensive dye and thus it would be restricted to the upper classes—in this case the princely and ministerial rank, no doubt.  Similarly brocade and fine silks were also expensive items that were likely restricted to people of a particular social station for that reason. The mention of woolen rugs is particularly intriguing.  Bentley translates this as woven mattresses, but I think that woolen rugs makes sense, as we do have examples of woolen "rugs" in Japan in at least the 8th century, stored in the famous Shousouin repository at Toudaiji temple, in Nara.  These are all imported from the continent and are actually made of felt, rather than woven.  As an imported item, out of a material that you could not get in the archipelago, due to a notable lack of sheep, they would have no doubt been expensive. The funny thing is that the carpets in the Shousouin may not have been meant as carpets.  For the most part they are of a similar size and rectangular shape, and one could see how they may have been used as sleeping mattresses or floor coverings.  However, there is some conjecture that they came from the Silk Road and may have been originally meant as felt doors for the tents used by the nomadic steppe peoples.  This is only conjecture, as I do not believe any of these rugs have survived in the lands where they would have been made, but given the size and shape and the modern yurt, it is not hard to see how that may have been the case.  Either way, I tend to trust that this could very well have meant woolen rugs, as Aston and the kanji themselves suggest, though I would understand if there was confusion or if it meant something else as wool was not exactly common in the archipelago at that time or in the centuries following. The last section of the regulations talks about the use of caps and belts.  The caps here were probably of continental origin:  The kanmuri, or official cap of state of the court nobles, or the more relaxed eboshi—though at this time, they were no doubt closely related. In fact, a year later, we have the most specific mention to-date of what people were actually wearing on their heads: there is a mention of men tying up their hair and wearing caps of varnished gauze.  Earlier caps related to the cap rank system are often thought to be something like a simple hemisphere  that was placed upon the head, with a bulbous top where the wearer's hair could be pulled up as in a bun. The kanmuri seems to have evolved from the soft black headcloth that was worn on the continent, which would have tied around the head, leaving two ends hanging down behind.  Hairstyles of the time often meant that men had a small bun or similar gathering of hair towards the back of their head, and tying a cloth around the head gave the effect of a small bump.  This is probably what we see in depictions of the early caps of state.  Sometimes this topknot could be covered with a small crown or other decoration, or wrapped with a cloth, often referred to as a "Tokin" in Japanese.  But over time we see the development of hardened forms to be worn under a hat to provide the appropriate silhouette, whether or not you actually had a topknot (possibly helpful for gentlemen suffering from hair loss).  And then the hat becomes less of a piece of cloth and more just a hat of black, lacquered gauze made on a form, which was much easier to wear.  At this point in the Chronicle, the cap was likely still somewhat malleable, and would made to tie or be pinned to that bun or queue of hair.  This explains the mention of men wearing their hair up.  This pin would become important for several different types of headgear, but ties were also used for those who did not have hair to hold the hat on properly. Two years after the edict on hats, we get another edict on clothing, further suggesting that the court were wearing Tang inspired clothing.  In 685 we see that individuals are given leave to wear their outer robe either open or tied closed. This is a clue that this outer robe might something akin to the round-necked hou that we see in the Tenjukoku Mandala, where the neck seems to close with a small tie or button.  However, we do see some examples, later, of v-necked garments with a tie in the center of the neck, so that may be the reference..  Opening the collar of the formal robes was somewhat akin to loosening a necktie, or unbuttoning the top button of a shirt.  It provided a more relaxed and comfortable feeling.  It could also be a boon in the warm days of summer.  Leaving it closed could create a more formal appearance. The courtiers also had the option of whether or not to wear the "Susotsuki", which Bentley translates as "skirt-band".  I believe this refers to the nai'i, or inner garment.  This would often have a pleated hem—a suso or ran—which would show below the main robe as just a slight hem.  Again, this is something that many would dispense with in the summer, or just when dressing a bit more casually, but it was required at court, as well as making sure that the tassles were tied so that they hung down.  This was the uniform of the court.  We are also told that they would have trousers that could be tied up, which sounds like later sashinuki, though it may have referred to something slightly different.  We are also given some regulations specifically for women, such as the fact that women over 40 years of age were allowed the discretion on whether or not to tie up their hair, as well as whether they would ride horses astride or side-saddle.  Presumably, younger women did not get a choice in the matter.  Female shrine attendants and functionaries were likewise given some leeway with their hairstyles. A year later, in 686, they do seem to have relaxed the hairstyles a bit more: women were allowed to let their hair down to their backs as they had before, so it seems that, for at least a couple of years, women under the age of 40 were expected to wear their hair tied up in one fashion or another. In that same edict, men were then allowed to wear "habakimo".  Aston translates this as "leggings" while Bentley suggests it is a "waist skirt".  There are an example of extant habakimo in the Shousouin, once again, and they appear to be wrappings for the lower leg.  It actually seems very closely related to the "kyahan" depicted all the way back in the 6th century painting of the Wo ambassador to Liang. Even though these edicts give a lot more references to clothing, there is still plenty that is missing.  It isn't like the Chroniclers were giving a red carpet style stitch-by-stitch critique of what was being worn at court.  Fortunately, there is a rather remarkable archaeological discovery from about this time. Takamatsuzuka is a kofun, or ancient burial mound, found in Asuka and dated to the late 7th or early 8th century.  Compared to the keyhole shaped tombs of previous centuries, this tomb is quite simple: a two-tiered circular tomb nestled in the quiet hills.  What makes it remarkable is that the inside of the stone burial chamber was elaborately painted.  There are depictions of the four guardian animals, as well as the sun and the moon, as well as common constellations.  More importantly, though, are the intricate pictures of men and women dressed in elaborate clothing. The burial chamber of Takamatsuzuka is rectangular in shape.  There are images on the four vertical sides as well as on the ceiling.  The chamber is oriented north-south, with genbu, the black tortoise, on the north wall and presumably Suzaku, the vermillion bird, on the south wall—though that had been broken at some point and it is hard to make out exactly what is there. The east and west walls are about three times as long as the north and south walls.  In the center of each is a guardian animal—byakko, the white tiger, on the west wall and seiryuu, the blue—or green—dragon on the east.  All of these images are faded, and since opening of the tomb have faded even more, so while photos can help, it may require a bit more investigation and some extrapolation to understand all of what we are looking at. On the northern side of both the east and west wall we see groups of four women.  We can make out green, yellow, and red or vermillion outer robes with thin fabric belt sashes, or obi, tied loosely and low around the waist.  There is another, lightly colored—possibly white, cream or pink—that is so faded it is hard to make out, and I don't know if that is the original color.  These are v-necked robes, with what appear to be ties at the bottom of the "v".  Around the belt-sash we see a strip of white peaking out from between the two sides of the robe—most likely showing the lining on an edge that has turned back slightly.  The cuffs of the robe are folded back, showing a contrasting color—either the sleeves of an underrobe or a lining of some kind.  Below the outer robe is a white, pleated hem—possibly a hirami or similar, though where we can make it out, it seems to be the same or similar color as the sleeves.  Under all of that, they then have a relatively simple mo, or pleated skirt.  The ones in the foreground are vertically striped in alternating white, green, red, and blue stripes.  There is one that may just be red and blue stripes, but I'm not sure.  In the background we see a dark blue—and possibly a dark green—mo.  At the base of each mo is a pleated fringe that appears to be connected to the bottom of the skirt.  The toe of a shoe seems to peek out from underneath in at least one instance.  They don't have any obvious hair ornaments, and their hair appears to be swept back and tied in such a way that it actually comes back up in the back, slightly.  They appear to be holding fans and something that might be a fly swatter—a pole with what looks like tassels on the end. In comparison, at the southern end of the tomb we have two groups of men.  These are much more damaged and harder to make out clearly.  They have robes of green, yellow, grey, blue, and what looks like dark blue, purple, or even black.  The neckline appears to be a v-necked, but tied closed, similar to what we see on the women.  We also see a contrasting color at the cuff, where it looks like the sleeves have turned back, slightly.  They have belt-sashes similar to the women, made of contrasting fabric to the robe itself.  Below that we see white trousers, or hakama, and shallow, black shoes.  On some of the others it is suggested that maybe they have a kind of woven sandal, but that is hard to make out in the current image.  On their heads are hats or headgear of black, stiffened—probably lacquered—gauze.  They have a bump in the back, which is probably the wearer's hair, and there is evidence of small ties on top and larger ties in the back, hanging down.  Some interpretations also show a couple with chin straps, as well, or at least a black cord that goes down to the chin.  They carry a variety of implements, suggesting they are attendants, with an umbrella, a folding chair, a pouch worn around the neck, a pole or cane of some kind, and a bag with some kind of long thing—possibly a sword or similar. The tomb was originally found by farmers in 1962, but wasn't fully examined until 1970, with an excavation starting in 1972.  The stone at the entryway was broken, probably from graverobbers, who are thought to have looted the tomb in the Kamakura period.  Fortunately, along with the bones of the deceased and a few scattered grave goods that the robbers must have missed, the murals also survived, and somehow they remained largely intact through the centuries.  They have not been entirely safe, and many of the images are damaged or faded, but you can still make out a remarkable amount of detail, which is extremely helpful in determining what clothing might have looked like at this time—assuming it is depicting local individuals. And there is the rub, since we don't know exactly whom the tomb was for.  Furthermore, in style it has been compared with Goguryeo tombs from the peninsula, much as nearby Kitora kofun is.  Kitora had images as well, but just of the guardian animals and the constellations, not of human figures. There are three theories as to who might have been buried at Takamatsuzuka.  One theory is that it was one of Ohoama's sons.  Prince Osakabe is one theory, based on the time of his death and his age.  Others have suggested Prince Takechi.  Based on the teeth of the deceased, they were probably in their 40s to 60s when they passed away. Some scholars believe that it may be a later, Nara period vassal—possibly, Isonokami no Maro.  That would certainly place it later than the Asuka period. The third theory is that it is the tomb of a member of one of the royal families from the Korean peninsula—possibly someone who had taken up refuge in the archipelago as Silla came to dominate the entire peninsula.  This last theory matches with the fact that Takamatsuzuka appears to be similar to tombs found in Goguryeo, though that could just have to do with where the tomb builders were coming from, or what they had learned. That does bring up the question of the figures in the tomb.  Were they contemporary figures, indicating people and dress of the court at the time, or were they meant to depict people from the continent?  Without any other examples, we may never know, but even if was indicative of continental styles, those were the very styles that Yamato was importing, so it may not matter, in the long run.     One other garment that isn't mentioned here is the hire, a scarf that is typically associated with women.  It is unclear if it has any relationship to the sashes we see in the Kofun period, though there is at least one mention of a woman with a hire during one of the campaigns on the Korean peninsula.  Later we see it depicted as a fairly gauzy piece of silk, that is worn somewhat like a shawl.  It is ubiquitous in Sui and Tang paintings of women, indicating a wide-ranging fashion trend.  The hire is a fairly simple piece of clothing, and yet it creates a very distinctive look which we certainly see, later. Finally, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that almost everything we have discussed here has to do with the elites of society—the nobles of the court.  For most people, working the land, we can assume that they were probably not immediately adopting the latest continental fashions, and they probably weren't dressing in silk very much.  Instead, it is likely that they continued to wear some version of the same outfits we see in the haniwa figures of the kofun period.  This goes along with the fact that even as the elite are moving into palaces built to stand well above the ground, we still have evidence of common people building and living in pit dwellings, as they had been for centuries.  This would eventually change, but overall they stuck around for quite some time.  However, farmers and common people are often ignored by various sources—they aren't often written about, they often aren't shown in paintings or statues, and they did often not get specialized burials.  Nonetheless, they were the most populous group in the archipelago, supporting all of the rest. And with that, I think we will stop for now.  Still plenty more to cover this reign.  We are definitely into the more historical period, where we have more faith in the dates—though we should remember that this is also one of the reigns that our sources were specifically designed to prop up, so we can't necessarily take everything without at least a hint of salt and speculation, even if the dates themselves are more likely to be accurate. Until then, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  

Hey Rotatoes, To celebrate the start of Axis here on the public feed we've got a special bonus episode for you today as Jasper sits down to interview Aston and Conor, founders of Dragons Vault, about their latest fundraiser Lodestar.Discover the inspiration behind their new sourcebook, what it takes to bring a whole new set of subclasses and play systems to life, the history of Dragons Vault, as well as how the system could work within the world of Axis.We're really excited about Lodestar and if you're interested in checking out or backing the sourcebook you can do so here!-- Very Minor Spoilers Warning for the World of Axis --If you are thinking of joining The Rotating Heroes Patreon you can do so for as little as $2.50! Use code AXIS50 for 50% off your first month! This code is only valid until November 20th so you best hurry if you want to use it!+ Listen to the first two Arcs of Campaign 2!+ Ad-Free Listening+ Get Arc Barks (Talk Backs) for every episode+ Plus Votes & info about all things Rotating Heroes!GET YOUR MERCH HERE - SIGN UP FOR NEW MERCH HERE

Jennie Gow sits down for an in-depth conversation with Andy Cowell, the CEO and team principal of Aston Martin, to speak about his career, from the engine man at Mercedes to leading Aston through one of the most exciting periods in its history. From its new factory and wind tunnel to the signing of Adrian Newey, and working with drivers like Fernando Alonso. Heading into new regulations in 2026, could Aston begin to compete at the front of the grid?

Tarik, Sharpie Charlie, and CrunkChocolate are back starting with a conversation of where does Nunes rank in the best RB's in the league, before talking Man City Men vs Aston, looking ahead to the two games this week, and ending with our Man City Women segment "Baby Blue Baddies"TOPICS:Cold Open questionAdmin/IntroAll Time Starting XI Black Man City players - Figure we can do a combined team instead of us all picking oneMan City Men Review: PL @ Aston VillaPreview and score predictions: Carabao Cup @ Swansea CityPreview and score predictions: PL vs BournemouthBaby Blue BaddiesPreview and score predictions: WSL vs West Ham United

A life of worship means servants on mission I Alice Aston I 29th October 2025 I Fordingbridge by New Life Community Church

Welcome to Building Brand You™, the podcast that helps you accelerate your success by unlocking your greatest asset – you.   KEY TAKEAWAYS Nutrition and inner health are the keys to staying in our best shape, mentally and physically. Our body is the engine of who we are and what we produce. The most obvious symptom of being unhealthy is gaining weight. Your physical health has a profound impact on your mental health and mood. Health underpins the quality of our life. Your brand is how you show up. Giving your mind a bit of space and allowing time for exercise, the more organized you can be. RESOURCES MENTIONED: Donna's Blog about Routine https://astonrx.com/blog/59     ABOUT OUR GUEST: For over 25 years, Melbourne-born nutritionist and author, Donna Aston, has earned the reputation as an expert in the field of weight loss, health and fitness.  Starting out as an overweight teenager, Donna has dramatically transformed her own body and continues to help countless others achieve their personal goals through her online platform, private consultation, public speaking and numerous publications. Having studied Human Nutrition at Deakin University and with six best-selling books to her credit, Donna has worked in Australia, Europe and the USA as a private coach and advisor. Donna is also a Genos Emotional Intelligence (EI) Certified Practitioner, for which she credits much of her success in coaching and inspiring countless clients. CONNECT WITH DONNA ASTON: Email - support@astonrx.com Instagram -  https://www.instagram.com/aston_rx/                      https://www.instagram.com/donna.aston/ Website  - www.AstonRX.com     ABOUT KYM HAMER: Kym is an international leadership and personal branding thought leader, an executive coach, and a programme design and facilitation practitioner. She is also the creator of Building Brand You™ - a methodology helping organisations, teams, and individuals to build reputation, presence, and gravitas. Kym works with leaders - both individually and in organisational development initiatives - to inspire and engage thinking styles and behaviour that achieve results and leave legacy. In 2020, just one year after launching her business, she was nominated by Thinkers360 as one of the Top 100 Women B2B Leadership influencers and is currently in the Top 15 Personal Branding and Top 10 Marketing Influencers in the world. For 5 years running Kym has also been one of Thinkers360's Top 10 Thought Leaders on Entrepreneurship and in 2023, 2024 and 2025, was recognised as one of their Top Voices globally. She has been part of Homeward Bound Projects faculty since 2020, a global initiative reaching 1.8 billion people, equipping women and non-binary people with a STEMM background to lead conversations for a sustainable future. She is currently the Program Design and Faculty Lead for the 10th on-line cohort and was part of the on-board faculty who voyaged to Antarctica in 2023 and 2025, to deliver the initiative's immersive component. In between all of these things, you'll find her curled up in a corner with her nose in a book.   Building Brand You™: JOIN the BBY Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/buildingbrandyou SUBSCRIBE to the BBY Podcast on: (Apple) - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/building-brand-you/id1567407273 (Spotify) - https://open.spotify.com/show/4Ho26pAQ5uJ9h0dGNicCIq   CONNECT WITH KYM HAMER: LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/kymhamer/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/kymhamerartemis/ TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@kymhamer Thinkers360 - https://bit.ly/thinkers360-kymhamer-BBY Find out about BBY Coaching - https://calendly.com/kymhamer/bbychat/   HOSTED BY: Kym Hamer   DISCLAIMER: The views, information, or opinions expressed during the Building Brand You™ podcast series are solely those of the individuals involved. They do not necessarily represent any other entities, agencies, organisations, or companies. Building Brand You™ is not responsible and does not verify the accuracy of any of the information in the podcast available for listening on this site. The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast does not constitute legal advice or services  

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Ahead of a new era of Formula 1 in 2026, Italian engineer Enrico Cardile moved from Ferrari to Aston Martin. Working alongside Adrian Newey as Chief Technical Officer, his aim is to turn Aston into winners. Enrico tells Tom Clarkson how he studied Ferrari at university, before joining the company as a young engineer in the road car division. He moved on to the F1 team, developing single-seaters which took Kimi Raikkonen, Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc to Grand Prix wins. Enrico left Ferrari and joined Aston Martin in summer 2025. He describes the differences between an established team and one which is still building. He describes working with Adrian Newey at Aston's state-of-the-art factory, what Lance Stroll has in common with Raikkonen and how driver feedback from Stroll and Fernando Alonso is helping to drive the team forwards. This episode is sponsored by: Truewerk: get 15% off your first order at truewerk.com with the code GRID. Honda Vintage Culture: right now, listeners can get 20% off the full Honda Vintage Culture range. Just head to hondavintageculture.com and use the code BTG20 at checkout.  Shopify: sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/beyondthegrid Salesforce: visit salesforce.com/f1 to learn more about how Formula 1 drives fan excitement with Agentforce - the powerful AI from Salesforce 

Constellation's Aston Barclay takeover hangs in the balance as CMA steps up investigationLawyers claim carmakers ‘would rather cheat than follow law' as Dieselgate trial kicks offRenault and Nissan say they are are ‘not obligated' to supply cars to dealers as Mackie hots up fightCould more job losses be coming at Evans Halshaw as firm closes pair of Ford dealerships?

Mynt: invista R$150 em qualquer cripto e tenha R$50 de Bitcoin no Cashback! - https://bit.ly/425ErVa Promoção válida para novos cadastrados na plataforma do BTG através do uso do cupom MOTOR50; o Cashback de R$50 no Bitcoin em sua conta será creditado no dia 5 do mês seguinte.BORTOLETO, MAX E LEWIS FALAM DOS PAIS: https://tinyurl.com/2h7yv9uxNASCAR AMERICANA já está nos playoffs: veja com o Motorsport! - https://tinyurl.com/4f3hbjnmNesta quinta-feira, a Fórmula 1 realizou o dia de mídia do GP dos Estados Unidos. Por isso, o programa DIRETO DO PADDOCK traz os destaques de Austin e os principais fatos do noticiário da F1, como resumem os repórteres Carlos Costa (@ocarlos_costa) e Guilherme Longo (@gglongo), do Motorsport.com.

Tim Hughes interviews the Bishop of Aston, Bishop Esther Prior.

Ann Sandin-Lindgren och Dala Dahlström intervjuar Jan Flinkman från Tyresö handboll i detta sista pass från Tyresöfestivalen. Paulina Jantz och Hanna Persson kommer och pratar om hur viktigt det är med rastaktiviteter på våra skolor. De unga grabbarna Aston och Emil kommer förbi och reflekterar över dagen. På slutet sammanfattar Tyresöradion dagen.

Aston Martin slams the door on Christian Horner's reported $100M bid for control.Climb the ladder with me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/lawvsChristian Horner's most speculated path back to the pit wall hit a wall. Reports say he pitched a $100M package to Aston Martin for a stake and the CEO role, yet Andy Cowell said there are absolutely no plans for Horner in any capacity. Money wasn't the issue, it was perhaps the potential baggage that came with the man...or are Aston Martin happy with who they've got already.This moment feels bigger than one job offer. F1 looks to be drifting from the era of celebrity bosses toward engineer led leadership and cleaner power structures. Haas passed, Aston has now passed and Williams kept the nicest version of a maybe.Get 15% off at the Castore Official website with my special link: https://glnk.io/ryj2p/lawrence #AdCastoreAff#f1 #christianhorner #formula1 #formulaone #f12025 #astonmartin #astonmartinf1 #redbullracing #redbullf1 #lawrencestroll #stroll #lancestroll #fernandoalonso #f1news #f1latest #f1updates #f1teams #f1drivers #f1drama Aston Martin Rejects Horner's $100M Power Playhttps://youtu.be/7wYZ2YiTyywCan't watch the ladder? HEAR it instead as a podcast.RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/lawvsSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6hcmgaNHAcU5AHjUITTXS8Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/tt/podcast/lawvs-the-ladder-man/id1720160644Brand new PO BOX now open: LawVS, PO BOX 437, WALLINGTON, SM6 6EZ, UKWear a piece of F1 history on your wrist with Mongrip: https://mongrip.com/?ref=mxyyVz7corTaLG Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pop icon and actor Aston Merrygold from JLS joins us on the podcast and boy is it a good one!Aston talks to us about how his parenting values from being the disciplinarian, teaching his kids to stand up for themselves, and stay tuned to hear how beautifully he describes his relationship with his gorgeous wife, and previous guest on the podcast, Sarah! He has teamed up with Cheesestrings to tell us how he brings fun into his role as Dad and why it's important to him. (We're sure you've heard the oh-so-catchy 'Fun-om-nom-nom" Cheesestring song and love it as much as Zoe does!)Find a new episode every Tuesday & Friday and in the meantime check out Made By Mammas on Instagram: @madebymammas.Made By Mammas® is an Audio Always production. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the Heart podcast, Digital Media Editor Professor James Rudd is joined by Dan Green from the University of Aston. They discuss his paper in Heart, outlining 10 common errors in submitted manuscripts and how authors can avoid them. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a positive review wherever you get your podcasts. It helps us to reach more people - thanks! Link to published paper: https://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2025/06/23/heartjnl-2025-325939

Let's Chat!The lights hum a half-beat late, the city moves at the wrong speed, and the mirror smiles before you do. Episode 8 of the Patience of Predator series pulls you into a slow, surgical horror where perfection doesn't chase—it waits. Aston walks into an apartment that remembers his scent but not his claim, a skyline that looks right but stalls like a photograph, and a stereo that sings memories out of time. Each small glitch—delayed reflections, warped songs, clocks that reverse—tightens into a single threat: the version he built to survive has learned to breathe first.We follow Aston from a dusted BMW to a glass-walled firm that rewards polish and punishes tremor. Reflections start speaking before mouths move. Printers whisper, We already replaced you. In the Hall of Glass, every pane rehearses a different him—older, younger, faster—until the wave closes in with palms pressed from the wrong side. The line that lands like a verdict: It's not the glass that traps you. It's the one that looks back. When his perfected self steps through the window, there's no shatter—just a colder hand, a smoother voice, and an effortless, I'll handle it from here.We talk openly about the cost of “being better”: how perfectionism can become a predator, how high-performance habits drift into identity erasure, and why systems prefer the seamless version of you. The soundtrack—REM, Depeche Mode, Seal, Massive Attack, U2—scores the unraveling, each song detuned like a memory failing the truth test. We leave Claire's fate unresolved by design, a mirror for how our stories tolerate ambiguity when control is the idol. And we end with two sharp questions you can't ignore: What part of your strength is truth, and what part is the calm you practiced to hide the break? If your world met the version you've been building, would it grieve—or say thank you?Listen, reflect, and tell us what you see in your mirror. If this series hit a nerve, subscribe, share with a friend who's chasing “better,” and leave a review with your answer to the final question."True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."

It is the first year of a new reign, so come and let's take a look at how it all begins. For more, check out our blog page at: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-135 Rough Transcript   Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is episode 135: Year One The officials of the Ministry of Kami Affairs bustled to and fro as they prepared the ritual grounds and the temporary buildings.  They were carefully erecting the structures, which would only be used for a single festival, and then torn down, but this would be an important festival.  It was the harvest festival, the Niiname-sai, the festival of the first-fruits.  Rice, from the regions of Tamba and Harima, specifically chosen through divination, would be offered to his majesty along with the kami who had blessed the land.  But this time, there was more. After all, this was the first harvest festival of a new reign, and they had orders to make it special.  The ascension ceremony had been held earlier in the year, but in some ways that was just a prelude.  There had been various rituals and ceremonies throughout the year emphasizing that this year was special—even foreign lands were sending envoys to congratulate him on the event.  But this wasn't for them.  This was the sovereign taking part, for the first time, in one of the most important ceremonies of the year.  After all, the feast of first-fruits was the culmination of all that the kami had done, and it emphasized the sovereign's role as both a descendant of heaven and as the preeminent intercessor with the divine spirits of the land. And so they knew, that everything had to be bigger, with even more pomp and circumstance than normal.  This wouldn't just be about the new rice.  This would be a grand ceremony, one that only happened once in a generation, and yet which would echo through the centuries.  As the annual harvest festival, it was an ancient tradition.  But as something new—as the Daijosai—it was something else all together. And it would have to be perfect!   Last episode we talked about the Kiyomihara palace and a little bit about what it was like in the court of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou.  After defeating the Afumi court supporting his nephew, Ohotomo, in 672, Ohoama had taken control of the government.  He moved back to Asuka, and into the refurbished Okamoto palace, building a southern exclave known to us today as the Ebinoko enclosure, which held one large building, which may have been a residence or a ceremonial structure—possibly the first “Daigokuden” or ceremonial hall. Ohoama's court built on the ideas that his brother, Naka no Oe, aka Tenji Tennou, had put forth since the Taika era.  This was a continuation of the form of government known as the Ritsuryo system, or Ritsuryo-sei, literally a government of laws and punishments, and Ohoama had taken the reins.  He seems to have taken a much more direct approach to governance compared to some of his predecessors. For instance, the role of the ministerial families was reduced, with Ohoama or various princes—actual or invented relatives of the throne—taking a much more prominent role.  He also expanded access to the central government to those outside of the the Home Provinces.  After all, it was the traditional ministerial families—the Soga, the Nakatomi, and even the Kose—who had been part of the Afumi government that he had just defeated.  Meanwhile, much of his military support had come from the Eastern provinces, though with prominent indications of support from Kibi and Tsukushi as well. This episode we are going to get back to the events documented in the Chronicles, looking just at the first year of Ohoama's reign.  Well, technically it was the second year, with 672 being the first, but this is the first year in which he formally sat on the throne.  There's plenty going on in this year to fill a whole episode: it was the year of Ohoama's formal ascension, and there were numerous festivals, ceremonies, and other activities that seem to be directly related to a fresh, new start.  We will also look at the custom of handing out posthumous ranks, particularly to those who supported Ohoama during the Jinshin no Ran, and how that relates to the various ranks and titles used in Ohoama's court.  We have envoys from three different countries—Tamna, Silla, and Goguryeo—and their interactions with the Dazaifu in Tsukushi.  Finally, we have the first Daijosai, one of the most important ceremonies in any reign. And so, let's get into it.   The year 673 started with a banquet for various princes and ministers, and on the 27th day of the 2nd month, Ohoama formally assumed the throne at what would come to be known as Kiyomihara Palace.  Uno, his consort, who had traveled with him through the mountains from Yoshino to Ise, was made his queen, and their son, Royal Prince Kusakabe, was named Crown Prince.  Two days later they held a ceremony to convey cap-ranks on those deemed worthy. We are then told that on the 17th day of the following month, word came from the governor of Bingo, the far western side of ancient Kibi, today the eastern part of modern Hiroshima.  They had caught a white pheasant in Kameshi and sent it as tribute.  White or albino animals were seen as particularly auspicious signs, and no doubt it was taken as an omen of good fortune for the reign.  In response, the forced labor from Bingo, which households were required to supply to the State, was remitted.  There was also a general amnesty granted throughout the land. That same month we are also told that scribes were brought in to Kawaradera to copy the Issaiko—aka the Tripitaka, or the entirety of the Buddhist canon.  That would include hundreds of scrolls.  This clearly seems to be an act of Buddhist merit-making:  by copying out the scrolls you make merit, which translates to good karma.  That would be another auspicious start to the reign, and we see frequently that rulers would fund sutra copying—or sutra recitations—as well as temples, statues, bells and all other such things to earn Buddhist merit.  As the ruler, this merit didn't just accrue to you, but to the entire state, presumably bringing good fortune and helping to avert disaster. However, it wasn't just the Law of the Buddha that Ohoama was appealing to.  In the following entry, on the14th day of the 4th month, we are told that Princess Ohoki was preparing herself at the saigu, or abstinence palace, in Hatsuse—known as Hase, today, east of modern Sakurai, along the Yonabari river, on the road to Uda.  Ohoki was the sister of Prince Ohotsu.  Her mother was Ohota, the Queen's elder sister, making her a grandchild of Naka no Ohoye as well as the daughter of Ohoama.  Princess Ohoki's time at the abstinence palace was so that she could purify herself.  This was all to get her ready to head to Ise, to approach none other than the sun goddess, Amaterasu Ohokami. With all of these events, we see the full panoply of ritual and ceremony on display.  The formal, legal ceremonies of ascension and granting of rank.  The declaration of auspicious omens for the reign.   There is the making of Buddhist merit, but also the worship of the kami of the archipelago.  This is not an either-or situation.  We are seeing in the first half of this first year the fusion of all of these different elements into something that may not even be all that sensational to those of us, today.  After all, anyone who goes to Japan is likely well-accustomed to the way that both Buddhist and Shinto institutions can both play a large part in people's lives.  While some people may be more drawn to one than the other, for most they are complimentary. That isn't how it had to be.  For a time, it was possible that Buddhism would displace local kami worship altogether.  This was the core of the backlash that we saw from groups like the Nakatomi, whose role in kami-focused ceremonies was threatened by the new religion.  Indeed, for a while now it seems like mention of the kami has taken a backseat to Buddhist temples and ceremonies in the Chronicles.  Likewise, as a foreign religion, Buddhism could have also fallen out of favor.  It was not fore-ordained that it would come to have a permanent place on the archipelago.  This tension between local kami worship—later called Shinto, the Way of the Kami—and Buddhist teachings would vary throughout Japanese history, with one sometimes seen as more prestigious or more natural than the other, but neither one would fully eclipse the other. One could say that was in part due to the role that Amaterasu and kami worship played in the court ceremonies.  However, even there indigenous practices were not necessarily safe.  The court could have just as easily imported Confucian rituals, and replaced the spiritual connection between the sovereign and the kami with the continental style Mandate of Heaven. And thus, the choices that were being made at this time would have huge implications for the Japanese state for centuries to come. I should note that it is unlikely that this spontaneously arose amongst the upper class and the leadership.  I doubt this was just Ohoama's strategy to give himself multiple levers of power—though I'm not saying he wasn't thinking about that either.  But the only way that these levers existed was through their continued life in the culture and the people of the time.  If the people didn't believe in Buddhist merit, or that the kami influenced their lives, then neither would have given them much sway.  It was the fact that these were a part of the cultural imaginary of the state, and how people imagined themselves and their surroundings, that they were effective tools for Ohoama and his government. And so it seems that Ohoama's first year is off to a smashing success.  By the fifth month he is already issuing edicts—specifically on the structure of the state, which we discussed some last episode. But the high could not be maintained indefinitely.  And on the 29th day of the 5th month we have what we might consider our first negative entry, when Sakamoto no Takara no Omi passed away. You may remember Sakamoto, but I wouldn't blame you if you didn't.  He was the commander in the Nara Basin, under general Wofukei, who took 300 troops to Tatsuta.  From there he advanced to the Hiraishi plain and up to the top of Mt. Takayasu, to confront the Afumi forces that had taken the castle.  They fled, and Takara and his men overnighted at the castle.  The next day they tried to intercept Afumi troops advancing from the Kawachi plain, but they were forced to fall back to a defensive position.   We covered that in Episode 131 with the rest of the campaign in the Nara Basin. Takara's death is the first of many entries—I count roughly 21 through this and the following reign—which, for the most part, are all similarly worded.  Sakamoto no Takara no Omi, of Upper Daikin rank, died.  He was posthumously granted the rank of Shoushi for service in the Year of Mizu-no-e Saru, aka Jinshin.  We are told the individual, their rank at the time of their death, and then a note about a posthumous grant of rank.  Upper Daikin was already about the 7th rank from the top in the system of 664, and Shoushi would be the 6th rank, and one of the “ministerial” ranks.  This is out of 26, total.  “Kin” itself was the fourth of about 7 categories, and the last category that was split into six sub-ranks, with greater and lesser (Daikin and Shokin), each of which was further divided into Upper, Middle, and Lower ranks.  There's a lot to go into, in fact a little too much for this episode, so for more on the ranks in use at the start of the reign, check out our blogpost for this episode.        The giving of posthumous rank is mostly just an honorific.  After all, the individual is now deceased, so it isn't as if they would be drawing more of a stipend, though their new ranks may have influenced their funerary rites and similar things. As I said, on a quick scan of the text, I counted  21 of these entries, though there may be a few more with slightly different phrasing or circumstances.  Some of them were quite notable in the record, while others may have only had a mention here or there.  That they are mentioned, though, likely speaks to the importance of that connection to such a momentous year.  The Nihon Shoki is thought to have been started around the time of Ohoama or his successor, along with the Kojiki, and so it would have been important to people of the time to remind everyone that their ancestors had been the ones who helped with that momentous event.  It really isn't that much different from those who proudly trace their lineage back to heroes of, say, the American Revolution, though it likely held even more sway being closer to the actual events. After the death of Sakamoto no Takara, we get another death announcement.  This is of someone that Aston translates as “Satek Syomyeong” of Baekje, of Lower Daikin rank.  We aren't given much else about him, but we are told that Ohoama was shocked.  He granted Syomyeong the posthumous rank of “Outer Shoushi”, per Aston's translation.  He also posthumously named him as Prime Minister, or Desapyong, of Baekje. There are a few clues about who this might be, but very little to go on.  He is mentioned in 671, during the reign of Naka no Oe, when he received the rank of Upper Daikin along with Minister—or Sapyong—Yo Jasin.  It is also said in the interlinear text that he was the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Judgment—the Houkan no Taifu.  The Ministry of Judgment—the Houkan or perhaps the Nori no Tsukasa—is thought to have been the progenitor of the later Shikibu, the Ministry of Ceremony.  One of the major roles it played was in the selection of candidates for rank, position, and promotion. We are also told that in the year 660, in the reign of Takara Hime, one of the nobles captured in the Tang invasion of Baekje was “Desapyong Satek”, so perhaps this Syomyeong was a descendant or relative of the previous prime minister, who fled to Yamato with other refugees.  We also have another record from 671 of a Satek Sondeung and his companions accompanying the Tang envoy Guo Yacun.  So it would seem that the Sathek family was certainly notable The name “Satek” shows up once more, though Aston then translates it as “Sataku”, like a monk or scholar's name.  “Sataku” would be the Japanese on'yomi pronunciation of the same characters, so perhaps another relative. What we can take away from all of this is that the Baekje refugee community is still a thing in Yamato.  This Satek Seomyeong has court rank—Upper Daikin rank, just like Sakamoto, in the previous entry.  And we know that he had an official position at court—not just in the Baekje court in exile.  We'll see more on this as the community is further integrated into the rest of Society, such that there would no longer be a Baekje community, but families would continue to trace their lineages back to Baekje families, often with pride. The other odd thing here is the character “outer” or “outside” before “Shoushi”.  Aston translates it as part of the rank, and we see it show up a total of four times in some variation of “Outer Lesser X rank”.  Mostly it is as here, Outer Lesser Purple.  Later we would see a distinction of “outer” and “inner” ranks, which this may be a version of.  Depending on one's family lineage would denote whether one received an “outer” or “inner” rank, and so it may be that since Satek Syomyeong was from the Baekje community, it was more appropriate for him to have an “outside” rank. “Outer” rank would also be given to Murakuni no Muraji no Woyori, the general who had led the campaign to Afumi, taking the Seta bridge.  He was also posthumously given the rank of “Outer Shoushi” upon his death in 676.  Murakuni no Woyori is the only person of that surname mentioned around this time, so perhaps he wasn't from one of the “core” families of the Yamato court, despite the service he had rendered.  We also have at least one other noble of Baekje who is likewise granted an ”outer” rank. On the other side there are those like Ohomiwa no Makamuta no Kobito no Kimi, who was posthumously granted the rank of “Inner” Shoushi.  Here I would note that Ohomiwa certainly seems to suggest an origin in the Nara Basin, in the heartland of Yamato. The terms “Inner” and “Outer” are only used on occasion, however, and not consistently in all cases.  This could just be because of the records that the scribes were working off of at the time.  It is hard to say, exactly. All of these entries about posthumous ranks being granted tend to refer to cap ranks, those applying to members of various Uji, the clans that had been created to help organize the pre-Ritsuryo state. The Uji and their members played important roles in the court and the nation, both as ministers and lower functionaries.  But I also want to mention another important component of Ohoama's court, the members of the princely class, many of whom also actively contributed to the functioning of the state.  Among this class are those that Aston refers to as “Princes of the Blood”, or “Shinnou”.  These include the royal princes, sons of Ohoama who were in line for the throne, but also any of his brothers and sisters.  Then there were the “miko”, like Prince Kurikuma, who had been the Viceroy in Tsukushi, denying troops to the Afumi court.  Those princes claimed some lineal descent from a sovereign, but they were not directly related to the reigning sovereign.  In fact, it isn't clear, today, if they were even indirectly related to the reigning sovereign, other than through the fact that the elites of the archipelago had likely been forming marriage alliances with one another for centuries, so who knows.  And maybe they made their claims back to a heavenly descendant, like Nigi Hayahi.  Either way, they were the ones with claims—legitimate or otherwise—to royal blood.  Notably, the Princes did not belong to any of the Uji, , and they didn't have kabane, either—no “Omi”, “Muraji”, “Atahe”, et cetera. They did, at least from this reign forward, have rank.  But it was separate and different from the rank of the Uji members.  Members of the various Uji were referred to with cap rank, but the Princely ranks were just numbered—in the Nihon Shoki we see mention of princes of the 2nd through 5th ranks—though presumably there was also a “first” rank.  It is not entirely clear when this princely rank system was put into place, but it was probably as they were moving all of the land, and thus the taxes, to the state.  Therefore the court would have needed to know what kind of stipend each prince was to receive—a stipend based on their rank.  These ranks, as with later numbered ranks, appear to have been given in ascending order, like medals in a tournament:  first rank, second rank, third rank, etc. with fifth rank being the lowest of the Princely ranks. Many of these Princes also held formal positions in the government.  We saw this in Naka no Oe's reign with Prince Kurikuma taking the Viceroy-ship of Tsukushi, but during Ohoama's reign we see it even more. Beneath the Princes were the various Ministers and Public Functionaries—the Officers of the court, from the lowest page to the highest minister.  They were members of the elite noble families, for the most part, or else they claimed descent from the elite families of the continent.  Either way they were part of what we would no doubt call the Nobility.  Their cap-rank system, mentioned earlier, was separate from that used by the Princes. And, then at the bottom, supporting this structure, were the common people.  Like the princes, they did not necessarily have a surname, and they didn't really figure into the formal rank system.  They certainly weren't considered members of the titled class, and often don't even show up in the record.  And yet we should not forget that they were no doubt the most numerous and diverse group for the majority of Japanese history.  Our sources, however, have a much more narrow focus. There is one more class of people to mention here, and that is the evolving priestly class.  Those who took Buddhist orders and became Buddhist monks were technically placed outside of the social system, though that did not entirely negate their connections to the outside world.  We see, for example, how Ohoama, even in taking orders, still had servants and others to wait on him.  However, they were at least theoretically outside of the social hierarchy, and could achieve standing within the Buddhist community through their studies of Buddhist scripture.  They had their own hierarchy, which was tied in to the State through particular Buddhist officers appointed by the government, but otherwise the various temples seem to have been largely in charge of their own affairs. But anyway, let's get back to the Chronicles. Following closely on the heels of Satek Syomyeong's passing, two days later, we have another entry, this one much more neutral.  We are told that Tamna, aka the kingdom on Jeju island off the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, sent Princes Kumaye, Tora, Uma, and others with tribute. So now we are getting back into the diplomatic swing of things.  There had been one previous embassy—that of Gim Apsil of Silla, who had arrived just towards the end of the Jinshin War, but they were merely entertained in Tsukushi and sent back, probably because Ohoama's court were still cleaning house. Tamna, Silla, and Goguryeo—usually accompanied by Silla escorts—would be the main visitors to Yamato for a time.  At this point, Silla was busy trying to get the Tang forces to leave the peninsula.  This was partly assisted by the various uprisings in the captured territories of Goguryeo and Baekje—primarily up in Goguryeo.  There were various attempts to restore the kingdom.  It isn't clear, but I suspect that the Goguryeo envoys we do eventually see were operating largely as a vassal state under Silla. Tamna, on the other hand, seems to have been outside of the conflict, from what we see in the records, and it likely was out of the way of the majority of any fighting.  They also seem to have had a different relationship with Yamato, based on some of the interactions. It is very curious to me that the names of the people from Tamna seem like they could come from Yamato.  Perhaps that is related in some way to theories that Tamna was one of the last hold-outs of continental proto-Japonic language prior to the ancestor of modern Korean gaining ascendancy.  Or it could just be an accident of how things got copied down in Sinitic characters and then translated back out. The Tamna mission arrived on the 8th day of the 6th intercalary month of 673.  A Silla embassy arrived 7 days later, but rather than tribute, their mission was twofold—two ambassadors to offer congratulations to Ohoama and two to offer condolences on the late sovereign—though whether that means Naka no Oe or Ohotomo is not exactly clear.  All of these arrived and would have been hosted, initially, in Tsukushi, probably at modern Fukuoka.  The Silla envoys were accompanied by Escorts, who were briefly entertained and offered presents by the Dazaifu, the Yamato government extension on Kyushu, and then sent home.  From then on, the envoys would be at the mercy of Yamato and their ships. About a month and a half later, on the 20th day of the 8th month, Goguryeo envoys also showed up with tribute, accompanied by Silla escorts.  Five days later, word arrived back from the court in Asuka.  The Silla envoys who had come to offer congratulations to the sovereign on his ascension were to be sent onwards.  Those who had just come with tribute, however, could leave it with the viceroy in Tsukushi.    They specifically made this point to the Tamna envoys, whom they then suggested should head back soon, as the weather was about to turn, and they wouldn't want to be stuck there when the monsoon season came. The Tamna cohort weren't just kicked out, however.  The court did grant them and their king cap-rank.  The envoys were given Upper Dai-otsu, which Yamato equated to the rank of a minister in Tamna. The Silla envoys—about 27 in total—made their way to Naniwa.  It took them a month, and they arrived in Naniwa on the 28th day of the 9th month.  Their arrival was met with entertainments—musical performances and presents that were given to the envoys.  This was all part of the standard diplomatic song and dance—quite literally, in this case. We aren't given details on everything.  Presumably the envoys offered their congratulations, which likely included some presents from Silla, as well as a congratulatory message.  We aren't given exact details, but a little more than a month later, on the first day of the 11th month, envoy Gim Seungwon took his leave. Meanwhile, the Goguryeo envoys, who, like Tamna, had arrived merely with tribute, were still in Tsukushi.  On the 21st day of the 11th month, just over two months after they arrived, we are told that they were entertained at the Ohogohori in Tsukushi and were given presents based on their rank. The Ohogohori, or “Big District”, appears to mirror a similar area in Naniwa that was likewise known for hosting diplomatic envoys. With the diplomatic niceties over, there was one more thing to do in this first year of the new reign: the thanksgiving ritual always held at the beginning of a new reign, the Daijosai, or oho-namematsuri.  This is a harvest ritual where the newly enthroned sovereign offers new rice to the kami and then eats some himself.  At least in the modern version, he gives thanks and prays to Amaterasu Ohomikami, as well as to the amatsu-kami and kunitsu-kami, the kami of heaven and earth. The Daijosai shares a lot in common with another important annual festival, the Niinamesai, or the Feast of First Fruits.  This is the traditional harvest festival, usually held in November.  The Daijosai follows much the same form as the Niinamesai, and as such, in years where there is a new sovereign, and thus the Daijosai is held, the Niinamesai is not, since it would be duplicative. Many of the rituals of the Daijosai are private affairs and not open to the public. There are various theories about what happens, but only those who are part of the ritual know for sure, and they are sworn to secrecy. The first instance of the Daijosai in the Chronicles is during the reign of Shiraga Takehiko Kunioshi Waka Yamato Neko, aka Seinei Tennou, in the 5th century, but we should take that with a huge grain of salt.  Remember, one of the purposes behind the chronicles was to explain how everything came to be, and saying “we just made it up” wasn't really going to fly. I've seen some sources suggest that the Daijosai can be attributed to the first reign of Ohoama's mother, Takara Hime, aka Kougyoku Tennou.  The term used in her reign, though is Niiname, which seems to refer to the annual Niinamesai, though she is the first in the Chronicles that seems to celebrate it in the first year of her reign, sharing with the Crown Prince and Ministers. It is likely that the ritual is much older in origin.  After all, giving the first fruits of the harvest to the kami to thank them for their assistance seems like the core of harvest festivals around the world.  We see it mentioned as the Niinamesai in much of the rest of the Nihon Shoki, even back to the Age of the Gods, when it played an important part in the stories of Amaterasu and Susanowo.  It is in Ohoama's reign, though, that it seems to first take on its character as a true ritual of the state.  We see that the Nakatomi and the Imbe were involved.  Together these two families oversaw much of the court ritual having to do with kami worship.  We also know that the officials of the Jingikan, the Ministry of Kami Affairs, were also present, as they were all given presents for attending on the sovereign during the festival.  We also see that the district governors of Harima and Tamba, which were both in the area of modern Hyougo Prefecture, as well as various laborers under them, were all recognized with presents as well.  We can assume that this was because they provided the rice and other offerings used in the festival.  In addition to the presents they received, the two governors were each given an extra grade of cap-rank. Another Daijosai would be carried out in the first year of Ohoama's successor, and from there on it seems to have become one of if not *the* major festival of a reign.  It marks, in many ways, the end of the first year of ceremonies for the first year of a reign.  And even in other years, the Niinamesai is often one of the pre-eminent festivals. The Daijosai may have been the climax of the year in many ways, but the year was not quite done yet.  We have two more entries, and both are related to Buddhism.  First, on the 17th day of the 12th month, just twelve days after the Daijosai, Prince Mino and Ki no Omi no Katamaro were appointed Commissioners for the erection of the Great Temple of Takechi—aka the Ohomiya no Ohodera, also known as the Daikandaiji. The Daikandaiji was a massive temple complex.  It is thought that it was originally a relocation of Kudara Ohodera, and we have remains at the foot of Kaguyama—Mt. Kagu, in the Asuka region of modern Kashihara city.  Many of the ruins, however, seem to date to a slightly later period, suggesting that the main temple buildings were rebuilt after Ohoama's reign.  Still, it is quite likely that he had people start the initial work. In setting up the temple, of course it needed a head priest.  And so Ohoama called upon a priest named Fukurin and made him an offer he couldn't refuse… literally.  Fukurin tried to object to being posted as the head priest.  He said that he was too old to be in charge of the temple.  Ohoama wasn't having any of it.  He had made up his mind, and Fukurin was in no position to refuse him. A quick note on the two commissioners here.  First off, I would note that Prince Mino here isn't mentioned as having Princely rank.  Instead, he is mentioned with the ministerial rank of Shoushi.  Ki no Katamaro, on the other hand, is Lower Shoukin, several grades below.  Once again, a bit of confusion in the ranks, as it were. The final entry for the year 673 occurred 10 days after the erection of the great temple, and it was a fairly straightforward entry:  The Buddhist Priest, Gijou, was made Shou-soudzu, or Junior Soudzu.  Junior Soudzu was one of the government appointed positions of priests charged with overseeing the activities of the priests and temples and holding them to account as necessary.  Originally there was the Soujou and the Soudzu, but they were later broken up into several different positions, likely due to the proliferation of Buddhism throughout the archipelago. There doesn't seem to be much on Gijou before this point, but we know that he would go on to live a pretty full life, passing away over thirty years later, in 706 CE. He would outlive Ohoama and his successor.  And with that, we come to the end of the first year.  I am not planning to go year by year through this entire reign—in fact, we have already touched on a lot of the various recurring entries.  But I do think that it is worth it to see how the Chronicles treat this first year for a reign that would have been considered pretty momentous to the people of the time. Next episode we'll continue going through the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou.  There is a lot going on, which, as I've said, will influence the nation for centuries—even up until the modern day. Until then, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  

Let's Chat!Doors left barely open. A lobby that knows your name suddenly forgets you. And somewhere between brass and marble, a reflection smiles before you do. This chapter of The Patience of Predators slips from paranoia into possession as a copy steps out of the shadows and begins to breathe.We follow Aston Keller through a night where the building speaks in his voice and a day where his firm turns his handwriting into a verdict. Janine reads the room with surgical precision and claims his cases without raising her pulse, while Elliot's silence becomes its own judgment. Across the lobby, a double in Aston's suit counsels power with words stolen from his margins—balance deferred, predator feeds—and then vanishes as if the institution itself prefers the stronger version.At home, the city goes quiet. Claire's memory rings like a bill coming due, her voice braided with a counting that climbs like interest. On the wall, photographs multiply and align, red thread sketching a torso, shoulders, ribs—a body made of evidence. The outline leans forward. It inhales. The copy doesn't want to hunt him; it wants to be him, to write with his hand, argue with his cadence, and own his breath. That's the terror at the center of this story: identity theft not of data, but of presence.We dig into the mechanics of workplace predation, the social physics of credibility, and the way grief can be repurposed into debt. We ask hard questions: when your notes betray you, what part of you can still defend you? If a stronger version of you arrives—sharper, calmer, more believable—do you fight to remain original, or do you surrender to the copy that already knows your lines? The answers aren't easy, but the clues are on the glass and sewn into the thread.If this episode moved you, share it with someone who loves psychological thrillers and corporate intrigue. Leave a quick review to help more listeners find the show, and hit follow so you don't miss the final breaths of this arc. Your support helps us keep building stories that look back when you stare too long."True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."

Let's Chat!The night doesn't stalk Aston with footsteps—it grins back from the glass. A rain-soaked walk home becomes a hall of mirrors where reflections move first, a colleague recites his thoughts before he can speak, and a phone call returns his own words in a lover's voice. We take you inside a city that copies, a firm that rewards repetition, and an apartment where photographs rearrange themselves into a circle of doubles, each one a sharper, hungrier draft of the original.We unravel how imitation turns predatory when credit blurs and speed rules, and why identity erodes fastest in places that praise confidence over provenance. Elliot keeps the blade hidden behind policy, Janine hunts with precision, and the ledger of images grows from twelve to fourteen with impossible clicks in the dark—proof that copies breed copies even when you try to burn the evidence. The question tightens: is it worse to be hunted, or to be replaced by a cleaner, crueler version of yourself?Along the way, we share five reflection prompts to test your defenses: where control slips when your words come back through someone else, which doubles you carry under pressure, what part of your life attracts predators, how to tell imitation from replacement, and which version of you would outlast the others if the ledger kept adding pages. Expect psychological horror, corporate intrigue, and practical takeaways on protecting authorship, building boundaries, and keeping the original intact when the room starts echoing.If this story hooked you, share it with a friend who loves smart thrillers with a self-development edge, and drop a quick review so more listeners can find the series. Want to talk about the episode or the upcoming Halloween run? Hit the “let's chat” link in the show description, email anthonygentsjourney.com, or DM us on Instagram at my gents journey. Subscribe and stay close—the next chapters land fast."True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."

Let's Chat!What if your life was being tallied without your knowledge? What if someone—or something—was keeping track of every mistake, every debt, every moment of weakness?Aston's nightmare begins with a simple discovery: twelve Polaroid photographs arranged on his kitchen counter in the middle of the night. Not scattered randomly, but positioned with deliberate precision like entries in a ledger. Each bears a mysterious red mark in the corner, like debts being counted. One mark, two marks, three marks, four...As the high-powered attorney tries to make sense of these unsettling photographs, his carefully constructed world begins to fracture. His colleagues at the prestigious Warren and Keller firm circle like sharks sensing blood in the water. A mysterious stranger on the subway carries a briefcase filled with more photographs of Aston—from angles and moments he doesn't recognize. Music with pointed lyrics seeps through his walls at the most unsettling moments.The ledger grows. The red marks multiply. The photos rearrange themselves when he isn't looking. The debt is climbing, but what exactly does he owe? And to whom?This haunting fourth episode of "The Patience of Predators" series explores the arithmetic of guilt and the ledgers we all silently keep. When does a man become prey? When does he become the predator? Sometimes the hunter and the hunted exist within the same skin, and the most frightening reflection is the one that smiles back without your permission.Take a journey into psychological horror that will make you question the debts you carry, the reflections you avoid, and the personal ledgers you might be keeping without even realizing it. Remember—predators don't always wear teeth. Sometimes they wear patience."True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."

We went go-kart drifting and wowzers did it surprise us; Matt makes a new law; the 2025 Aston Martin Vanquish is fast and expensive but is it too limited? and we answer Patreon questions including:Can you drive on tires that are older than 5 years?How would we fix GM?Would we ever get a Neuralink implant?Track car dream: Dark Horse R vs Cayman Clubsport?Why shouldn't I put a parking lift in my garage?$30k sports car for rough roads and occasional track usTop bucket list activity?Why Matt hates the band P.O.T.U.S.996 base or BRZ tS?Best car to use for a Rendezvous remake?And more!Recorded September 16, 2025Show Notes:DeleteMeTake control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for DeleteMe. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/TIREand use promo code TIRE at checkout.  HelloFreshGo to HelloFresh.com/smokingtire10fm now to Get 10 Free Meals + a Free Item for Life! One per box with active subscription. Free meals applied as discount on first box, new subscribers only, varies by plan.  UpsideUpside has given back $1 Billion dollars to its users. To find out how much you could earn, Download the FREE Upside App and use promo code THESMOKINGTIRE to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.New merch! Grab a shirt or hoodie and support us! https://thesmokingtireshop.com/ Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! For a 10% discount on your first case go to https://www.offtherecord.com/TST Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Instagram:https://www.Instagram.com/thesmokingtirehttps://www.Instagram.com/therealzackklapman Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! Enter code TST10 for a 10% discount on your first case on the Off The Record app, or go to http://www.offtherecord.com/TST. Watch our car reviews: https://www.youtube.com/thesmokingtire Tweet at us!https://www.Twitter.com/thesmokingtirehttps://www.Twitter.com/zackklapman Instagram:https://www.Instagram.com/thesmokingtirehttps://www.Instagram.com/therealzackklapman

Let's Chat!What power can four simple words hold over a life meticulously constructed? In this gripping installment of The Patience of Predators series, we witness the unraveling of Aston Cross—Manhattan's golden attorney whose perfect existence begins to fracture after finding a mysterious note on his windshield reading: "I see you, brother."The narrative pulls us through Aston's increasingly disturbed psyche as he grapples with a truth he can't understand. His reflection no longer moves in sync. Music follows him through city streets with lyrics that feel deliberately chosen to torment him. Colleagues insist they've seen him in places he knows he's never been. And those late-night phone calls—breathing on the other end of the line that belongs to no one he knows.What makes this psychological thriller so compelling isn't blood or violence but the slow, methodical dismantling of certainty. The predator in this story hunts with patience, not knives. It waits in the cracks of what Aston refuses to face, growing stronger with each moment of denial. As listeners, we're forced to question: What small notes have we been ignoring in our own lives? What truths might we be avoiding that will eventually surface?The episode concludes with five profound reflection questions that challenge us to examine our own carefully constructed identities. What would happen if the mask you spent years perfecting suddenly fell away? Sometimes the most patient predator isn't lurking in shadows—it's the truth we've been running from all along.Join our growing community of listeners exploring the darker corners of the human experience. Write a review, share with friends, or reach out through the "Let's Chat" link in the description. Remember, as we journey through these psychological landscapes together: you create your reality."True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."

Let's Chat!The chandeliers glow like molten gold as Manhattan's elite raise their glasses to Aston Cross – the law firm's golden boy, the heir apparent, a man who seems to have mastered perfection itself. But as applause thunders through the ballroom, something unexpected happens: through the walls bleeds the jagged opening riff of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," a sound that doesn't celebrate Aston but mocks him.Thus begins "The Patience of Predators," a chilling exploration of what happens when our carefully constructed facades begin to crack. We follow Aston through a single night and morning as his perfect world unravels in subtle, terrifying ways. His reflections lag behind his movements, phantom music plays when nothing is on, and mysterious phone calls bring only breathing on the other end. The city itself seems to be communicating with him through meaningful song lyrics that appear precisely when needed to unsettle him.What makes this story so compelling isn't just the supernatural elements, but the profound questions it raises about authenticity and success. As Anthony notes, "You can polish a mask until it blinds the room, but the music doesn't lie." Each reflective surface becomes a window into Aston's fragmenting sense of self, revealing the disconnect between the image he projects and the truth he hides even from himself.The episode concludes with powerful reflections worth considering in our own lives: Where are you polishing a mask instead of facing what's underneath? What cracks have you noticed and tried to ignore? When the applause fades, what silence do you come home to? Because perfection isn't just impossible – it might be the most dangerous illusion of all.Connect with Anthony through the description link, email at anthony@gentsjourney.com, or on Instagram @MyGentsJourney. Remember, you create your reality – but first, you must be willing to truly see it."True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."

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Ōama, aka Temmu Tennō, ascended the throne in the Kiyomihara Palace--a rennovated version of his mother's Later Okamoto Palace.  Here he ruled with a tremendous amount of authority, continuing the leverage the Ritsuryo system to centralize power in the throne.  We'll look at the layout of the palace, and also talk a little bit about what life was like for the members of the court who were serving Oama, and the state at large. For photos, diagrams, and more, see our blog at: https://sengokudaimyo.com/episode-134 Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is episode 134: An Image of the Court at Kiyomihara Maro sat under the eaves of the hall to which he was assigned.  The journey from Mino hadn't been so hard, but he was still far from his family, back home.  He knew as much as they did that serving at the court of the Great Lord was a tremendous opportunity.  He would be at the heart of the court, in the presence of those running the country, and he could learn a lot from them.  After passing his internship, he would have a chance to prove himself.  If he worked hard, he could look forward to continued promotion, with the greater stipend and influence that came with it. Maro had no illusions that he would someday be at the top of the court hierarchy, but perhaps he could make some modest improvements in his station.  His elder brother was expected to inherit their father's position back in Mino, but the court provided a different opportunity.  Maro had always been a quick learner, and had learned to read and write at an early age, devouring whatever knowledge he could get his hands on – and that had helped make him that much more desirable to the court.  Now he was learning the ins and outs of how it worked, mostly by doing odd jobs while observing the various interactions, the politics, and the rhythm of it all.  Life at the Court really was something.  And yet he still felt homesick.  And so here Maro sat, looking out at the full moon in the sky, its light so bright that he barely needed any other illumination.  Maro wondered at the idea that his family might be looking up at the same moon at the very same time.  As that image took hold, he could feel in the experience a poetic verse.  He took out one of the wooden slips used for labels and notes, scraped off the previous writing, and began jotting down his composition. He only got through a couple of lines before he heard his name being called, and since he was on night duty he put down the brush and the wooden slip.  Poetry would have to wait.  With everything put back away, he rushed off to find out what new task awaited him. So here we are, the year is 673 and we are at the start of a new era.  Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou, had defeated his enemies and was now in the process of taking the reins of power and officially ascending the throne.  In so doing he was moving the capital from Ohotsu, on the shores of Lake Biwa, back to Asuka.  Arriving back, he took up residence in what is called the Shima palace for a few days, presumably as they prepared the Okamoto Palace for him.  At the same time, we are told that a “palace” was erected for Ohoama south of the Okamoto Palace, and this was called the Kiyomihara Palace. I'd like to spend this episode talking about this Kiyomihara Palace, and what life was like there, not just for Ohoama but for his new court.  While we talked about some of the other palaces, this is perhaps one of the better known from the archaeological record, and it is the backdrop for so much that happens.  Ohoama is even known as the Sovereign from Kiyomihara.  So let's talk about what the palace consisted of, and what it was, and a little bit about what life was like there.  In addition to that, we've discussed in previous episodes how Ohoama's ascension to the throne kicked off a whole new era in the evolution of the Yamato state, with numerous innovations and new paradigms in the idea of the ruler and the court and their relationship – so it's worth taking a closer look at the setting where all of that was happening, so we can try and put ourselves in the shoes of those doing the work, and understand their daily grind, as it were. There is unfortunately plenty about the Kiyomihara Palace that we don't know - it isn't like there is a detailed account of the palace in the records - but its ruins are probably the most complete of all those found in Asuka.  This makes sense, given that it would have been built over the earlier palace sites.  In fact, for the most part, the Kiyomihara Palace is just the Later Okamoto Palace, in other words where Takara Hime, aka Saimei Tennou, ruled, but updated and expanded to fit Ohoama's and his court's needs.  Archeological work in Asuka has done some tremendous work to help us understand the Asuka Palace Site.  By studying the various post holes, ditches, and other evidence, along with occasionally discarded items, we have a general idea of the palace's shape, and when we combine this with what we know from other sites—the Naniwa Palace ruins in Ohosaka, the Fujiwara palace ruins in Kashihara, and the Heijo-kyo ruins in Nara, among others—along with an understanding of how palaces were being built on the continent, we are able to piece together what we think was going on.  Of course these interpretations aren't unanimous, and there are parts that scholars will no doubt quibble over—such as the use of the Ebinoko compound, which I'll talk about in a bit—but in general we have a picture of what things probably looked like, at least from a layout perspective, and how the site may have been used. To start, let's go back for a moment to the Toyosaki Palace in Naniwa, the first palace purpose built for the new governmental system being brought over from the continent.  This was the palace of Karu Ohokimi, aka Koutoku Tennou, uncle to Naka no Ohoye.  It was built in the aftermath of the Isshin Incident of 645, an architectural centerpiece of the Taika reforms.  As you may recall, this was a massive undertaking.  This palace was largely rectangular, and consisted of three compounds from south to north, ranging from most to least public. Most people would enter from the south gate, later known as the Suzaku-mon, the gate of the crimson bird of the south, a pattern that would generally hold true for other palaces.  Entering the compound, you would find yourself in the Choshuden, a space holding two pavilions with several rooms where officials could change into or out of their official robes.  The gates to the Choshuden would open at sunrise for the clerks and functionaries would enter.  At the northern end of the Choshuden was the Southern gate of the Chodoin, the main working area of the court.  There were 14 halls, or Chodo, each one dedicated to a different ministry.  The size of these halls varied, likely based on importance or at least the size of their government portfolio. Most of the middle area of the Chodoin was open, but at the northern end was the gate to the Dairi, the inner palace.  This gate was flanked by two octagonal buildings, and it led to an area between the Chodoin and the Dairi where there sat the building that would become the Daigokuden.  This was the main audience chamber for meetings with the sovereign, who would preside and make pronouncements in the early morning hours, at the start of the day. To the north of the Daigokuden was the rest of the Dairi, where the sovereign's personal quarters lay, including the quarters for his consorts and children, maintained by his personal servants.And there were other gates into and out of the Dairi—after all, the palace was so large you didn't want to have to go through the Choushuden and Choudouin just to get to the sovereign's quarters.  Those who lived in the Dairi and those who worked there would be able to have their own entrances and exits. Let's contrast all of this with the Okamoto Palace in Asuka.  More precisely the Later Okamoto Palace.  This was the successor palace to the Itabuki palace, both of which were built for Takara Hime, aka Kougyouku—and by this point Saimei—Tennou.  In fact, Itabuki palace burned down at the end of 654, just as Takara Hime came to the throne a second time.  This palace was, in total, maybe the size of the Chodoin of the Toyosaki Palace, if that.  For one thing, there wasn't as much flat land easily available in the valley, but for another, the builders maybe didn't think they needed quite that much space and that many buildings.  You see, while the Toyosaki palace in Naniwa was likely meant to model the kind of infrastructure necessary for the Tang court, in Chang'an, Yamato was still building up its fledgling bureaucracy.  It wasn't like there were a flood of reports and correspondences coming in from all over the archipelago that had to be handled by an army of clerks.  At least not yet. The Okamoto palace, from what we can tell, was also a rectangle, once again facing south , on the east side of the Asuka river.  This palace did not necessarily have the same kinds of dedicated spaces as the Toyosaki Palace. The main gate that we know of was in the south, leading to a courtyard with another building—possibly the Ohoandono, alternatively the Ohoyasumidono or the Daianden.  This may have been an audience hall for meeting with public officials.  The ground here was covered in gravel, a fairly common thing for palace compounds. Though we don't know exactly what the buildings looked like, we have some idea based on the size and number of post-holes.  We also haven't found any ceramic tiles in or around the ruins so far, which suggests that Okamoto Palace did not have ceramic tile roofs as were common on temple architecture, but instead were likely covered with wooden shingles, like the Itabuki Palace that used to be in relatively the same spot.  From an archeological perspective, any tiled building of this size leaves a lot of indications behind: over the years tiles fall off, break, get buried, etc.  Even if, as was common, the court meticulously dismantled the buildings down and reused as much as they could, we would still expect to see some tiles or tile fragments in the ground where the pillars are found, and yet we find nothing of the sort.  To the east and west of the Ohoandono were long, narrow structures, oriented north to south rather than east to west.  These are thought to have been the offices where government officials could do their work. Moving into the northern section of the palace, the ground was paved with river stones.  There were two large buildings with small wings, running east to west, lengthwise, and situated on the same line as the Ohoandono.  These may have been what have been called the To no Andono, or outer Hall, and the Uchi no Andono, the inner hall, and they would have been used for ceremonies for those of the appropriate rank. The middle hall it seems was modified from its original form.  While it was similar in size and footprint to the hall north of it, the western wing of the southern hall at some point was destroyed—whether on purpose or accidentally—and it was replaced with what appears to have been a pond. On each side of this central area we see more space for buildings, but only some of the post holes have so far been uncovered.  There were other buildings further in the northernmost third of the compound that were likely for the sovereign's private usage, as well as a well, and what may have been a building for some kind of semi-private religious ceremony. This palace, the Okamoto Palace, was essentially what Ohoama started from when he  relocated the capital back to Asuka – but when he ascended to the throne, he did make a few changes.  Most notable was the creation of something called the ebinoko-kuruwa, the Ebinoko enclosure.  This was to the southeast of the main palace, and had a rectangular wall surrounding one large building and two smaller ones.  Interestingly, the buildings would appear to be oriented in a symmetrical shape that would suggest a southern entrance, like the other palace compounds we've been discussing, and yet the gate was to the west, opening to the area between the Ebinoko enclosure and the main palace.  And based on postholes and other evidence, there appear to have been at least four other rectangular buildings stretching out to the south, outside of the walls.  Some have theorized that the large building in the Ebinoko  was an early form of the Daigokuden, a ceremonial hall where Ohoama held court, rather than reusing the facilities of the old Okamoto palace.  Alternately,  perhaps it was actually more like the buildings of the Chodoin in Naniwa, where the different departments of the court actually did business, but here with all of the officials working in one, single building.  A third idea that others have suggested that this was actually Ohoama's private residence—again, somewhat odd given the size and shape and the fact that there were the seemingly larger facilities of the Okamoto palace already right there for the taking. So which is it?  We do have a clue in the record of the 15th day of the 9th month of 672, and the lines following it.  According to the Aston translation of the Nihon shoki: He removed his residence from the Palace of Shima to the Palace of Okamoto. In this year a Palace was erected south of the Palace of Okamoto, and the Emperor removed his residence thither that same winter.  This was called the Palace of Kiyomibara in Asuka. So it does seem like something was built south of Okamoto and that is where Ohoama resided.  It is somewhat uncommon for a sovereign to reuse an old palace like this.  Traditionally, sovereigns had regularly moved to new palaces, seemingly because of the attempts to avoid ritual pollution associated with death.  Of course, it had been a while since Takara hime had passed away, and Naka no Ohoye had moved everything to Ohotsu, but nonetheless, is it possible that the Ebinoko kuruwa was built to, in some way, give Ohoama new quarters? We may never know for sure.  There are plenty of inconsistencies.  For one, if it was meant as a residence, I would expect more buildings for his consorts and others.  There are also some things to note about the account in the Nihon Shoki.  For one thing, although the initial account calls this the Kiyomihara Palace,  the Chronicles also suggest that it wouldn't actually get that name until the 20th day of the 7th month of 686, about 14 years later. That record describes how a new era name was also announced:  the Akamitori, or red bird, era.  I don't want to get too much into it right now, but suffice it to say that a red, three legged crow is often depicted as the symbol of the sun; and the important south gate of the palace, the Suzaku-mon, is named for the vermillion bird of the south, one of the four guardian animals.  When this era name—more commonly read as “Shucho”, today, since era names are commonly red in on'yomi reading rather than kun'yomi—well, when it was declared, we are told that the palace was titled the Palace of Kiyomihara of Asuka. What are we to make of this? Well, today, it is assumed that the Kiyomihara palace refers to the Okamoto Palace starting from the creation of the Ebinoko-kuruwa and its occupation during what is assumed to be Ohoama's rule.  Earlier in the Nihon Shoki we are told that Ohoama was known as the Kiyomihara sovereign, and so even though that name technically wasn't applied to the palace until later, it makes some sense just to assume it applied from the start of Ohoama's renovations. One more thing that I would point out.  While we talked about the original Okamoto Palace and the newly built Ebinoko enclosure, they were arranged as though around a large open area, like a courtyard.  The original palace stood at the north, where one could enter the south gate of the palace, and then the Ebinoko enclosure sat on the east side of the courtyard, with its western gate between the two.  The southern and western sides of the courtyard, on the other hand, followed the snaking flow of the Asuka River. From about 675 to 681, on or about the 17th day of the first month of the year, it's recorded that the court held an annual archery shoot in the court of either the West or South Gate—which would seem to refer to this large area.  This makes sense, as the space is large enough to accommodate plenty of room for the range and for others to watch The archery exhibition   was held here, in the space between the two compounds, like clockwork until 681, when we are just told that it was held in the “Courtyard”, which feels like it is referring to an area inside the main compound of Kiyomihara. There are no more mentions of the tradition after 681, though there is an archery shoot in front of the South Gate on the 5th day of the 5th month of 685, but that was probably done as part of the regular 5/5 celebrations—a holiday today known as Kodomo no Hi, or Children's Day, but more traditionally known as Tango no Sekku, the Iris festival.  Some form of celebration on this date seems to have occurred throughout East Asia up until the modern day. Whether the archery stopped or just became such a standard thing that it was no longer noteworthy in the record, I can't really say.  However, one can possibly imagine what it was like, with all of the courtiers out there watching as the arrows shot down the field.  The occasional twang of bows and the faint whistle as it sped towards its target, hitting the target with a sharp thwack.  Murmurs from the crowd regarding how well—or how poorly—any given person was doing. Beyond the courtyard and what we know of the two compounds—the Kiyomihara palace and the Ebinoko Enclosure—there is plenty still to discover.  There were likely other compounds around the palace, possibly as an extension of the palace.  And then there were the temples: west, across the river, was Kawaradera, and north of the palace and surrounding compounds was Houkouji, or Asukadera.  There is even some evidence on the northwest edge of the compounds, southwest from Asukadera, of an ancient garden surrounding several manmade ponds. And so, the entire valley appears to have been filled with buildings and official spaces , running up against and being constrained by the natural features of the valley itself.  As I mentioned above, there just isn't that much buildable space in the Asuka valley, compared to other places like Naniwa.  And this contributed to one of the other problems that the court would have experienced: according to tradition,  the front of the palace and other buildings were all oriented south, but for this location, this meant that they didn't face the expansive fields of the Nara basin, but instead they faced the mountains themselves.  All in all, there was not much room here to grow, and yet the government and the court had grown, at least by all accounts. Though, how much had the court grown? Maybe not as much as we might expect, despite Ohoama's ambitions.  First of all there had been the purge of the powerful ministers at the head of the Afumi court, but there are some startling omissions in the records from the beginning of Ohoama's reign.  There is no mention of the Daijin, or Great Minister.  There is no Minister of the Right or Minister of the Left.  There is no Inner Minister, and there is no Great Minister of State.  There are mentions of the “kugyou”, or “Ministers of State”, which traditionally includes the Daijin, but there is no mention of the Daijin, suggesting that the “kugyou” of this time may have only referenced the heads of the 8 ministries of the Dajokan, the Council of State.  What does this mean? Many scholars interpret this period as a time of extremely centralized power.  Coming off of his military victory, Ohoama seems to have ridden a wave of support and control.  Combine that with the continued absorption of Tang dynasty propaganda-slash-government theory that saw the sovereign—the emperor—as the central authority, and one can see how Ohoama may have been able to do something that few sovereigns in Japanese history were able to actually do, which is to wield real power.  This may seem odd for a position translated into English most commonly as  “Emperor,” but as we've seen, in glimpses through the way they are depicted in the Chronicles, or through the archaeological record, which shows different loci of power and authority across the archipelago in ancient times, the Ohokimi, later dubbed the Tennou or Sumera no Mikoto, was not necessarily all powerful.  Not only did they have to contend with rivals to the throne, but even various court nobles who made their way into the centers of power.  From figures like Takeuchi no Sukune, to the Ohotomo, the Mononobe, and more recently the Soga—in all of these cases various nobles often held considerable power, though often in tension with one another. Sources of authority also varied.  There were the individual religious centers through which families exercised some ritual authority, while there was also more secular authority in the various court positions.  The Ohokimi certainly were respected, from what we can tell, and had a powerful source of authority going back to at least the holy kami of Mt. Miwa.  They even spread that authority through their kannushi, their priests, which they sent out as an extension of the state.  But they weren't entirely independent, either. But Ohoama seems to have reached a point where he did hold a tremendous amount of authority.  Because there is another telling omission from the chronciles: we don't see any more Soga members.  With the death of Soga no Akaye, the Soga family's influence seems to have disappeared this reign.  We also don't see that much about other prominent families compared to earlier: we see the Mononobe as ambassadors, and we see the Nakatomi are still conducting rituals.  But we don't see any of them rising to the same positions as their forebears.  Instead, we see a lot of focus on the Princely class—those members who claim some descent from a previous sovereign, or even the current sovereign, and how they, themselves, are divided up with their own system of ranks that are outside the civil service ranking system. Speaking of civil service, it does always strike me that the ranking systems of various east Asian courts very much resemble the way that, even today, many modern bureaucracies create wage scales for their civil servants.  In the US the most common such scale is the GS or “General Schedule” pay system.  In that system, positions are associated with a particular grade, between 1 and 15, and federal employees are also referred to in terms of those grades.  Grade typically reflects some level of seniority and pay.  It isn't a one-for-one analogy, of course: the court ranks in Yamato were handed out by the sovereign, or at least through their authority, as were the various court positions, though I doubt that Ohoama was spending much personal time approving promotions for a low level clerk writing down inventories and suchlike—but who knows.  But it does emphasize that this system is built to be a centralized bureaucratic monarchy, based on the continental model, and it now seems to have come into its own.  The court seems to have bought into the idea, and now, intentionally or not, much of their own position in society was directly tied to the autocratic whims of the monarch, or Ohoama himself. Indeed, some of the first records from the year 673 are focused on the court and court system.  The very first thing this entailed:  a banquet on the 7th day of the first month of the new year.  We are told that it was a “drinking party” or “shuen”, and boy does that draw some parallels with modern Japanese companies.  We aren't exactly given the form of this party, but we do have later examples.  There was likely a formal start, with various nobles set out at assigned seats based on their rank.  It was an official event, so officials would have been expected to wear the appropriate clothing, including their caps of rank, letting everyone know exactly who's who, and reinforcing the social hierarchy imposed by the rank system in the first place.  I suspect that it started with ritual and formality.  Later, you would have the after party, where people might more freely mingle and drink and recite poetry.  This was both an official and social occasion, because there really wasn't much of a line drawn between the two.  As a ritual, it displayed Ohoama's power over the state through his ability to host them all.  As a social function it was an important time in the political life of the court, where everyone was together, and you could find your cliques and supporters. Drinking alcohol, while being something that many enjoy for its own sake, was also a kind of religious observance.  Sake was made to be offered to the kami, as well as to be used at parties.  It was made from rice, the staple on which the agricultural success of the archipelago was based, and which held a particularly sacred place in other rituals and ceremonies. And then there was the poetry.  As would be true for much of Japanese history, poetry infused all aspects of life at the court, and being able to compose good poetry was just as important to one's social standing as reading, writing, and other such skills. There were generally two kinds of poetry practiced at the court.  There was the traditional Japanese poetry, or waka, with alternating verses of 5 or 7 syllables—more properly morae, but no need to get into that.  Then there was poetry composed in the Sinitic style.  Known as “Kanshi”, which translates directly as “Han Poetry”, this mimics the poetic forms brought over in literature from the continent.  It required a certain amount of education to be able to compose and was based on the characters, or kanji, used.  Kanshi can generally be divided into at least two categories.  There is the Kotaishi, or the Old Style Poetry, which consists of poetic form used prior to the Tang dynasty.  Then there is Kintaishi, or Modern Style Poetry, which is based on the forms from the Tang dynasty and later.  Kintaishi is usually recognized for adhering to more rules of structure and composition, usually using lines of 5 or 7 characters, while Kotaishi is more fluid and less concerned with specific rules and rhythms. Poetry was also not necessarily a solo activity.  It was common in later eras to arrange poetry competition, where the court would divide itself, much like the bureaucracy, between the Left and the Right.  Each group would compose poetry, often on a set theme, and then  put up the poems they felt were the best against those of the other side and then the entire court would listen and judge.  The only tangible reward, assuming the sovereign was not so moved as to do something extraordinary, was bragging rights.  And yet, that social capital was important among the nobles of the court.  Image was extremely important to individuals, and embarrassment could be a political death sentence.  And so many would work hard at these poems to make sure that they were the best they could be. At this point, though, we are still in the early years of many of these traditions.  The poetry that we have appears to be less formulaic than we see in later eras, when there were so many precedents to which one was expected to adhere.  Poems could be about feeling and were not required to hearken back to previous poems and poetic allusions. By the way, official events like this are also one of the ways that we get compilations of poems, later on.  These events would get transcribed and then later those poems would be referenced, particularly if they were noteworthy or by noteworthy individuals.  This kind of event may have been where a lot of the poems from works like the Man'yoshu and the Kaifusou, the earliest compilations of Waka and Kanshi, respectively.  At some point I”d love to dig into the poetry more in depth, but for the moment, I think it is best to leave it there. Now besides one's skills at poetry there were other skills that the court was interested in.  The court system that they had lifted from the continent was based, at least theoretically, on the idea of a meritocracy.  The monarch, of course, was judged to be worthy to rule through the mandate of Heaven, which often demonstrated itself early in the regime through the Emperor's forces defeating their enemies, much as Ohoama had defeated his rivals in the Afumi court.  However, for the rest of the government, the sovereign needed to make sure that he had qualified individuals.  From an early point in history, people recognized that not everyone born into power and wealth was necessarily the best person to help run things.  If you could only find those of the greatest intellect, discernment, and moral compass, then those are the ones you would want to have running things, right?  And this is fine in theory. However, determining who has those qualifications can be a bit tricky.  We talked about this back in episodes 71 and 72 when we talked about the Han dynasty more generally.  In that case, while the civil service exam was open to any person, the reality was that only those with enough wealth and leisure time could afford to study to take the test.  And so while it did open up opportunities for some, it did not truly apply equally across all classes of people.  And this was likely fine with most of the ruling class at the time, since there were also still theories that there were different classes of people, and it simply reinforced their ideas that those in the lower classes just didn't have the same capabilities that they had.  In the Yamato court early in Ohoama's reign it isn't clear to me exactly how individuals were being chosen for service.  We know that rank was handed out as a reward for service, varying with the individual.  Ohoama handed out rank at the end of 672 to those who had helped him to come to power, and then, on the 29th day of the 2nd month of 673, just two days after he formally ascended the throne, we are told that he conferred cap-rank on those who had performed good service, each according to their situation. Of course, that is about how promotions were rewarded.  But what about how people entered into service in the first place?  How did you get introduced to a job in the bureaucracy in the first place?  Well for that we have Ohoama's pronouncement on the first day of the fifth month.  He addressed the court and set it up as follows: First, anyone who would take a government position would begin their career as an “ohotoneri”.  These were low level functionaries who supported the various bureaus as guards, messengers, and whatever else was needed.  Previously, this all would have fallen under the general term of “toneri”, who were those members of the nobility who had been sent to serve in the royal palace.  Aston translates this as a “chamberlain”, and thus equates oho-toneri—literally “great toneri”—as “high chamberlain”, though I'm not sure if that was actually the distinction or not.  It looks like the term “toneri” itself may pre-date the Ritsuryo system, but now was being more standardized, with expanded categories of “toneri” within the system itself.  Interestingly, there is only one other example I could find of Ohotoneri before the reign of Ohoama and that was in the account of Waketakeru no Ohokimi, aka Yuryaku Tennou, which makes me think that might be an anachronism.  We definitely see “toneri” used since just before that reign and continuously onward, and we see them in regards to not just the royal house, but as the functionaries and servants in various places and for other aristocratic families, but the “ohotoneri” seem to have been specifically connected to the royal family… and thus the state. Ohotoneri, despite being quote-unquote “great” toneri, were at the relative bottom of the hierarchy.  They were the night shift, the guards, the messengers, and the general go-fers.  They were essentially paid interns.  As they did their tasks, they were learning about how the various offices and ministries worked, and they were demonstrating their own aptitude.  Based on how they did, they would then be assigned to various offices as seemed most suitable. There were also offices that were staffed by women.  Though separate and distinct, women also had a role in the palace and thus the maintenance of the court and the state.   They were to be selected for service regardless of their age or even whether they were married or not, but they fell under a separate set of rules from the men, because, well, patriarchy. So that's what happened when people were selected to serve, but who was selected?  The chronicles don't say explicitly until a decree about three years later in the 4th month of 676, when it was decreed that all those from provinces outside of the Home Provinces could enter the service of the sovereign, no matter their family's rank, whether Omi, Muraji, Tomo no Miyatsuko, or Kuni no Miyatsuko.  They would also allow men of quote-unquote “distinguished ability” enter service, even though they were commoners. From that we can surmise that when they are talking about “all” people really they are talking about “all” the nobility—the only people for whom the Nihon Shoki was really intended, if you think about it.  Thus, logically it would seem that prior to this only members of the nobility were allowed to enter government service—but there is even more.  Because before this pronouncement in 676, only people in the Home Provinces were theoretically allowed to enter government service. The Home Provinces, or Kinai, are traditionally the five provinces of Yamato, Kawachi, Izumi, Yamashiro, and Settsu.  At this point, though, Izumi was still a part of Kawachi, so it would have just been the four.  These provinces were likely the first lands to really come under Yamato's direct control, and as such they all held a certain pride of place.  This is also where we assume that the powerful families of Yamato had their strongholds.  Certainly the Soga, the Mononobe, and the Ohotomo all had claim to traditional land in and around this region.  When the court had moved to Ohotsu it would have been the first time in many years that the capital was moved out of the Home Provinces, which was probably a large part of the dissent expressed at the time.  How would you like it if your job up and moved two states away and forced you to relocate with them, likely at your own expense? In 676, though, the court decreed that it would no longer restrict itself to noble families of the Home Provinces, but instead would open up service, and the lucrative stipends that came with it, to members of the nobility in the rest of the archipelago. This seems particularly intriguing given the two swords we have from the time of Waketakeru no Ohokimi, aka Yuryua Tennou, in the 5th century, where elites had served—or at least claimed to serve—at his court.  It is possible that during his day the influence of Yamato was more expansive, and that influence contracted after him. Or it could be that it was a different type of service that they had provided. And then there is the comment in Ohoama's decree that the court would also allow men of “distinguished ability” to also enter service, even if they were commoners.  How very progressive.  This seems clearly designed to suggest the meritocratic system that was the ideal, even if it was only truly observed in the breach. I can't help but think about how this symbolizes the court's expanded control across the archipelago, and the idea that all of the archipelago was truly under their control.  It also meant that they had opened up the candidate pool to a wider audience.  Does that mean that they were growing the size of the government, too?  I also can't help but wonder how the old guard took this—the traditional families from the Home Provinces who suddenly found themselves competing with people from the periphery.  Did they see them as equals, or the equivalent of upstart country bumpkins?  And let's not even get started on anyone who joined government service as a Commoner. On the other hand, I suspect these new functionaries would have owed their position even more directly to the sovereign and the court, and they might not have strong familial ties to the local area.  This is all just theory, but seems to follow with Ohoama's general efforts at centralization and accretion of power and authority to himself whilst further building out the structure that his brother, Naka no Ohoye, had set up.  Along those lines, at the same time that the sovereign opened up membership in the court to those outside of the Kinai region, he also meddled with the incomes of the various Princes and Ministers.  He insisted that those Princes and Ministers who were receiving taxes from fiefs in the West—by which I assume is meant western Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu—they should instead get their income from fiefs in the East.  So he was taking away the western fiefs and instead swapping them with eastern fiefs.  Those western taxes could then, presumably, come straight into the government coffers, and the princes and ministers would be connected with land in the east, which I suspect meant they would be expected to invest in those fiefs and encourage them to produce. This feels like it goes along with something from two years earlier, in 675, the third year of Ohoama's reign.  In the second month of that year he abolished the serfs granted to the various Uji back in 664, and he abolished any claims by Princes—Royal or otherwise—as well as Ministers and Temples to any mountains, marshes, islands, bays, woods, plains, and artificial ponds.  It seems clear that he claimed the right of eminent domain to himself and the state.  By extension, all land effectively belonged to Ohoama, and everyone else became, de facto, his tenants.  They paid taxes up to him, and he had the right to grant or take away the land as he saw fit. I can't imagine that went over well with those who had lost their rights to those lands, but either he compensated in them in some other way or his power had grown such that they didn't dare to oppose him.  Certainly not everyone was happy. In 677, Saita no Fubito no Nagura was banished to the island of Izu for apparently scoffing—or otherwise disrespecting—Ohoama.  Well, it says his vehicle, but Aston notes that this is probably just a polite euphemism for the sovereign himself. But that rebuke seems to have been pretty light compared to two years earlier when a man—we aren't even given his name, assuming it was known, hiked up the hill east of the palace, cursed Ohoama, and then cut his own throat.  How it was known that he had been cursing anyone isn't explained—though perhaps he had written it down or otherwise communicated his intentions.  Either way, it was certainly a rebuke. But if it phased Ohoama, we can't tell.  He did give those on duty that night a step in rank, presumably for the trauma they had experienced in dealing with everything. Possibly related—we are told that same month there was a great earthquake.  So was that thought to be the curse being fulfilled?  There is nothing to connect them except that the one immediately follows the other. And yet, Ohoama would continue to rule as he saw fit.  In fact, he would rule roughly 14 years, in total, right up to his death in 686.  A rather substantial reign compared to so many other sovereigns.  And he would continue to make his mark. Next episode we will continue our journey through the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tenno. Until then, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

In this People First Builders episode, host Fletcher Wimbush sits down with Matt Aston, founder and CEO of GPRS, a national leader in private utility locating, concrete scanning, and subsurface mapping. Matt shares how a single magazine ad in 2001 sparked an idea that grew from a one person startup into a coast to coast company with more than 900 team members and a reputation for accuracy, safety, and innovation. Matt explains the difference between public 811 locating and GPRS private utility work, why depth data changes decisions on site, and how early failures shaped a culture that aims to be right the first time, every time. He breaks down GPRS hiring and training systems, including SIM, the company's subsurface investigation methodology, a purpose built training center, ride alongs before offers, and a multi month ramp with ongoing assessments. The conversation also covers leadership development, a referral engine that drives nearly half of annual hires, incentive based compensation that can make up 30 to 50 percent of pay, and broad based employee ownership that tracks the same class of stock as leadership. Key takeaways Accuracy that scales: about 120,000 jobs in the last year with a reported error rate near 0.1 percent. Private vs public locating: 811 marks public rights of way, while GPRS supports contractors on private property and provides depth data that changes plans and prevents damage. Hire for character, teach the skill: referrals supply close to half of new hires, followed by structured interviews, ride alongs, and three to four months of training. Process over heroics: SIM gives field teams a consistent approach, supported by a full training lab and university partnerships for real world practice. Retention flywheel: once team members pass roughly 12 to 18 months, annual retention jumps into the mid 90s. Ownership and incentives: field compensation includes meaningful performance bonuses, and an opt in equity program opened in 2020 where everyone holds the same class of stock, aligned with private equity growth goals.

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On this episode of Around the Outside:Mike and Ian give props to the rookiesDiscuss what Aston needs to doAnd talk THAT decisionThank you all for tuning in - we hope you enjoy the show!

Oscar Piastri looked unstoppable at Zandvoort, giving off some low key WDC energy. Meanwhile, Hadjar locks in Rookie of the Year with a heartwarming podium, and Antonelli and Lawson are racking up penalties (and travel bans?) like it's a new F1 tradition. Italy won't let Kimi in for punting Leclerc? Spain / Sainz shuts the door on Lawson? The drama is continental. Also: insane returns on the business side as Middle Eastern stakes in Aston and McLaren grow — and the sport's financial engine starts to look just as turbocharged as the grid.Plus: Cadillac's lineup is giving Bridesmaids (and we love it).Next up, Monza! Predictions included for a more Ferrari friendly weekend. Aside from Charles' moody hill stint in the Netherlands, which looked like the makings of a piano sequel album. For more high-octane content, send us your race reactions or dish out some F1 tea:twitter: @modepushf1instagram: @modepushf1web: www.mode-push-f1.come-mail: modepushf1@gmail.com

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The latest episode of My Week In Cars finds Steve Cropley and Matt Prior talking about owning Aston Martins (Cropley hasn't, but wonders if he should), Peter Grimsdale's new book Superveloce, how safe it is to run old cars without mudguards, steam fairs, and much more besides, including your correspondence.You can make sure you never miss an Autocar podcast by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. And if you'd be wiling to rate and review the Pod, we'd appreciate it more than you know, too. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two members of the Bandidos biker gang accused of waging a deadly war in Houston against a rival group will not face the death penalty, according to court records. On Aug. 13, prosecutors notified Judge Keith Ellison that they would not seek the death penalty against David Vargas and Roy Gomez, two of the 14 alleged gang members who were indicted in a organized crime case earlier this year.Alleged Sarnia Outlaws MC member arrested for fourth time in two years.Pagan' Oak Creek biker rally proves uneventful following anticipated boom of more than 700 Pagan's.Moment Outlaws MC pay tribute to Ozzy Osbourne in ride past childhood Aston home.Join us as we discuss.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dragon-s-lair-motorcycle-chaos--3267493/support.Sponsor the channel by signing up for our channel memberships. You can also support us by signing up for our podcast channel membership for $9.99 per month, where 100% of the membership price goes directly to us at https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-.... Follow us on:Instagram: BlackDragonBikerTV TikTok: BlackDragonBikertv Twitter: jbunchiiFacebook: BlackDragonBikerBuy Black Dragon Merchandise, Mugs, Hats, T-Shirts Books: https://blackdragonsgear.comDonate to our cause:Cashapp: $BikerPrezPayPal: jbunchii Zelle: jbunchii@aol.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BlackDragonNPSubscribe to our new discord server https://discord.gg/dshaTSTSubscribe to our online news magazine www.bikerliberty.comGet 20% off Gothic biker rings by using my special discount code: blackdragon go to http://gthic.com?aff=147Join my News Letter to get the latest in MC protocol, biker club content, and my best picks for every day carry. https://johns-newsletter-43af29.beehi... Get my Audio Book Prospect's Bible an Audible: https://adbl.co/3OBsfl5Help us get to 30,000 subscribers on www.instagram.com/BlackDragonBikerTV on Instagram. Thank you!We at Black Dragon Biker TV are dedicated to bringing you the latest news, updates, and analysis from the world of bikers and motorcycle clubs. Our content is created for news reporting, commentary, and discussion purposes. Under Section 107 of the Copyright

Zack has a new automotive game show; take 2 on the BMW M5 touring; reviewing the new Aston Martin Vanquish; and we almost run out of gas in the same car, separately. Recorded August 19, 2025 Zack Klapman's Drivers' Test: https://youtu.be/NcdQ69Om6ro?si=kHVU_JV37pRXg1wJ Click on the DILLON banner, buy a pair of sunglasses, receive a FREE Smoking Tire t-shirt! https://thesmokingtire.com/partners-1 New merch! Grab a shirt or hoodie and support us! https://thesmokingtireshop.com/ Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! For a 10% discount on your first case go to https://www.offtherecord.com/TST Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Instagram:https://www.Instagram.com/thesmokingtirehttps://www.Instagram.com/therealzackklapman  Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! Enter code TST10 for a 10% discount on your first case on the Off The Record app, or go to http://www.offtherecord.com/TST. Watch our car reviews: https://www.youtube.com/thesmokingtire Tweet at us!https://www.Twitter.com/thesmokingtirehttps://www.Twitter.com/zackklapman Instagram:https://www.Instagram.com/thesmokingtirehttps://www.Instagram.com/therealzackklapman

The lights were too bright for the Padres this weekend as they got swept by the Dodgers in LA and fell back 2 games in the NL West. Jackson Merrill has an ankle injury and is considered day-to-day. The Rams beat the Chargers with Stetson Bennett's big game. Ashton Jeanty shines for the Raiders vs. the 49ers.Support the show: http://kaplanandcrew.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The lights were too bright for the Padres this weekend as they got swept by the Dodgers in LA and fell back 2 games in the NL West. Jackson Merrill has an ankle injury and is considered day-to-day. The Rams beat the Chargers with Stetson Bennett's big game. Ashton Jeanty shines for the Raiders vs. the 49ers.Support the show: http://kaplanandcrew.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The fourth and final episode in our series on the Jinshin no Ran: we cover the campaign in Afumi (aka Ōmi - 近江).  Prince Ōama and Prince Ōtomo (aka Kōbun Tennō), have drawn up their forces.  Last episode we covered the fighting in the Nara Basin, around the ancient Yamato capital: Asuka.  This episode focuses on the defense of the Karafu and Fuwa passes and the eventual march to the bridge at Setagawa. This is a name heavy episode, and we'll be noting some of it here: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-132   Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is episode 132: The Jinshin no Ran, Part 4: The Afumi Campaign The Afumi soldiers on the western side of the bridge looked across the open expanse of water towards their Yoshino rivals on the eastern side.  If it weren't for the banners and the red tags barely visible on the sleeves of the opposing forces, it would be hard to know which side was which.  Both were equipped in similar ways, and a few of the soldiers could even make out familiar faces on the other side.  That is the nature of civil wars—especially in a conscript society, where the soldiers often had little choice which side they were fighting for.  Not that it necessarily mattered much to them which side came out on top, whatever their commanders might have told them. The bridge across the Seta river was large and wide, and normally quite well traveled.  Now, however, the central boards had been pulled up for a span of about 30 feet or so, leaving a gap spanned by only a single, narrow plank.  That plank was, itself, tied to a rope, which was being held by the Afumi troops.  The soldiers knew that should any of the enemy try to cross, they could pull the plank out from under them and they would fall into the river, their metal armor dragging them down into the dark depths of swirling water below.  Even should they somehow make it across without being peppered by arrows, there would be no reinforcements coming: they would be slaughtered, and the trap would be reset. It seemed like the Afumi forces held all the cards in this battle, and yet they were still tense. Archers could still shoot across the distance. The front rank of troops held wooden shields as a defense, but there were still openings in the formation and the armor, and in the chaos of battle, nobody was truly safe. And so the Afumi forces waited.  Confident, but wary. A commotion on the eastern side of the bridge grabbed the spotlight.  The Yoshino forces had approached, and they were clearly preparing for something.  The Afumi soldiers strained to see what was going on.  Suddenly, the front line of the Yoshino forces parted, and a strange sight confronted the Afumi soldiers.  It took them a moment to fully comprehend what was barreling towards them at full tilt: a soldier that looked almost like two soldiers put together, wearing armor placed over armor, in an attempt to protect from harm.  It must have been heavy, and as he stepped on the beam, it visibly buckled under the weight.  The Afumi archers let loose with their arrows and crossbow bolts, but to no avail.  They simply stuck in the armor, adding to the bizarre and otherworldly appearance of their opponent. The spell was broken on the Afumi side as arrows came cascading in.  The Yoshino forces weren't just sitting idly back, they were making sure they were doing everything they could to keep the Afumi forces distracted.  And for a split second it worked—and a split second was all they needed.  Before the soldiers could gather up their wits about them enough to pull the rope there was a terrifying sound of metal on wood.  The Afumi soldiers pulled the rope, but it came all too easy—the Yoshino soldier had dashed across and cut the rope tied to the plank.  Behind him, the Yoshino forces were now pouring across the bridge.  Soon they would establish a foothold, and behind the front line they would be able to have other soldiers place more planks so that the number of Yoshino soldiers on the Western side of the bridge only continued to increase. Realizing that their trap had been circumvented, the Afumi forces fell back, but their strategic withdrawal soon turned into a full on retreat.  While pockets of soldiers resisted, many were suddenly all too aware that perhaps it was better to live and fight another day, instead.  Despite threats and even attacks from their own commanders, the Afumi forces fled the battlefield, leaving the Yoshino army victorious.  With the Seta bridge now secured, there were no more major obstacles in their way:  They would march to the capital at Ohotsu and finish this war.   Welcome back!  This is Part 4, and so if you haven't already done so, I recommend going back and starting with Part 1.  That said, we'll briefly recap here. Over the past three episodes, we've talked about the causes of the war between Prince Ohotomo and Prince Ohoama as they vied for the throne.  Prince Ohotomo seemingly had the stronger position, as he was actually running the Yamato state from the Afumi capital in Ohotsu.  He had the various ministers and all the official organs of the state on his side.   He was also 23 years old. Ohoama, on the other side, was Ohotomo's paternal uncle.  His own son, Prince Takechi, was 19 years old and helping to lead the army.   Upon learning that the State was gathering forces against him, Ohoama had quickly moved east, gathering forces as he went, and now he stood near Fuwa, modern day Sekigahara, prepared to begin his march on the capital.   This episode we are going to cover the conclusion of the war.  Warning, though, this is going to be a *lot*.  A lot of place names and people names.  Apologies if it is hard to follow.  I'll have a rough map and info on the various players on the podcast blog, so you may want to bring that up if you are having problems following. In Part I of this series we covered the causes leading up to the conflict.  In Part II we covered Ohoama's mad dash to Fuwa, at modern Sekigahara.  Last episode, Part III we covered the fighting in the Nara Basin. This episode we are going to talk about the last two fronts of the war: the defense of the Iga area and Kurafu Pass, and the march from Fuwa to the Afumi capital of Ohotsu. Before we go into the details of the next battles, let's look at what each side of the conflict was doing, what they are concerned about, and where they are on the board.  We'll then go into how the rest of the war played out, and its conclusion and aftermath.     Ohoama's Yoshino forces had largely been drawn from the countries in the east—the very same countries that Ohoama was denying to the Afumi court.  In response, the Afumi court had drawn their forces from where they could.  There were those that they had already called up under the pretense of building Naka no Oe's burial mound, but they had sent others out to raise troops in Yamato and out the western side of Honshu, all the way to Tsukushi—modern Kyushu.  However, not everyone in the Western region of the archipelago was friendly to the Afumi court—especially the regions of Kibi and Tsukushi.  This was significant.  Kibi was an ancient rival of Yamato, and likely could contribute a sizeable force.  Tsukushi, on the other hand, was quite large, and besides the conscripts from among the regular inhabitants, Tsukushi also was in charge of defending the archipelago from invasion—they were the first line of defense.  They had constructed numerous castles and fortifications to defend against a possible invasion, and those castles and fortifications were no doubt manned by troops that had been raised for that purpose.  If they could now be turned inwards, that could be enough to really turn the tide against Ohoama and his Yoshino army. The only problem was that neither Kibi nor Tsukushi were exactly sympathetic to the Afumi court.  The governor of Kibi and Prince Kurikuma, the viceroy of Tsukushi, both had ties to Ohoama, and the ministers suspected them of sympathizing with their Yoshino rivals.  As such the envoys that were sent out were authorized to take whatever drastic steps they felt necessary to secure the troops. So how did that all go down?  Well, last episode we talked about how Hodzumi no Momotari and his crew had been stopped from raising troops in Asuka by Ohotomo no Fukei, whose bluff of pretending to be Prince Takechi and a host of cavalry soldiers caused the conscripted troops to flee, and ended up in the death of Momotari and the capture of his compatriots. In Kibi, things took a turn in Afumi's favor.  When the Afumi government's envoy arrived at the government center in Kibi, he tricked the governor into taking off his sword.  Once he had done so, the envoy drew his own sword and killed the governor.  Without the governor to get in his way, the envoy then went about securing the land and troops for the Afumi court. Prince Kurikuma, the viceroy in Tsukushi, at the Dazaifu, was not quite so easily fooled, however.  Kurikuma knew how the court operated, and was apparently well informed of what was going on.  When the Afumi court's envoy met with Kurikuma, the Prince was flanked by two of his sons, Prince Mino and Prince Takebe, each one armed.  When Prince Kurikuma heard what the Afumi court wanted—for him to send the troops from Tsukushi to help quell Ohoama's rebellion—Kurikuma responded that he needed those troops to hold the border.  After all, the Tang dynasty was still a potential threat, and what good would it do to send the troops from the border regions to fight an internal war, only to then have an invader come in and destroy the state entirely?  No, he reasoned, he would not be sending the troops as the Afumi court requested. We are told that for a moment, the Afumi envoy thought about grabbing his sword and killing Prince Kurikuma, as the Afumi court had suggested, but with both of Kurikuma's sons armed on either side of him, he realized that he didn't have great odds, and so he eventually left, empty handed, but alive. This is significant.  While we don't know exact numbers, it is likely that there were quite a few troops stationed in Kyushu and the islands, all in case of foreign invasion.  By not supplying them to the Afumi court, Prince Kurikuma dealt a huge blow to the Afumi's ability to make war.  Add to that the fact that Ohoama had likewise blocked the court's access to the eastern countries, and that further narrowed the troops that Afumi had access to.  Nonetheless, they still had enough to be dangerous, and it is impossible to say exactly what might happen in a war. So we know where the Afumi and Yoshino forces ostensibly came from, but let's talk about the battlefield.  All of the fighting that we talk about was happening in an area between Naniwa—modern Ohosaka—and Fuwa, modern Sekigahara, northwest from the modern city of Nagoya. There are three main theaters we are talking about.  The first is in the Nara basin, which we talked about extensively in the last episode.  The Nara basin itself was not necessarily of the most strategic importance, militarily, but it was of huge symbolic importance.  After all, that was still the ancient capital, even though the governmental functions had been moved north, to Ohotsu, on the shores of Lake Biwa.  The second is in the Suzuka mountains.  This includes the areas of Iga and Kouka, and it is bordered by the Nara basin on the west, the Mie coastline on the east, and Afumi, the area around lake Biwa, to the north.  This is the same region that Ohoama had to naviagate through on his way from Yoshino to the east, and the mountains and valleys make it so that there are only so many traversable routes through.  For our narrative we are going to be primarily talking about the Kurafu Pass, between Kouka and Iga, at modern Tsuge city.  This pass  was an important route between Kouka, Iga, and Mie.  The road followed the Soma River which eventually flowed into Lake Biwa.  This made it a route out of Afumi, and if the Afumi forces could secure the Kurafu pass and the fields of Tara, just on the other side, they could split Ohoama's forces and cut off any help that he could possibly send to the Nara basin, and possibly even take Ohoama from behind. Finally, let's talk about our third theater:  Afumi itself.  Specifically, we are looking at the southern and eastern sides around Lake Biwa.  Biwa is the largest lake in Japan, and it is almost entirely surrounded by mountains except for where the Seta river flows south, eventually winding its way to Naniwa.  Today, the area of Afumi is largely co-located with modern Shiga Prefecture. Back in 668, after finding themselves on the losing side of the Baekje-Tang war, Naka no Oe, aka Tenji Tennou, had moved the capital to Ohotsu, or Big Port, in Afumi, on the shores of Lake Biwa, likely for the protection it gave.  From Afumi, there were three major routes out of the basin, and a few minor ones.  All of them were through defensible mountain passes, like Karafu Pass, Fuwa Pass, and Suzuka Pass.  Three such passes:  Fuwa, Suzuka, and Arachi would become prominent barriers, or seki, along the ancient roads, and were known as the Sangen, or Three Barriers, protecting the capital region.  Suzuka no seki, at the pass of the same name, was in the south.  To reach it from Afumi, one crossed the Karafu pass, and then turned east through a pass near Mt. Miyama.  At the northern tip of the Suzuka mountains was Fuwa pass, future home of the Fuwa barrier.  The Barrier, or “Seki” would give its name to the area in another form:  Sekigahara.  This was along the Tousandou, the Eastern Mountain road, and even today it is the path through which roads and even the Shinkansen traverse between eastern and western Honshu.  Finally, though less important to our story, was the Arachi pass. Arachi no seki was part of the Hokurikudo, the Northern Land Route, and led to the ancient country of Kochi and the port of Tsuruga, which had a long history as an alternate port, especially for ships sailing from Goguryeo.  Later, Arachi no seki would be replaced in the Sangen ranking by another pass between Afumi and modern Kyoto, which would be known as the Afusaka, or Ohosaka, Pass.  This was the pass that would have been used to get to Yamashiro and, from there, to Naniwa and the Nara Basin. These three passes would come to define the island of Honshu, and became the dividing line between the Kanto region, in the east, and the Kansai region, in the west.  By holding the Suzuka and Fuwa passes, Ohoama effectively denied any travel to the eastern regions.  Sure, Afumi could have tried going through the Arachi pass and into Kochi, but then they would have had to traverse the Japan alps—no small feat, especially without modern conveniences like the trains and busses used today. From Fuwa Pass, where Ohoama and Prince Takechi had set up their headquarters, it was largely a straight shot to the Afumi capital of Ohotsu.  Between Lake Biwa and the Suzuka mountains is a wide, flat plain, divided primarily by the rivers and streams running out from the mountains into the lake.  Immediately west of Fuwa is the area of Maibara.  Following the shore of the lake one traverses through modern Hikone, to Yasu.  Yasu would also have been the location where the road to the Karafu pass broke off into the Suzuka mountains.  Beyond that was the bridge across the Seta River. The Seta river was one of the largest obstacles that would have to be negotiated, and the Afumi forces knew this.  Just as Ohoama would set up at Fuwa pass, a large number of the Afumi forces were set up on the western bank of the Seta river.  If the Yoshino forces could get across, however, it would mean that they had a more or less unimpeded route to the capital at Ohotsu. So now let's talk about what was happening in each of these places. Ohoama had set up at Fuwa—Sekigahara—and had begun to call soldiers to him.  Not only did did this allow him to block the rival Afumi troops from accessing the Eastern countries and possibly raising troops to use against him, but he was also able to maintain a line of communication with ancient Yamato, in the Nara Basin.  In order to keep his communication lines open, and to ensure that the Afumi forces couldn't sneak up behind him, Ohoama split his forces in two.  He knew that Afumi forces were trying to take his stronghold in Yamato, and if successful, from there they could move in to Uda and on to Iga.  thereafter that, they could march up behind him through the Suzuka pass.  Alternatively, the forces in Afumi could come up through Kouka and the Karafu pass, and then try to divide and conquer So the first group of Ohoama's army were to go south, through the Suzuka pass into their mountain namesake.  Once there, Oho no Omi no Honji was to hold Tarano, the Plain of Tara, where the routes to Suzuka, Kafuka, and Iga met.  Tanaka no Omi no Tarumaro went with him, with orders to guard the Kurafu pass, which is to say the road to Kouka.  This first group was headed by Ki no Omi no Abemaro, and also included Miwa no Kimi no Kobito, and Okizome no Muraji no Usagi.  Along with what we are told were tens of thousands of men, this first made their way south from Fuwa  through Mie and Ise and over the Suzuka pass.  Once there, they took up their positions at Karafu and Tarano.  It was a good thing, too, because only a couple of days after they arrived, the enemy struck.   Now as soon as he got there, Oho no Honji had fortified Tarano with some three thousand men, and Tanaka no  Tarumaro was sent to guard the Kurafu pass.  Prior to this, Tarumaro had been the official in charge of the Hot Springs in Ise, but he had joined Ohoama and the Yoshino forces when they first arrived over the Suzuka Pass.  Now he was in charge of a military force, encamped along the road through the Kurafu pass, waiting for the enemy. Unbeknownst to him, a deputy commander of the Afumi forces, Tanabe no Wosumi, was approaching from Mt. Kafuka.  Presumably he'd been sent out from Ohotsu and had followed the road along the Yasu and Soma rivers towards the pass.  Wosumi had  sizeable force with him, but he was not looking for a direct assault.  Even if he would win, he would suffer casualties, especially trying to attack an entrenched enemy in a fortified position.  He needed to be sneaky.  He had no way of knowing that, centuries later, the lands of Iga and Kouka would be known for their sneaky warriors—their legendary ninja—but I digressed.  What Wosumi did was this.  First, he rolled up his banners and muffled the drums.  He even had his men gag themselves—a continental custom where soldiers were given a stick to hold in their mouth, like a horse's bit, to discourage any talking amongst the ranks as they approached.  Presumably, they kept them in until just before attacking, because they also devised a watchword “kane”—transcribed as metal or gold.  Wosumi knew that it would be hard enough to tell who was who in the daytime—after all, it wasn't like these were regimented forces with uniforms.  The soldiers were likely all wearing whatever they had available, and clothing and armor would have been similar across the two armies.  At night, even some kind of mark or flag would hardly be enough to tell who was who in the dark.  As lines broke and melee ensued, it would be easy to get turned around, and find yourself facing a friend.  By saying the watchword you could distinguish friend from foe. Sure enough, this tactic worked.  The Afumi forces broke through the Yoshino fortifications in the middle of the night and swarmed into the encampment.  Men who had been asleep were waking up to chaos.  Tarumaro's Yoshino soldiers were thrown into confusion.  Tarumaro himself, escaped, but just barely.  we are told that he noticed that the enemy kept shouting the word “kane”, and so he started doing it as well. The Afumi forces, assuming he was one of their own, left him alone.  Still, he only escaped with difficulty. His escape was no doubt critical, however.   He presumably would have headed to Tarano to try and warn Oho no Honji, but this may not have been possible, as we are told that on the following day, after the attack at Karafu pass, the Afumi commander Wosumi continued his advance, and came upon the Yoshino encampment at Tarano unexpectedly.  Still, General Honji did not back down.  With a force of hand-picked soldiers, Honji counterattacked against Wosumi and struck him.  We are told that Wosumi made it out—the only one who did—but that he did not try and make another attack.  The Yoshino forces would ultimately hold the pass and the critical juncture of Tarano.  The Afumi forces would not get a second chance. By the way, a quick note here:  I can't help but notice a bit of a trope showing up in these stories:  At Narayama, General Fukei is defeated, and is the only person who makes his escape.  Then Tarumaro is the only person to escape his defeat.  Finally, Wosumi is the only one of his forces to leave the plain of Tara. I am more than a little incredulous that these generals are the only ones who actually survived, and that the rest of the army was slaughtered.  In fact, you may recall that at the battle at Taima, General Fukei told his men not to pursue the fleeing common soldiers.  As I've tried to point out, the common soldiers were not likely as invested in the cause.  In fact, it is just as possible that the common soldiers may have changed sides and joined the other army if they thought it would serve them well.  Or maybe they were escaping and just blending into the countryside.  After all, the elites weren't really spending the time to get to know them, let along record any details about them.  So I suspect that it was more about the fact that the various armies would be broken, and the soldiers flung to the four corners, rather than that they were necessarily slaughtered.  After all, if you had the choice, would you have stayed there? A few days after Wosumi was defeated, the Yoshino general that Ohoama had sent to Iga along with Honji and Tarumaro, Ki no Omi no Abemaro, heard that their ally, Ohotomo no Fukei was in trouble in the Nara Basin.  He'd been defeated by the Afumi general Ohono no Hatayasu at Narayama,  and without reinforcements, the entire Nara Basin could fall, along with the ancient Yamato capital at Asuka. So Abemaro sent Okizome no Muraji no Usagi with more than a thousand cavalry to go assist.  They met Fukei at Sumizaka, and suddenly, things were looking up in the Nara Basin.  For more on how that turned out, check out last episode, where we covered the events in the Nara Basin. Once the events in the Nara Basin settled out, then both the Nara Basin and the Karafu pass would be well and truly in the hands of the Yoshino forces.  But there was no way for those guarding those locations to know that the fighting was over, and they would have to hold their positions until the fighting had definitively stopped.  Which brings us back to Ohoama and the Yoshino troops gathered at Fuwa, where things were about to kick off as well.  The troops at Fuwa, while being led by Ohoama and his 19 year old son, Takechi, were placed under the command of Murakuni no Muraji no Woyori—who, , as things progressed, would be noted as the primary general for the campaign that would lead Yoshino troops from Fuwa, on the offensive towards Ohotsu. The only reason that they seem to have waited before going on the offensive was that every day, more troops were coming in.  So even as the fighting was going on in Nara and at the Karafu pass, the Yoshino army at Fuwa gathered men and made their preparations.  As they did so, the Afumi court Was going to do whatever they could to try and break them, hoping that they could stop the threat posed by Ohoama and his men before they began their march. For the Afumi forces first attempt to break the Yoshino defenses at Fuwa pass, they picked troops to try and make an incursion into the village of Tamakurabe, which appears to have been in the pass itself; it was probably modern Tama district of Sekigahara.  They were repelled, however, by Izumo no Omi no Koma, who drove them off. Later, the Afumi court ordered another force of several tens of thousands of men to attack under the command of Prince Yamabe no Ou, Soga no Omi no Hatayasu, and Kose no Omi no Hito.  Soga no Hatayasu and Kose no Hito were both part of the inner circle of the Afumi court, or so it would seem.  When Prince Ohotomo had taken the reins of the government in a ceremony in the Western Hall of the Palace, he was attended by the ministers of the right and left, as well as Soga no Hatayasu, Kose no Hito, and Ki no Ushi.  They were at the very heart of this whole matter.  Prince Yamabe is a little bit more of a mystery.  We know he was someone of note, and when Prince Ohotsu was brought to his parents, they were apparently traveling under the guise of Prince Yamabe and another prince, Prince Ishikawa.  But we know little else. The three men and their Afumi troops headed out and camped on the bank of the Inukami river, near modern Hikone.  There, however, trouble broke out. The Nihon Shoki does not record exactly what it was, but there must have been some kind of falling out.  Prince Yamabe no Ou was killed by Soga no Hatayasu and Kose no Hito.  We don't know if this was due to some quarrel or what, but either way, it threw the army into a state of disarray and there was no way for them to move forward.  Soga no Hatayasu appears to have taken responsibility for whatever happened, as he headed back from Inukami, presumably back to Ohotsu, where he took his own life by stabbing himself in the throat.  There would be no attack on Fuwa Pass, however. Finally, the Nihon Shoki also recounts the story of another Afumi general, named Hata no Kimi no Yakuni, and his son, Ushi.  Together with others, who remain unnamed, they surrendered themselves to Ohoama and the Yoshino forces, rather than fighting.  It isn't clear if they were deserters, if they had been part of one of the other two attempts to take Fuwa Pass, or if there was something else going on.  Either way, Ohoama was so pleased that he welcomed them in and we are told that Hata no Yakuni was “granted a battle axe and halberd” and appointed a general.  This is probably stock phrasing, but it does seem he was given some measure of trust.  Yakuni's men were then sent north, to Koshi. We aren't quite sure what those forces' ultimate objective was.  It may have been that he was to take the northern pass and make sure that none of the Afumi troops tried to escape and head to the East along that road.  Many of the accounts of this war seem to suggest that he, or at least some part of the forces, were to head north and then come around Lake Biwa the long way.  This would mean that if Ohoama attacked, there would be no easy way to flee.  From Ohotsu they couldn't turn north without running into more troops, and their only escape would seem to be through the Afusaka pass towards the area of modern Kyoto.  And of course, whoever was victorious in the Nara Basin would then be able to control the route to the coast. It is unclear how much Ohoama could have actually known, though, about what was happening across the various distances.  Messages would have meant riders on swift horses carrying them; they couldn't just text each other what was going on. And so, with one attack repelled, another aborted, and a turncoat now on their side, Ohoama's Yoshino forces were finally ready to head out on the offensive themselves.  According to the Nihon Shoki this was on the 7th day of the 7th month—Tanabata, today, but I doubt people were paying much mind to the Weaver and the Cowherd.  Murakuni no Woyori, with the group advancing from Fuwa to Afumi, set out, and met with their first resistance at the Yokugawa river in Okinaga.  As far as I can tell, this is likely the Amano River in modern Maibara, which anyone who takes the Shinkansen between Kanto and Kansai probably recognizes as one of the usual stops.  Once again, we have a situation where, while they would have had banners flying, in the crush of battle it could be quite easy to mistake friend for foe, especially with large numbers of troops who were pulled from vastly different regions.  You had to have some way of knowing quickly who was on your side – that's why the Afumi commander Wosumi had his troops use the password “kane”, for example.  Ohoama's approach was to have his men place a red mark—possibly a ribbon or similar—on their clothing so that one could tell who, at a glance, was on their side.  As a note, later samurai would sometimes attach flags to their shoulder armor, or sode, and these “sode-jirushi” would help identify you even if people didn't recognize your armor.  Ohoama's troops may have used something similar. And so Woyori's Yoshino forces attacked the Afumi defenders, and the Afumi troops were clearly outmatched.  Woyori's men killed the Afumi commander and defeated the opposing forces. But that was just the beginning.  Afumi forces had been stationed all along the route from Fuwa to Ohotsu.  Thus it was that only two days later Woyori and his men made it to Mt. Tokoyama, probably in Hikone, by the Seri river.  There they met more Afumi soldiers, but once again they were triumphant and slew the opposing commander.   Woyori and his men were on a roll. I would point out that these battles aren't given much detail, but we do see how it progressed.  There are names of various individuals and commanders—certainly not much on the common people.  From what we can tell, this was not a rush to Ohotsu, but rather a slow march, probably doing their best to fortify their positions and make sure that nobody was sneaking up on them.  After each battle, it is some days before the next, probably spent spying out ahead and formulating plans. Woyori and his men next fought a battle on the banks of the Yasukawa River, presumably near modern Yasu city.  Here, Aston's translation claims that he suffered a great defeat, but more likely I suspect it means to say that he inflicted a great defeat on the Afumi forces, because if he had been defeated, how would he have pressed on only a few days later.  We are told that  two men, presumably the Afumi commanders, were both taken prisoner. Since we don't have anything more about them in the narrative all we can really do is assume that they must have therefore been on the side of the Afumi forces. By taking Yasu, that would have likely cut off the Afumi forces from any future considerations about using the Kurafu Pass.  The noose around Ohotsu was slowly tightening. Four days after that, on the 17th day of the 7th month, Woyori attacked and repulsed the Kurimoto army—presumably a force loyal to the Afumi court under a general named Kurimoto, or possibly raised from a place called Kurimoto, perhaps over on Awaji.  Either way, it was another victory on Woyori's belt. From there, Woyori and his men arrived at Seta, where they would have to cross the Setagawa—the Seta River. The Seta River is a wide river, and the only one flowing out of Lake Biwa.  It winds its way south and west, eventually becoming the Uji and then the Yodo rivers, which flow all the way to Naniwa—modern Ohosaka.  At the Seta river, there was a major bridge, the only way across, other than to swim.  Prince Ohotomo and his ministers, along with their entire army, were encamped on the west side of the bridge.  Their forces were so numerous that it was said you could not see all the way to the back of them.  Their banners covered the plain, and the dust of their movement caused a cloud to rise into the sky.  Their drums and songs could be heard for miles around.  We are told they even had crossbows, and when they were discharged the arrows fell like rain.  Of course, some of this may have just been more poetic license by the authors of the Nihon Shoki, but you get the picture:  There were a lot of troops on the western side of the river. The bridge itself was defended by General Chison.  We know very little of this general, as he only appears in this one part of the record, but his name implies that he may have been from the continent.  We aren't given a surname, and it is possible he was one of the Baekje refugees, now fighting for the Afumi court.  He led an advance body of specially selected troops, and in the middle of the bridge they had removed planks for about three rods or thirty feet.  Across that span was a single plank, daring anyone to try and cross it.  Of course, if they did, they would be a sitting duck in front of the enemy archers, and the plank was attached by a rope so that it could always be pulled out from under them.  It seemed as if it were impossible to advance. Finally, one of Woyori's soldiers, Ohokida no Kimi no Wakaomi, got up the courage to cross.  We are told that he put on double armor, put down his long spear, and drew his sword.  He then charged suddenly across the plank and cut the rope on the other side before the Afumi troops could pull it back.  In spite of the arrows that were raining down on him, he entered the ranks of the Afumi troops, slashing with his sword as he went.  The Afumi forces were thrown into confusion and some of them tried to leave, but General Chison drew his own sword and began to cut down anyone who tried to flee.  Still, he was unable to check the rout.  Woyori's troops secured the bridge and soon were pouring across it.  They cut down General Chison and advanced into the Afumi army, who broke and ran.  The Afumi sovereign, Ohotomo, aka Koubun Tennou, along with the Ministers of the Left and Right, narrowly escaped with their lives. Woyori and his troops marched to the foot of Awazu hill, and we are told that Hata no Yakuni, the Afumi commander who had earlier defected, and whose men were sent north to Koshi, set a siege to Miwo castle along with Izumo no Koma, who had defended against the attempted seizure of Tamakurabe.  Presumably this is Mio, south of Ohotsu, and it was likely guarding the southern approach to the Afumi capital. The only thing here that gives me pause is that we were earlier told that Yakuni's men, after he defected, were sent to Koshi.  So was Yakuni not with them?  Had he returned?  Or had the troops made it all the way around Lake Biwa already, taking the longer route up and around the lake? Regardless of how it happened, Yakuni and Koma were able to take Miwo castle.  As a reminder, a “castle” at this time would have likely been defined more by its walls, which were probably rammed earth and wood—not the elegantly sloping stone walls and  donjon base that would come to typify castles of the Warring States period. The following day, Woyori and his men continued their pursuit.  At the Awazu marketplace, Woyori ran into the Afumi generals Inukahi no Muraji no Isokimi and Hasama no Atahe no Shihote.  We mentioned Isokimi last episode—he was the Afumi commander attacking the Middle Road in the Nara Basin.  His deputy, Kujira, had been defeated, and it seems Isokimi had retreated back to Afumi and rejoined the main force. He would not be quite so fortunate this time.  Isokimi and Shihote were both slain, and Ohotomo fled once again.  He didn't get very far, hiding at Yamazaki, thought to be near the site of the modern city hall, in Ohotsu. Despite his best efforts, he knew he would be discovered, and he eventually strangled himself, rather than facing the humiliation and punishment that would come with capture. With Ohotomo dead, the other ministers of the Afumi court dispersed and fled.  Woyori and his men, meeting up at Sasanami, hunted down the Ministers of the Left and Right—Soga no Akaye and Nakatomi no Kane—as well as others who had fought with Ohotomo and who were considered criminals. They were all marched back to Fuwa, where, on the 25th day of the 7th month, Ohotomo's head was presented to Ohoama.  The war, it seems, was over. Or at least, the fighting was over.  There was still a lot to be settled.  First off, it would hardly have been practical to wipe out every single person on the losing side.  For one thing, that would have devastated the Court even further, likely creating a huge power vacuum.  In addition, many of the supporters on both sides were not necessarily there out of purely partisan reasons.  I would point out that many of the family names that we see in the record are found on both sides of the conflict.  Inukahi no Isokimi may have fought for Ohotomo, but we also see an Inukahi no Ohotomo fighting on the behalf of Ohoama.  Fumi no Nemaro was a major commander in Ohoama's army, while Fumi no Kusuri had been sent by the Afumi court to raise troops in the East Country.  And Hasama no Shihote was killed with Isokimi at Awazu, while a Hasama no Nemaro was working under the command of General Fukei, in Nara, to guard Tatsuta. There wasn't necessarily a simple divide along family lines.  It is possible that these individuals were all fairly well removed from each other, and from different parts of their respective families, or clans. They are often given different kabane, the family rank system used at this time, though I suspect that may have more to do with later changes, with those on the winning side being promoted over those who supported the Afumi court.  However, it is also the case that Japan has a long history of family members supporting both sides in any major conflict.  That way, no matter who wins, the family itself finds itself on the winning side. But there did have to be some accountability.  This is something that one can point to time and again—if the losing side is not held accountable for their actions, then what is to prevent them from just regrouping and trying again?  And yet that need for justice and punishment must be tempered with some amount of humanity. Ultimately, about one month after the end of the war, eight of the Afumi ministers were found guilty of truly heinous offences and they were condemned to suffer what the Nihon Shoki says was the “Extreme Penalty”.  The Minister of the Right, Nakatomi no Kane, was executed at Tane, in Asai.  Meanwhile the Minister of the Left, Soga no Akaye; along with the Dainagon, or Grand Councillor, Kose no Hito, as well as their children and grandchildren, along with the children of the late Nakatomi no Kane and Soga no Hatayasu, were all sent into banishment.  All others were pardoned. And of course those who had supported Ohoama, and who had come to his aid, were given public favour and reward.  In many cases this likely meant receiving high office and corresponding rank, along with increased stipend payments.  There is a notable shift in the makeup of the court, going forward, and it seems clear that families would want to associate themselves with those who fought on Ohoama's side, rather than Ohotomo's, if they could help it.  That was no doubt a part of works like the various diaries and house records that would have been used to compile the Nihon Shoki, recording the deeds that any house did for the throne. Along with all of the punishments and plaudits that were meted out in the 8th month of 672, there was one more event—something of an outlier.  We are told that Chihisakobe no Muraji no Sabichi, the governor of the province of Wohari, went off into the mountains and committed suicide. Sabichi had originally met Ohoama at the Kuwana district house—the local government office—when he had first arrived from Yoshino.  He had a large number of troops—20,000 by the Nihon Shoki's count—which helped Ohoama to ultimately defeat the Afumi court.  So why he would go off into the mountains and commit suicide was anyone's guess.  The Nihon Shoki suggests that it was possible that his allegiance had changed, and he may have been trying to plot against Ohoama.  Perhaps he had been convinced that Afumi court was going to come out on top, and so had begun some plot.  Or he just had a falling out or became disillusioned for some reason.  Whatever it was, it remains a mystery, even today. With the war concluded, it was time for Ohoama to make his way from the field to the Capital so that he could transition to ruling the State properly.  But Ohoama was not interested, it would seem, in setting himself up in his brother's capital.  Setting up in the Ohotsu capital may have raised a few eyebrows.  It had not been a completely popular move to begin with, and it was also the home of the Afumi court's legitimacy.  To take up the throne there, I can only imagine that it would have further reinforced the idea that Ohoama was the usurper, taking the throne that was meant for his nephew.  Instead, he made the decision to travel to the ancient capital, in Asuka, but he was not in a hurry. They headed out on the 8th day of the 9th month of 672, making it from Fuwa to Kuwana.  Here he likely met up with his wife, Princess Uno, and his ten year old son, Prince Ohotsu.  The following day they headed out, traveling back along the route that they had taken from Yoshino, but at a much more leisurely route.  The royal carriage stayed the night in Suzuka.  From there, it was another day to Abe, likely referring to modern Ahai county, in Iga, near Ueno city.  They then continued on to Nabari.  Finally, on the 12th day,they arrived at the Yamato capital—that is to say Asuka—and Ohoama took up residence for a time at the Shima Palace.  This was only, it seems, to give people time to get the actual palace ready, because three days later, Ohoama moved into the Wokamoto Palace.  And with that, Ohoama began the work of running the state—but there was still plenty to prepare.  For one thing, there were foreign embassies—Kim Ap-sil and others arrived.  It was still going to take a while to get the capital ready for guests, though.  From what we can tell, they were probably building a grand new palace, and it would take some time for it to be prepared.  So the Silla embassy was entertained in Tsukushi, where Prince Kurikuma would have been in charge of hosting them.  They were likely filled on the new developments and provided a ship. Meanwhile, Ohoama made sure that all of the appropriate rewards were given out.  On the 4th day of the 12th month, we are told that all those who had rendered services were given higher cap-ranks, based on what they had done. And as the year 672 closes out—and with it, the first of the two Chronicles for Ohoama, the soon-to-be elevated Temmu Tennou. But there is one final entry, marking the death of Wina no Kimi no Takami in the 12th month of the year.  We know that Wina no Kimi no *Iwasuki* was working for the Afumi court, sent to rally troops in the East, but he fled when they encountered Ohoama's troops at Fuwa Pass.  Takami, on the other hand, we know little about, but I suspect may have been on the side of Ohoama.  It is an odd entry, and, like so many, unexplained.  Perhaps it meant something to the people of the early 8th century, but if so, that meaning is likely lost to us. And so we close the book on the Jinshin no Ran—the Jinshin War, or possibly the Disturbance or even Rebellion, depending on how you feel about it.  This account is one of the most detailed we have of this kind of event, and yet it does not seem that it was entirely unique.  There are plenty of indications that previous sovereigns had to fight their way to the throne, or else had to repel others who would try to take it by force.  This was almost a tradition among the royal house of Yamato.  But now that the matter of succession was well and truly settled, it was time to get on with other things. Who knows what an Afumi court may have done and how they could have changed things.  What we do know is what Ohoama—and his queen, Uno no Himemiko—did.  They built upon, or in some cases possibly even fabricated, the legacy of Naka no Oe.  They would set in stone many of the things that had been put in place, and at the same time make certain changes, as well.  The Yamato state was getting started. And we'll start to dive into that next episode.  Until then, thank you once again for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  

It was during the 1966 World Cup match between England and Argentina that one of England's leading professional referees, Ken Aston, had an idea that would revolutionise football. Aston, who was watching the game from the stands, was concerned over apparent language barriers between players and officials. His solution was to recommend referees be given red and yellow cards, as way of cautioning and if necessary, sending off a player. Mike Lanchin has been speaking to Ken Aston's son, Peter, and Ben van Maaren, a Dutch collector of refereeing memorabilia, including some of Aston's personal papers. A CTVC production.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive and testimony. Sporting Witness is for those fascinated by sporting history. We take you to the events that have shaped the sports world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes, you become a fan in the stands as we take you back in time to examine memorable victories and agonising defeats from all over the world. You'll hear from people who have achieved sporting immortality, or those who were there as incredible sporting moments unfolded.Recent episodes explore the forgotten football Women's World Cup, the plasterer who fought a boxing legend, international football's biggest ever beating and the man who swam the Amazon river. We look at the lives of some of the most famous F1 drivers, tennis players and athletes as well as people who've had ground-breaking impact in their chosen sporting field, including: the most decorated Paralympian, the woman who was the number 1 squash player in the world for nine years, and the first figure skater to wear a hijab. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the tennis player who escaped the Nazis, how a man finally beat a horse in a race, and how the FIFA computer game was created.(Photo: Ken Ashton on the pitch in 1962. Credit: Alamy)

We close out the first half of the 2025 season with a track that has seen underdog upsets, team collisions and plenty of processions. What does Hungary have in store for us this year? OFFER CODE MULTI25 on Patreon.com/Shift+F1 for 50% off your first month Multi 21 Seb... yeah... Multi 21 Sam Collins on Aston's upgrades (and more) Team Torque ft. Damon Hill The-Race's article about rain grooves The Brabham "fan car" Autosport: VER talking about his contract Support the show on Patreon and get all our bonus episodes! Follow us on the socials Email us at shiftf1podcast@gmail.com Join our fantasy league with invite code P46XBLLQJ06 New to F1? Check out our primer episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

n this episode we talk about what has been going on the media including Dale's crazy take on thinking he can be Aston Hall. We speak about different comedic preferences and the fact that dale always goes against the grain when ti comes to public opinion.

Coaches Conversations: Aston Walter by Kennesaw State Athletics

HAIR METAL Podcast EP.28. Part 2: Black Sabbath 'Back To The Beginning' Concert w/ Kaotica Studios Film Director: Johnny K. NOTE: This podcast was recorded 3 days before we learned of the passing of Ozzy Osbourne. Your Hair Metal Podcast hosts and guest are sadden and are mourning the death of Ozzy, our 'Prince of Darkness', who helped lead the way for all metal fans, and the next generation of metal fans to come. RIP Ozzy, thank you for contribution to our Metal fandom. Fandom Podcast Network YouTube Channel Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/@FandomPodcastNetwork Fandom Podcast Network Hair Metal Audio Podcast Link: https://fpnet.podbean.com/category/hair-metal/ The Hair Metal Podcast looks back at the Thrash, Glam & Rock Pop Metal bands, music, events and everything else that heavily influenced the 80's & early 90's Hair Metal era music.  On this special episode of the Hair Metal Podcast we discuss 'Black Sabbath: Back To The Beginning' Benefit Concert. Back to the Beginning was a benefit concert by the English rock band Black Sabbath, with a number of supporting artists. It took place on July 5th, 2025 at Villa Park in Aston, Birmingham, England, very near where the band was formed in 1968. The event concluded with the final live performances of both the band and lead singer Ozzy Osbourne; it also marked the first time since 2005 that the original line-up of the band (Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward) had performed together live. Osbourne, no longer able to walk due to advanced Parkinson's disease, sang while seated on a throne. The widely-lauded concert was streamed worldwide via pay per view with a broadcast delay. It featured an all-star lineup of supporting acts, including two supergroups of musicians serving as the house band. Proceeds from the event totaled £140 million, and will be donated to Acorns Children's Hospice, Birmingham Children's Hospital, and Cure Parkinson's. Black Sabbath is widely regarded as a foundational band for heavy metal, with their influence extending to various subgenres. Their impact is undeniable, shaping the sound and lyrical themes of countless bands across generations, from the 70s through to current day modern acts.  For the full 68 song set and band & artist list, click here: https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/black-sabbath-back-to-the-beginning-setlist Thank you for watching and listening to the Hair Metal Podcast on the Fandom Podcast Network! Remember...every rose has its thorn, and on a steel horse... we will ride! HAIR METAL LIVES! Rock on everyone! Hair Metal / Fandom Podcast Network Hosts & Guests Contact Info: - PLEASE SUBSCRIBE to the Fandom Podcast Network on YouTube! Like and share! https://www.youtube.com/c/FandomPodcastNetwork The Hair Metal Podcast Fandom Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/377695252724584/   The Fandom Podcast Network is on all major podcast platforms.  Our master feed for all of our audio podcasts can be found on Podbean: - https://fpnet.podbean.com/  - Podbean Hair Metal Podcast Master Feed: https://fpnet.podbean.com/category/hair-metal/   Follow and contact the Hair Metal Podcast at: - X (Twitter): @HairMetalCast - Email: HairMetalPodcast@gmail.com Host & Guests Contact Info On Social Media: - Host: - Kevin Reitzel on X / Instagram / Threads / Discord & Letterboxd: @spartan_phoenix. Bluesky: @spartanphoenix - Co-host: Mike Simmer: Kevin & Mike can be found on the Hair Metal Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/377695252724584/ Special Guest: Johnny K: IG and YouTube: @ThatJohnnyKguy & @KaoticaStudios #HairMetalPodcast #TheHairMetalPodcast #HairMetalPodcastFandomGroup #FandomPodcastNetwork #FPNet #FPN #RIPOzzy #HairMetal #HairMetalMusic #GlamMetal #BlackSabbath  #BlackSabbathBackToTheBeginning #BlackSabbathBackToTheBeginning2025 #OzzyOsbourne #TonyIommi #GeezerButler #BillWard #AcornsChildrensHospice #BirminghamChildrensHospital #CureParkinsons #Yungblud #NunoBettencourt #JakeELee #Metallica #GunsNRoses #SlayerBand #KaoticaStudios #JohnnyK #KevinReitzel #MikeSimmer

In this episode, Pete Codella, managing director of business services at the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity, talks with Wayne Aston, CEO of Invictus Sovereign.  Aston discusses his career as an entrepreneur and his company's role in Utah's energy sector. His background in construction, the Marine Corps, and a church mission to Russia — combined with his passion for team-building and high adventure — have contributed to his current work. He explains how his company, Invictus Sovereign, focuses on developing land and managing the complex financing for major projects, aiming to pioneer in the transition from traditional utility monopolies to privately developed energy. Aston also details his work in central Utah, where his company leads a multi-year project focused on next-generation energy production. He explains that this effort aligns with Gov. Cox's Operation Gigawatt initiative to add a gigawatt of power to the state, which is vital for Utah's rapid growth and the increasing energy demands of artificial intelligence and data centers. Aston highlights that his projects are focused on creating high-paying jobs in central Utah to prevent young people from leaving the area. He also notes that Invictus Sovereign is working with the Utah Inland Port Authority to enhance rail and airport infrastructure. Its work focuses on long-term partnerships and a "Utah first" mentality to improve the state's economy and quality of life.

HAIR METAL Podcast EP.28 Part 1 Black Sabbath 'Back To The Beginning' Concert w/ Kaotica Studios Film Director: Johnny K.  NOTE: This podcast was recorded 3 days before we learned of the passing of Ozzy Osbourne. Your Hair Metal Podcast hosts and guest are sadden and are mourning the death of Ozzy, our 'Prince of Darkness', who helped lead the way for all metal fans, and the next generation of metal fans to come. RIP Ozzy, thank you for contribution to our Metal fandom. We hope you enjoy this wonderful discussion of the defining event of metal music history. Fandom Podcast Network YouTube Channel Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/@FandomPodcastNetwork Fandom Podcast Network Hair Metal Audio Podcast Link: https://fpnet.podbean.com/category/hair-metal/ The Hair Metal Podcast looks back at the Thrash, Glam & Rock Pop Metal bands, music, events and everything else that heavily influenced the 80's & early 90's Hair Metal era music.  On this special episode of the Hair Metal Podcast we discuss 'Black Sabbath: Back To The Beginning' Benefit Concert. Back to the Beginning was a benefit concert by the English rock band Black Sabbath, with a number of supporting artists. It took place on July 5th, 2025 at Villa Park in Aston, Birmingham, England, very near where the band was formed in 1968. The event concluded with the final live performances of both the band and lead singer Ozzy Osbourne; it also marked the first time since 2005 that the original line-up of the band (Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward) had performed together live. Osbourne, no longer able to walk due to advanced Parkinson's disease, sang while seated on a throne. The widely-lauded concert was streamed worldwide via pay per view with a broadcast delay. It featured an all-star lineup of supporting acts, including two supergroups of musicians serving as the house band. Proceeds from the event totaled £140 million, and will be donated to Acorns Children's Hospice, Birmingham Children's Hospital, and Cure Parkinson's. Black Sabbath is widely regarded as a foundational band for heavy metal, with their influence extending to various subgenres. Their impact is undeniable, shaping the sound and lyrical themes of countless bands across generations, from the 70s through to current day modern acts.  For the full 68 song set and band & artist list, click here: https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/black-sabbath-back-to-the-beginning-setlist Thank you for watching and listening to the Hair Metal Podcast on the Fandom Podcast Network! Remember...every rose has its thorn, and on a steel horse... we will ride! HAIR METAL LIVES! Rock on everyone! Hair Metal / Fandom Podcast Network Hosts & Guests Contact Info: - PLEASE SUBSCRIBE to the Fandom Podcast Network on YouTube! Like and share! https://www.youtube.com/c/FandomPodcastNetwork The Hair Metal Podcast Fandom Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/377695252724584/   The Fandom Podcast Network is on all major podcast platforms.  Our master feed for all of our audio podcasts can be found on Podbean: - https://fpnet.podbean.com/  - Podbean Hair Metal Podcast Master Feed: https://fpnet.podbean.com/category/hair-metal/   Follow and contact the Hair Metal Podcast at: - X (Twitter): @HairMetalCast - Email: HairMetalPodcast@gmail.com Host & Guests Contact Info On Social Media: - Host: - Kevin Reitzel on X / Instagram / Threads / Discord & Letterboxd: @spartan_phoenix. Bluesky: @spartanphoenix - Co-host: Mike Simmer: Kevin & Mike can be found on the Hair Metal Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/377695252724584/ Special Guest: Johnny K: IG and YouTube: @ThatJohnnyKguy & @KaoticaStudios #HairMetalPodcast #TheHairMetalPodcast #HairMetalPodcastFandomGroup #FandomPodcastNetwork #FPNet #FPN #RIPOzzy #HairMetal #HairMetalMusic #GlamMetal #BlackSabbath  #BlackSabbathBackToTheBeginning #BlackSabbathBackToTheBeginning2025 #OzzyOsbourne #TonyIommi #GeezerButler #BillWard #AcornsChildrensHospice #BirminghamChildrensHospital #CureParkinsons #Yungblud #NunoBettencourt #JakeELee #Metallica #GunsNRoses #SlayerBand #KaoticaStudios #JohnnyK #KevinReitzel #MikeSimmer  

Jerry Ashton, founder of End Veteran Debt, a Navy veteran, and co-founder of RIP, which cleared $12 billion in debt, discusses the state of veteran debt and how his 501c3 helps.

Hello Rank Squad!It's Jack's last episode as a Bachelor, and we thought we'd take a look at some transfers to send him off blissfully into wedded life. Liverpool have signed Florian Wirtz, breaking the British Transfer Record in doing so, and we discuss his arrival at Anfield and how he might fit into Arne Slot's Champion Reds next season. That gives us a launchpad to talk about some of the other most expensive transfers in Premier League history, so we rank 2-10 (feels a bit early to judge Wirtz just yet!) in order of the value they provided for their fee and also their transformative impact on their clubs - running through some of the obvious flops, all the way to the deals which are proving worth every penny. There's also time for a little Things We Love, where Jack gives some flowers to Santi Cazorla and Real Oviedo - one of the true feel-good stories of a summer mired in controversy and differing opinions. It's Ranks!  And remember, if you'd like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?