Podcasts about Tsushima

The Dazai no Sochi--the head of the Yamato government in Kyushu--was a powerful position, with a lot of autonomy with lucrative opportunities.  The people in this position were often powerful members of the court capable of representing the sovereign.  They would often go on to become quite powerful in their own right.  So who were the movers and shakers that held this prestigious position during Uno no Sarara's reign?  This episode, we take a look at those who held the position and those who supported them. For more, check out our blogpost:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-151 PS:  Hang around to the end (or check the end of the transcript) for information on some possible updates coming to the show. Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is Episode 151: The Dazai no Sochi of the late 7th century   Tsukushi no Masaru was busy.  A new boss was coming in, and he wanted to make sure everything was prepared.  The Dazai may have been about as far as one could get from the capital and still be in Yamato, but it was also the first—and sometimes only—encounter some would have with the archipelago, so there was no excuse to be slacking off.  Of course, this was hardly his first new boss, though for as long as he'd been on the job, each one could well be his last.  He was getting a bit long in the tooth, after all.  Twenty-nine years was a long time to be working in the same position.  As Masaru paused, he thought back on some of the people he'd served.  There was Soga no Akae—he was ambitious.  Apparently he'd been in some rather compromising positions before coming out, but he'd done well enough when he went back.  Shame that he backed the wrong horse. That did bring a chuckle to old Masaru's throat, though.  He remembered when Prince Kurikuma had come out there, to the the Dazai, , and there were still people around who told stories of him.  When those Afumi court stooges had showed up to try and conscript the barrier guards, Prince Kurikuma and his sons just stared them down.  Everyone had been afraid that it would end in bloodshed, or at least that there would be consequences for defying the court, but Kurikuma was adamant, and the messenger had left with his tail firmly between his legs. Then there was Shima. By the time he came, Masaru already knew how everything was supposed to work. He may not have been in charge, but that wasn't his ambition.  It was enough for him to be good at what he did.  He didn't need to go all the way to the Palace and deal with the politics there—there were enough politics out here already.  Shima, though, he was clearly suited for that Palace life.  He was a capable administrator, but Masaru could tell he was ambitious.  When he left, everyone knew that he would be going on to bigger and better things. And now there was another Prince coming out. So they would get the government offices prepared and greet him with proper fanfare.  They'd bring him in and hold the ceremonies, and then they would get down to work.  A stream of officers would present him with what they were working on and what had to happen.  Masaru would be there to help make sure that everything was running smoothly and nothing got too out of hand.  And that was the way things worked out on the edge of the realm.   Welcome back to Sengoku Daimyo.  We are still covering the reign of Uno no Sarara, and, similar to last episode, we are going to continue to talk about the people who made up Yamato at this time.  This episode, more specifically, we are going to be turning away from the capital, in Asuka, and looking all the way over to Tsukushi—modern Kyushu—and at the people who served as Dazai no Sochi, or head of the local government out there, as well as the bureaucrats and staff that worked for them—at least as far we know.  Many of them went on to have considerable careers that took them well beyond Kyushu.  At the same time, we'll take a look at some of the things that happened under their rule as what Aston translates as the "Viceroy of Tsukushi". After that, I have a special announcement about the podcast at the end of the episode, so if you are interested in learning more about what we plan on doing, please listen all the way to the end to hear about some plans for the future. And with that out of the way, let's begin. So we are talking about the position of Dazai no Sochi or the Viceroy of Tsukushi.  Often these people are referred to only as being of the "Tsukushi no Dazai" or the "Tsukushi no Ohomochi".  The term "Sochi" appears later, and we first see this term applied to Prince Kawachi, in 689.  It seems to show up with two different characters, which might be a term from the later Taihou code that was retroactively applied or may refer to an evolution of the position over time.  I'm honestly not sure.  There is still plenty of confusion over what was meant in some of the references. We've discussed this position before on the podcast: This was the sovereign's representative to the world outside of the archipelago.  Not only did the Dazai no Sochi  oversee all of Tsukushi—all of Kyushu— and extensive defensive forces stationed there and in the outlying islands, but they oversaw all diplomatic and trade missions to and from the archipelago.  Envoy missions would come to Tsushima, where they would get a local pilot and send word ahead.  They would then be received at the government center, the Dazai, near modern Fukuoka and Hakata bay.  For most envoys, this was as close as they would ever get to Yamato proper.  They would offload their goods there and be put up at the government supplied quarters in Wogohori.  They would be wined and dined there, entertained as appropriate to their status, while word was sent on to the capital.  In rare cases, envoys would be sent on another journey through the inland sea to Naniwa, and then on to Asuka, but otherwise their journey would end at the Dazaifu.  Any return gifts would come back with the correspondence from the capital, and thus be handed out to the envoys and their escorts before the mission was sent back home to Silla, Tamna, or wherever they had come from. Being the middle man in this operation offered a lot of power and authority, but it also would have been quite lucrative.  While diplomatic missions brought gifts for the court, they also brought  trade goods, of which the Dazai no Sochi could have first  pick.  This is on top of the fact that this position often came with a stipend equaling the labor of hundreds of individuals.  Many of the Dazai no Sochi would serve limited terms, eventually returning to Asuka, where we see them take on powerful positions. Take, for example, our first Dazai no Sochi, Tajihi no Mabito no Shima. Tajihi no Shima was born, we are told, in or around 624 to Tajihi no Maro and a daughter of Ohotomo no Hirafu.  Tajihi no Maro, Shima's father was a powerful noble in the court of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou, and he had enough standing that he was one of the named individuals who provided eulogies for Ohoama on the occasion of his passing.   The Tajihi family were quite well placed: they were descendants of Hinokuma no Takata no Miko, aka Senka Tennou, Shima's great-grandfather.  This earned them the kabane of "Mabito", or "True Person" because of their royal lineage.   Tajihi no Shima was placed in charge of the Dazai from at least 682.  His predecessor that we know about is Prince Yagaki, who was dismissed around 676, and we don't know who filled the gap between him and Shima. Shima had quite the run.  We don't know exactly when he returned to the court in Asuka, but it cannot have been later than 689, when we see Awada no Mahito in the position.  A year later, in 690, Shima was made Udaijin, or minister of the right.  That's a huge deal and we will talk about that in a bit, but what did Shima actually oversee during his tenure as Dazai no Sochi? We have quite a few events attributed to him, this reign.  In 686, we see the Tsukushi no Dazai sending tribute in the form of human beings:  Common men and women of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla, along with 62 priests and nuns.  We aren't told where these men and women came from, but I suspect that they were refugees or captives from all the fighting on the peninsula.  That they were given as tribute suggests to me that they were enslaved—or at the very least they were not free.  If they were uneducated, they were likely put to work as labor, perhaps building out the new capital or opening new farmlands.  Later we see the various missions from Silla around the death of Ohoama, and the back and forth that went on, there, and in 688 the Tsukushi no Dazai entertained Kara, a Minister of Tamna, aka modern Jeju island, who had been sent by the king of that small country.  You may recall that Tamna, while late to the game, may have been one of the last holdouts of an early Japonic speaking people outside of the archipelago. Being the Tsukushi no Dazai, Shima would not have only been concerned with foreign envoys, but also with two other groups of Hayato—specifically the Ohosumi no Hayato and the Ata no Hayato.  Little is known about them, other than that Yamato considered them to be distinct ethnic and cultural groups living in the far south of Kyushu.  We've talked before about how southern Kyushu maintained a significantly different material culture through Kofun period until more recent times.  We also have indication that they had a distinctive shield and even art style—the famous "Hayato shields" appear to have been appropriated by the court, along with a contingent of Hayato men that were expected to act as an exotic guard for the sovereign and the court.  The earliest reliable evidence we have for them is a record from 682.  There are some questions as to whether or not they were related to the groups previously called Kumaso or even the Tsuchigumo, but there is no clear historical or archaeological  evidence linking them other than the common cultural finds in Kyushu more generally. The Ata and Ohosumi Hayato may have been distinct clans or lineage groups living in Ohosumi and the area of modern Satsuma.  We have a record in 687 of the Ata no Hayato attending Ohoama's funeral and presenting a eulogy.  The chiefs who came brought 337 others—a sizeable contingent—and they were all given presents by the court.  Later, we would see presents given out to 174 Hayato by Shima's successor in the Dazai, Awada no Mahito, and then in 692 we know that the court sent priests to preach Buddhism to Ata and Ohosumi.    In 695, Hayato of Ohosumi were entertained in the capital, and they even held a wrestling match for the Queen and her attendants in the area west of Asukadera, by the site of the famous Tsuki tree. So the Hayato would have been another group that Shima no doubt dealt with on a somewhat regular basis in his capacity as Dazi no Sochi—and then later on when he returned to Asuka and took up his new role as Udaijin.   And as I mentioned, that appointment was a Big Deal.  The position of Udaijin had been vacant since Nakatomi no Kane, one of the infamous leaders of the Afumi court, was non-consensually removed from the position—and this plane of existence—when he was executed in 672, at the closure of the Jinshin no Ran.  After that, Ohoama appears to have been gun-shy about sharing power with anyone outside the royal family.  The position had been left vacant for about 18 years.  So what made Uno no Sarara take up Shima as Minister of the Right?  And what about the Minister of the Left, or the Sadaijin? Well, we don't have a Sadaijin, but we do have a Dajodaijin in the form of Prince Takechi, Ohoama's first-born son.  The Dajodaijin was the Prime Minister in charge of the entire Dajokan, the Council of State, made up of the ministers of the left and right and the 8 bureaus of the government.  The Sadaijin and Udaijin served under the Dajodaijin, in that hierarchical order, with the Sadaijin generally being considered higher in precedence.  So it looks like, in this case, they had the Dajodaijin, Prince Takechi to run the Council and Shima, as Udaijin would have been responsible for ensuring the administration of the eight bureaus was properly carried out. That Shima was appointed just under Prince Takechi again shows the power and influence he likely had and the trust he must have had from Uno no Sarara.  Remember, the Crown Prince, Kusakabe, had died before he could take the throne.  Uno was enthroned as Queen, while the Crown Prince, Karu, was still a minor.  Whereas Ohoama had his wife and many sons to help him run things, Uno no Sarara was running thin.  As had been seen with Prince Ohotsu, there was always the threat that one of Ohoama's other sons could be propped up on the throne.  Uno had to look after Karu's birthright, but there was no guarantee that he would make it to adulthood in times before modern medicine.  It appears that Prince Takechi was actually considered the next in line, just in case something happened to Karu before he could ascend the throne, which makes sense that Prince Takechi was also trusted as Dajo Daijin.  Shima's place as Udaijin must have been indicative of similar trust that he would look after the royal family's interests.  This was no doubt helped by the role he played as Dazai no Sochi. As Udajin, Tajihi no Shima went on to have a rather incredible career.  He was given 4 cho of land for his residence.  This appears to be around 10 acres or so—a not inconsiderable amount of land, and it probably refers to the amount of land he was granted in the new Fujiwara capital city.  Later, in the Nara capital of Heijo-kyo, Prince Nagaya's residence was about that size and Fujiwara no Nakamaro's residence is thought to have been about twice that.  This would have given Shima space for multiple buildings, sprawling gardens, servants quarters, quarters for his wives and children, and much more. Tajihi no Shima would continue in his role as Udaijin, and would eventually, be promoted to the position of Sadaijin, a post he held only briefly, as he passed away almost a year later. He was not forgotten, however.  It is thought that he was the model for one of the suitors of Kaguya Hime in the famous story of Taketori Monogatari—the tale of the Bamboo Cutter.  Taketori Monogatari, also known as Kaguya Hime Monogatari, is considered the oldest known story in the Monogatari form.  It was probably written in the late 9th or early 10th century, with references to it appearing in works as early as 909 CE.  This suggests that Tajihi no Shima and others were still remembered, at least in part, over a century later. Shima is also thought to have been the patron of the famous poet, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, one of the famous 36 immortal poets.  We'll have to include Hitomaro in a later episode, though we might come back to him after this reign, as he isn't mentioned in the Chronicles, but we do have some fragmentary biographical information thanks to his inclusion in the Man'yoshu.  In fact, he's probably one of the most famous poets in the Man'yoshu who is not otherwise mentioned.  We are told that he was the court poet during the reign of Uno no Sarara, so it makes sense that Shima may have very well been his patron and helped him get his start. Now while Shima was back in Asuka, making it big in the court, the position of Tsukushi no Dazai had to be filled, and we are told that the mantle was taken up by Awada no Mahito no Ason.  This name is a bit tricky, as it seems to have two kabane:  Mahito and Ason.  Since his father is said to have been Kasuga no Awada no Omi no Kudara, the assumption seems to be that "Mahito" was his name, rather than his kabane.  Although it was likely pronounced "Mabito" at the time, I'm going to go with the modern pronunciation of "Mahito" in part to distinguish it from the kabane.  A quick side note:  When reading names from this period, we usually see the kabane coming right after the family name, as the kabane is basically a rank for the family and not the individual.  But we do occasionally see the kabane tacked on at the end of a name, as in Awada no Mahito's case.  I would also like to quickly draw your attention to his father's name:  Kudara.  That can also be read as Baekje.  Was this an indication that his father or an ancestor came from the continent, perhaps from Baekje?  Or just that he had close ties to that kingdom?  I couldn't find anything specific, but it seems interesting that he was put in place at the Dazai, where dealing with the continent would have been an important part of his duties. Awada no Mahito was not just a noble of the court, and even if his father was of Baekje descent, that may not have been the main thing that gained him the position.  It may have also had to do with an earlier incident.  We are told that in 653 Mahito was one of those who traveled with the 2nd envoy to the Tang court as a scholar monk.  He would later return to secular life, but that experience must have been a big feather in his cap, helping him land a good position at court.  In fact, in 685, we are told that he was Jikikwoushi rank—a fairly respectable position for anyone at the time—and he apparently tried to get his father raised to the same rank as he was.  Aston translates the record as saying he was willing to give his rank to his father, but it is unclear to me if this means he was offering to give up his rank altogether.  At the very least it seems that he felt awkward outranking his father—a good, filial attitude, it would seem.  However, Ohoama didn't care.  In the past, rank may have been given to entire families, but now the court was giving rank to individuals, and the rank Mahito had earned was his, not his father's.  And so his request was denied. Four years later, Ohoama was gone and Awada no Mahito was sent to the Tsukushi no Dazai.  We are told that he was in that position as of 689.  If that was the position of Dazai no Sochi, however, he didn't hold it for long, as Prince Kawachi was raised up to that position that same year, and here we have a bit of a conundrum.  Mahito is only mentioned as "Tsukushi no Dazai" while Prince Kawachi is specifically mentioned, at least twice, as Tsukushi no Dazai no Sochi.  There are some who suggest that Mahito may have been the Dazai Daini, an assistant to the Dazai no Sochi—effectively the second-in-command it would appear.  This makes some sense, when you consider it, and he may even have been acting Dazai no Sochi until Prince Kawachi was appointed. Of course, because our records are quite lackluster, and we are never actually told when Tajihi no Shima left the position, it is possible that Awada no Mahito was actually the Dazai Sochi for many years leading up to 689, and that Shima had returned to Asuka some time ago.  This is the problem with the way things are written—sometimes they mention a name and sometimes just a position, and rarely do they mention when someone stepped down. Still, Mahito oversaw a few things that we can be somewhat sure about as they happened after he is first mentioned in the position, though it was all in the same year.  For one thing, he is the one who presented gifts to the 174 Hayato in the first month of 689.  This included cloth, ox hides, and deerskins.  He was also there when the Queen sent relief to the Barrier Wardens whose terms were up.  These were the Sakimori, a position set up to defend the archipelago and repel any potential invasions.  I would assume they were regularly rotated out, especially if they were expected to man the fortifications out on some of the islands.  It is interesting that we don't often see them referenced, so it isn't clear to me why the reference was made here—it may have just been a note in one of the sources the Chroniclers were using. Later that same year, we also see garments being given out—likely meaning official court clothing—to the Tsukushi Dazai and others.  This was probably to bring them all in line with the latest formal wear being used in the court in Asuka.  We also know that in the 6th month of that year they entertained the Silla envoys, who were given various presents. And then, two months later, Mahito is out and Prince Kawachi comes in.  At the same time that Prince Kawachi is being made the Dazai no Sochi, our previous Dazai no Sochi, Tajihi no Shima, had his rank and fief increased.   I doubt this was a coincidence, and it is one of the things that, for me, lends credence to the idea that Shima had just then returned to Asuka and Prince Kawachi was his replacement, suggesting that Mahito had really just been in an acting capacity while the change over was taking place. Unfortunately, if we were looking for more information about Prince Kawachi's background, we would be disappointed.  Although he is a prince, probably descended from Nunakura, aka Bidatsu Tennou, we don't have a lot about him.  He—or someone with the same name, since we do see these Princely titles get reused, it seems—is found in the reign of Ohoama traveling with Ohotomo no Yasumaro and Fujiwara no Ohoshima to go entertain Gim Jisyang of Silla.  Later we see a Prince Kawachi delivering eulogies during Ohoama's funeral.  That suggests he held an important position, and that he was somewhat familiar with the continent, but we don't get a whole lot more.  Our next evidence is when he was appointed to the post of Dazai no Sochi in 689, a position he would hold until his death in 694—which may also explain why we just don't see too much of him in the record.  A promising career may have been cut short, as happened all too often back in that day and age. Still, as Dazai no Sochi, he had plenty to keep him busy.  Not a month after he arrived, Isonokami no Maro and Ishikawa no Mishina arrived at the head of a delegation.  They were there to deliver patents of rank to members of the Tsukushi government and to inspect the fortifications at the edge of the archipelago.  These were the same fortifications being manned by the newly arrived Sakimori. Speaking of the members of the Tsukushi government, it took a lot of people to make the Dazaifu work, not just the Sochi giving people orders about what they should do.  There were numerous assistants helping to keep everything running.  Some of them would have just been dealing with the Sochi's own residence, while others were clerks, guards, and more.  It really was a miniature version of the court in Asuka, and would have required a lot of people to tend to it.  And we know of at least one of them:  Tsukushi no Fubito no Masaru, whose imagined thoughts we heard at the top of the episode.  In 691, Masaru was recognized for 29 years of service as a secretary to the Tsuksuhi no Dazai.  Twenty-nine years in place suggests to me that he would have likely been one of the longest serving members of the Tsukushi government center.  He would have known where all the bodies were buried—perhaps quite literally.  While the Dazai no Sochi was often a temporary appointment, sometimes just for a few years, they would have likely leaned on Masaru for his expertise.  This is just like how modern government appointees like ambassadors may come and go, including for political reasons, but they rely on permanent staff, including a lot of locals, to provide the institutional knowledge they need to do their jobs.  One can assume that if Masaru had been successful for 29 years he knew how things were supposed to work.  And so I hope that his superiors made sure to remember that when Secretary's day rolled around. Prince Kawachi didn't make it 29 years, but he made it five.  He might have gone even longer, but he died in office in 694 and was posthumously raised in rank for his service.  History is full of stories, but in real life, the stories don't always follow the expected narratives.  As much as we'd like to think otherwise, good, moral people do not always triumph and sometimes those who do awful things are never punished.  And some times stories come to abrupt ends.  Of course, looking back, it just is what it is.  Prince Kawachi's life becomes little more than a footnote.  And yet, what if he had gone on?  Would he have followed Tajihi no Shima to help become one of the grand ministers of the court?  Unfortunately, we will never know.  He could have been a rising star, but we just know about his passing. Five months after Prince Kawachi's untimely death, he was followed in the post by Prince Mino.  Prince Mino would continue in the position, it seems, through the end of the reign in 697—or at least nobody else was appointed until 700, when Isonokami no Maro—apparently the same one who had previously come out to inspect the fortifications during Prince Kawachi's tenure—was appointed.  Although he came into the position in the next reign, we'll still touch on him, as he was another notable figure at this time. Looking back at Prince Mino, however, we seem to run into a problem—there are too many Princes Mino in the record.  If you just use the English translations, you'll find several references to Prince Mino, but if you look at the original text, you'll see that there are at least three different spellings.  For one it means "Beautiful Field" and another is just "Three Fields".  A third "Mino" is spelled with characters that don't necessarily create obvious meaning, and may just be a phonetic spelling. It is possible that all of these Princes Mino are the same.  Spelling wasn't standard, and different characters could be used for the same name.  On the other hand, we have one set of characters being used to describe a Prince Mino who supported Ohoama during the Jinshin no Ran, while another, the "Three Fields" Prince Mino, describes one of the sons of Prince Kurikuma, who was with his father in Tsukushi when the Afumi court came calling.  Since travel wasn't necessarily an overnight endeavor—unless you were Ohoama, rushing through the mountains to the east—it would seem that the Prince Mino in Tsukushi is unlikely to be the same one as the Prince Mino who joined Ohoama's forces back in the Home Provinces. So let's make the assumption that Prince Mino—Prince "Three Fields" Mino—is one person and the others are separate.  What do we know about him? Well, he appears to have had experience with Tsukushi and the government out  there, since he would be the son of Prince Kurikuma, a former Tsukushi Dazai no Sochi.  We talked about Prince Kurikuma before, back in numerous episodes, but particularly in episodes 128 and Episode 144, as well as references in betweend. Prince Kurikuma was not only a significant factor in the outcome of the Jinshin no Ran, denying the Afumi court the resources of all of the defenders at the Tsukushi fortifications, he shows up in local legends in Tsukushi still today.  So he definitely seems to have had an impact on the region.  It also suggests that Prince Mino had connections in the area through his father. After his father's posting as Dazai no Sochi ended, Prince Mino appears to have returned with him to Asuka.  He is described as a key member in Ohoama's court.  He was one of the Princes mentioned in the audience at the Daigokuden in 681, when Ohoama instituted the commission to bring together the various court sources that we presume would eventually lead to the creation of the Chronicles—the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki.  Later, he become a daibu, a high official, of the Household Bureau, responsible for the household of the sovereign, the sumera no mikoto.  This meant the upkeep of the palace, the kitchens, and the various servants waiting on the sovereign and his family.  This also means that he was likely close to the movers and shakers of the court. One of the projects under his purview appears to have been the laying out of a new palace and a new capital city.  In 682 he headed up the investigations at the place called Nihiki, determining that it would be a good location for what would eventually become Fujiwara-kyo—a project still underway in Queen Uno's reign.  He was also sent out to Shinano two years later to look for a site for a second capital.  It ended up not happening, but he spent a couple months and eventually came back with a map of the region.  It may be that the Fujiwara-kyo project took up a lot of Mino's time and effort, because we then don't hear from him for another decade, during which Ohama passed away and so much more happened.  Assuming he was still involved with the Fujiwara capital project, however, we see that in 691 there was a ceremony held for the tranquility of the new capital—a Chin-sai or, what we would today call a "Ji-chin-sai".  This is a "land pacification ceremony" done when breaking ground on a new building or other project.  So it looks like planning and land clearing had taken some 10 years, but it was finally ready to get started.  Later that same year we hear of them laying out the residences of high ranking nobles, like the Udaijin, Tajihi no Shima, and we also see the Queen inspecting the roads.  Then, a year later in 692, they were holding the land pacification ceremony for the new palace.  The queen would move into the new palace in the very last months of 694. But by that time, Prince Mino was on to his next assignment.  He had been appointed Tsukushi Dazai no Sochi earlier that year following the death of Prince Kawachi.  Not much more is said of Tsukushi for the next three years of the reign, but we do see the Hayato visiting Asuka, presumably with Prince Mino's assistance. We don't have a clear idea of when Prince Mino retired—it's certainly not in the Nihon Shoki—but we know that he did because he was succeeded in the role by none other than Isonokami no Maro, who would take up the position in 700.  Prince Mino, on the other hand, returned to the court, where he would eventually pass away in the year 708. And that was the last Dazai no Sochi who held the position during this reign, but I do want to talk about the one who came after Prince Mino just a bit—though more because this was an up-and-coming court noble whom we should be watching. Isonokami no Maro was born, by all accounts, in the year 640.  Despite his name he was actually born to a family that we know somewhat well from much earlier on: The Mononobe.  In fact, his father is apparently Mononobe no Muraji no Umaro, and he appears to be descended from the main line of the Mononobe family, which had declined ever since Mononobe no Moriya had been defeated and killed by Soga no Umako and others. And it seems that the Mononobe curse of being on the losing side in a contest for power hit Maro during the Jinshin no Ran, because we see him, at that time referenced as Mononobe no Muraji no Maro, along with two servants, or Toneri, serving Prince Ohotomo—aka Koubun Tennou—up to the very end.  In fact, when Ohotomo fled and the Afumi court deserted him, only Mononobe no Maro and the servants stayed with him when he eventually strangled himself. And one would think that would be it.   You were with the rival for the throne in the most contentious fight in recent memory.  You couldn't protect him and you were on the wrong side.  Sure, Ohoama was going to pardon you because he couldn't just rid himself of half of the court and hope things would still run smoothly—that would be a surefire recipe for disaster, and nobody wanted the government crippled like that.  However, you can't imagine that those on the losing side would be given any position of trust or authority. And yet, in 676, we see that Mononobe no Maro was sent to Silla.  And he wasn't just helping out: he was sent as the chief envoy of Ohoama's court.  That is quite the turnaround in four years, and we don't really know why, but it has been speculated that Ohoama was actually impressed.  While other members of the Afumi court fled and abandoned Ohotomo to his enemies, Maro and the two toneri with him did not, staying with Ohotomo until the bitter end, and likely conveying what had happened to the other side once it was all over.   That kind of loyalty was impressive, especially back then. It is also thought that Maro may have benefited from the fact that Enoi no Okimi, who was also descended from the Mononobe family, fought on the side of Ohoama.  This is a common scenario we see throughout Japanese history, where different members of the same family fight on different sides of a conflict, often meaning that no matter who wins the family can still claim to have been on the winning side.  When Okimi passed away in 676 he was posthumously recognized as the ujigami, or clan head, of the Mononobe, leading some to suspect that a bit of his shine may have rubbed off on Maro as well. In 684, when the various kabane were being rectified by Ohoama's court, the Mononobe no Muraji were included as Ason, or Asaomi.  There is some thought that around this time is when Maro changed his name to Isonokami, which is a name that was previously used by members of the Mononobe, including one of the brothers to Mononobe no Moriya.  We see him mentioned as Isonokami no Maro in 686, as one of those giving a eulogy for Ohoama: specifically he gives the eulogy on behalf of the Houkan, or Nori no Tsukasa, the Judicial officers.  He is mentioned right after Fuse no Miushi, whom we talked about last episode, who would go on to become a Dainagon and, later, Udaijin, or Minister of the Right. The first connection between Isonokami no Maro and Tsukushi was in 689, and we noted it earlier—he came out to inspect the fortifications as well as to hand out patents of rank to the court officials working out there on the edge of the realm.    He would return to Asuka in time to be a part of Uno no Sarara's official enthronement ceremonies.  There he is named Mononobe no Maro, and is in charge of the shields.  Given what we know of the role of the Mononobe as the early soldiers of the court, it makes sense that he would play this role, and that they would use the name Mononobe rather than Isonokami.  In the same way, the ritual was conducted by Fujiwara no Ohoshima, but he is recorded as Nakatomi no Ohoshima, probably because these were roles specifically for the Mononobe and Nakatomi, rather than for the Isonokami and the Fujiwara. This is another thing that can be quite frustrating when researching Japanese history—names can change at the drop of a hat, and people often had various ancestral names and titles that could be pulled out for various political or ceremonial reasons.  If you don't have the history or understand the nuance it can be easy to just think that it is a different person altogether.  And when you don't have much information, sometimes you have to ask yourself which is it? Maro would stay close to Queen Uno, even accompanying her to Ise shrine, and then, in the following reign, he would succeed Prince Mino as Dazai no Sochi in the year 700.  It isn't clear, however, if he left for the Dazaifu immediately, since in 701 he is noted as having been promoted from the office of Chunagon to Dainagon, and in that same year he went with Royal Prince Osakabe to pay respects at the house of the late Udaijin, Tajihi no Shima, who had just passed away.  He then left for Tsukushi in 702—or possibly headed back.  But in 703, he was once again back in Asuka, paying condolences on the death of the next Udaijin, Abe no Miushi—aka Fuse no Miushi, the same one whom Maro had pronounced a Eulogy with during the funeral ceremonies for Ohoama.  Isonokami no Maro would go on to take the mantle of Udaijin, and then eventually Sadaijin as well.  He would be raised up to the second rank, along with the famous Fujiwara no Fubito, who took the vacated position of Udaijin.  This meant that technically Maro was the senior of the two, though many people think that Fujiwara no Fubito held most of the actual power.  Regardless of that, Isonokami no Maro nonetheless would go on to become the highest ranking court noble before his eventual death in 717.  At that point he was 78 years old, by the reckoning of the day, and he had seen multiple sovereigns, several bloody conflicts, and the creation of two permanent capitals—Fujiwara kyo and Heijo kyo, in modern Nara.  He went from being a supporter in the Afumi court, on the wrong side of the Jinshin no Ran to become the highest ranking court noble in the land.  He would be granted the head of the Mononobe family and would continue to prosper as Isonokami.  It was truly a remarkable career over an incredible span of time. And there you have it.  A look at some of those that were sent out to the Dazaifu in Tsukushi.  In later years, the post of Dazai no Sochi would be seen more as a burden than a blessing, but at this point it was still a lucrative and powerful position.  Several of those involved in the Dazaifu or who held the position as Dazai no Sochi would go on to even more powerful positions back in Asuka.  Whilst this posting did move you further away from the politics—perhaps not always a bad thing—it also put you atop a structure where one had considerable power, authority, and autonomy, at least at this point. Next episode we'll get back to the court in Asuka and take a look at a little more of what is going on.  Before I end this, however, a quick administrative note about the podcast.  This creation is a labor of love.  It was started largely as a way to get myself to regularly dive into the Chronicles and really see what was going on.  In particular, I was excited about the Asuka period, because I don't think we really have enough of a sense of what life was like and what was going on back then.  It was clearly a very dynamic time, and yet we tend to see it through the lens of later Nara and Heian court culture, which was still very much evolving.  The stories that I *didn't* know about were what drew me to this project, and I hope that we've all learned a bit more as the project has continued. And we are reaching the end of the area that is covered by the main Chronicles, the Kojiki, the Nihon Shoki, and the Sendai Kuji Hongi, which have been our main guides through this period.  But that doesn't mean we are bringing things to a close. Next we have the Shoku Nihongi and many other grecords, and I am going to keep up with the project and the schedule as best I can.  In fact, it looks like I may be able to devote even more time to it in the near future as some drastic life changes are coming for me, such that I will no longer be working a 9-to-5 job while also trying to get this podcast out like clockwork twice a month—not to mention my other passion, teaching traditional Japanese martial arts here in the DC region at a local not-for-profit dojo.  This is happening as we are also in the process of building a house, traveling, and more.  But it does mean that we are going to be looking into alternative sources of funding beyond just donations.  We are eternally grateful to everyone who has donated, but I may end up doing something that I've been putting off for a while: allowing advertisements.  I want to do this so that we can continue to offer this for podcast for free, but hosting, staying up to date on sources, etc. does cost money.  I'm not looking to make a huge profit, but if we can at least get the podcast paying for itself, that would be a good start. Before I do that I'll look to find a way that we can get subscribers on Patreon and elsewhere ad-free copy.  I just need to figure that out, but once I do, I'll let you all know. So there you have it.  We aren't going to stop the podcast, but we may be adding a bit more to it in the future.  I hope, though, that we can do more beyond the historical chronicles.  For instance, did you know that we have an English translation of a 17th century cookbook up on our website, SengokuDaimyo.com?  I would love to redact those recipes and maybe provide some cooking videos for anyone who would want to try them.  A shoutout to Max Miller of Tasting History, who reached out to us about using a couple of our translations for his episodes on historical Japanese cooking – Max is a great guy and his series and cookbook are well worth following.  But there's a lot more to explore: one of my favorites so far that we've tried is "keiran", or "eggs": doughy balls filled with brown sugar and cooked in a miso based soup.  I don't know if there is anything like that still being served in Japan, but it's a strange and pleasant recipe and I would love to do that again and record it for everyone to try. All of this is in the works, and nothing will change immediately, but I wanted to keep you all in the loop.  Thank you so much for listening, I can't tell you how much it means. And of course, as always, 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 today's Daily Fix:Data reported on by Game File's Stephen Totilo show a steady decline in sales for Sony's first-party games. Despite a roster of heavy hitters such as Ghost of Tsushima, the Spider-Man games, God of War, Horizon Forbidden West, and others, they've moved fewer and fewer of those games every year (with the exception of fiscal year 2020). However, Ghost of Yōtei did reverse this trend, providing a small sales bump for the fiscal year ending March 2026. In other news, Bethesda's Fallout 76 will be getting its long-awaited current-gen update this summer. A patch note in the latest "Infestations" update revealed that a PS5 and Xbox Series X|S upgrade is coming in a few months. And finally, we're once again visiting How to Train Your Dragon's Isle of Berk to experience the tale of The Untrainable Dragon – all at Universal Orlando Resort.Presented by Universal Orlando Resort, and its newest theme park, Universal Epic Universe.

What if a single battle could collapse an empire, reshape a continent, or alter the destiny of millions? Throughout history, certain military confrontations have transcended mere combat—they've become the hinge points upon which civilizations turn. In this episode of Echoes of War, we celebrate reaching over 100 episodes by diving deep into the battles that fundamentally rewrote human history. From the clash at Zama where Scipio defeated Hannibal and ended the Punic Wars, to the Battle of Hastings that brought Norman conquest to England, each confrontation shaped the trajectory of civilizations. We explore how Tsushima revolutionized naval warfare, how Lepanto challenged Ottoman dominance, the conquistador siege of Tenochtitlan that ended the Aztec Empire, and the brutal island-hopping campaign of Guadalcanal that turned the Pacific War. These weren't just military victories—they were pivotal moments that altered the course of human history. Join hosts Craig and Gareth as they bring historical analysis to life through genuine conversation and storytelling. Rather than dry recitations of facts, we explore the human drama, strategic brilliance, and consequences that made these battles transformative. The Battle of Zama shifted power in the ancient Mediterranean. The Norman Conquest at Hastings reset the course of English civilization. Tsushima showed the world that traditional naval power could be challenged. Lepanto demonstrated Christianity's capacity to unite against the Ottoman threat. The Fall of Tenochtitlan marked one of history's most consequential collapses—a civilization brought down by disease, diplomacy, and military innovation. And Guadalcanal proved that Pacific island warfare would define World War II strategy. Whether you're a history enthusiast, military strategy buff, or simply curious about how pivotal moments shape our world, this episode delivers the analysis and narrative depth you crave. We don't just tell you what happened—we help you understand why it matters. Support the podcast and gain exclusive access to extended conversations, early episode releases, and bonus historical deep dives. Your support directly funds the research and production that brings these stories to life. Don't forget I have a Youtube Membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbp8JMZizR4zak9wpM3Fvrw/join or my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pacificwarchannel where you can get exclusive content like "What if Japan invaded the USSR during WW2?"

Docking sequence engaged—it's time for another entry in the Podcast Assemble Christopher Nolan Anthology. Tommy's been reading A Wizard of Earthsea—one of his dad's favourite books—and found it deeply whimsical, thoughtful, and refreshingly unconcerned with cinematic universes. Meanwhile, DL has fallen hard for Ghost of Tsushima, spending most of his free time quietly becoming a samurai. Then it's onto Interstellar—the film that asked, “What if love could transcend space, time, and extremely aggressive organ music?”Timecodes:(00:00) Intro(02:39) Finishing A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)(11:16) What Have We Been Up To?(13:30) Video Game Jaunts(19:11) Léon: The Professional(24:08) MAIN TOPIC!! Interstellar (2014)(25:16) Stupid Plot Summary(35:53) Actual Plot(43:23) Who Stays Human If Everyone Else Are Muppets?(45:19) Surviving Interstellar(46:41) Sets(59:18) Critical Reception(1:00:14) Better Or Worse Than Aquaman (2018)?(1:00:45) Wait... We've Done This Before?!!?!?(1:01:58) Ranking Nolan Films(1:05:02) Trivia True Trivia False(1:10:43) Wrapping UpMain Topic:Interstellar is Christopher Nolan at his most ambitious: black holes, fifth dimensions, collapsing crops, and Matthew McConaughey crying harder than most audiences. As Earth slowly dies, a team of astronauts heads into deep space searching for humanity's next home—only to discover that time dilation is the real villain. Tommy still thinks it's one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made. DL's blown away by the scale, even if Nolan occasionally explains quantum physics like a dad aggressively helping with homework. It's emotional, overwhelming, and somehow turns cornfields into existential horror.Is Interstellar Nolan's masterpiece—or just a three-hour panic attack with a Hans Zimmer soundtrack? Let us know at thepodcastassemble@gmail.com or hit us up on socials.Website || Instagram || Twitter || YouTube || Email****************************And while we've got you, we'd love it if you gave us a 5 star review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and let us know what you think of the show.#Interstellar #ChristopherNolan #HansZimmer #GhostOfTsushima #Earthsea #podcast #moviereview #movietok

Lee Shorten is an Asian film, television and theatre actor. He's best known for playing Sergeant Yoshida in The Man in the High Castle and Walt Yoshida in The Terror: Infamy. Regarding his voice over work, he's best known for voicing Kaszumasa Sakai in Ghost of Tsushima, Kengo in Ghost of Yotei, The Ghost Hunter in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Gantry in Marathon. In this episode Lee and I discuss his career, streaming, imposter syndrome, Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding 2, and Marathon. Lee's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lcshorten/

For review:1. US military intelligence-gathering flights are surging off the coast of Cuba, a CNN analysis of publicly available aviation data shows.Since February 4, the US Navy and Air Force have conducted at least 25 such flights using manned aircraft and drones, most of them near the country's two biggest cities, Havana and Santiago de Cuba, and some coming within 40 miles of the coast, according to FlightRadar24.2. US President Donald Trump on Monday said the ceasefire with Iran was “on life support,” a day after he rejected the proposal submitted by Iran over the weekend for a permanent truce.3. The United Arab Emirates carried out military strikes on Iran, making it the only other country to join the United States and Israel in its war against the Islamic Republic, according to a report on Monday.During the US-Israel war on Iran, Tehran launched sustained attacks on the UAE, firing some 550 ballistic and cruise missiles and more than 2,200 drones, according to the Emirati defense ministry, making it the most targeted country in the region, including Israel.4. The UK and France will on Tuesday host a multinational meeting of defense ministers on military plans to restore trade flows through the Strait of Hormuz, the British government said.The announcement came hours after Iran warned London and Paris against sending warships to the region.5. The EU has dismissed Vladimir Putin's suggestion that the Kremlin-friendly former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder could serve as a European mediator in peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.6. A 10-ship Russian convoy transited Japan's Tsushima Strait to enter the East China Sea over the weekend, according to Japan's Joint Staff Office.The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) spotted two Russian corvettes, a fleet oiler, a tugboat and six cargo ships around 5 p.m. Saturday sailing southwest 140 kilometers northeast of Tsushima.7. Taiwan's parliament has approved a proposed government boost to defense spending after a protracted standoff — although it pared back the proposed supplementary budget by a third, and limited spending to US defense systems. 8. United States, Philippine, Japanese and Canadian forces combined land, sea and air platforms to sink two decommissioned ships off the western Northern Luzon coast during Balikitan 2026 last week, according to a Defense Department release.

fWotD Episode 3284: Fuji-class battleship Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.The featured article for Saturday, 2 May 2026, is Fuji-class battleship.The Fuji class (富士型戦艦, Fuji-gata senkan) was a two-ship class of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the mid-1890s. They were the first battleships in the IJN, and were constructed in the United Kingdom as Japan lacked the industrial facilities needed to build them. Their design was based on the battleships being built for the Royal Navy at that time.The ships participated in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, including the Battle of Port Arthur in February 1904 and two bombardments of Port Arthur during the following month. Yashima struck a mine off Port Arthur in May and capsized while under tow several hours later. Fuji fought in the Battles of the Yellow Sea and Tsushima and was lightly damaged in the latter action. She was reclassified as a coast defence ship in 1910 and served as a training ship for the rest of her active career. The ship was hulked in 1922 and converted into a barracks ship fitted with classrooms. Fuji was finally broken up for scrap in 1948.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:50 UTC on Saturday, 2 May 2026.For the full current version of the article, see Fuji-class battleship on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Bluesky at @wikioftheday.com.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm neural Arthur.

This week, we're joined by Nick During and Abigail Dunn from New York Review Books for a wide-ranging conversation about the world of NYRB. From Classics to Kids, Comics to Poets, we explore what gives these books their distinct spirit and why so many readers find themselves returning to those familiar spines again and again.Along the way, we talk about recent releases, a few titles currently on our nightstands, and some of the surprises that come with bringing books back into print. It's a conversation about discovery, rediscovery, and the quiet pleasure of finding the right book at the right time. Plus, they shed some light on some surprises on the horizon!2026 Novella Book ClubWe have announced the four novellas we will be reading for The Mookse and Gripes Novella Book Club in 2026!* January: Daisy Miller, by Henry James* April: An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, by César Aira* July: The Hour of the Star, by Clarice Lispector* September: Prelude, by Katherine MansfieldDiscussions will be hosted at The Mookse and the Gripes Discord (see below!).We've got some fantastic author-focused episodes lined up for the foreseeable future, and we want to give you plenty of time to dive in if you'd like to read along with us. These episodes come around every ten episodes, and with our bi-weekly release schedule, you'll have a few months to get ready for each. Here's what we have in store:* Episode 135: William Faulkner* Episode 145: Elizabeth Taylor* Episode 155: Naguib Mahfouz* Episode 165: Annie Ernaux* Episode 175: Henry JamesThere's no rush—take your time, and grab a book (or two, or three) so you're prepared for these as they come!Join the Mookse and the Gripes on DiscordWant to share your thoughts on these upcoming authors or anything else we're discussing? Join us over on Discord! It's the perfect place to dive deeper into the conversation—whether you're reading along with our author-focused episodes or just want to chat about the books that are on your mind.We're also just about to read the second novella book club book of 2026: An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, by César Aira, translated by Chris Andrews. It's a fantastic book, and we'd love to have you join the discussion. It's a great space to engage with fellow listeners, share your insights, and discover new perspectives on the books you're reading.Shownotes* East of Dreams, by Nastassja Martin* In the Eye of the Wild, by Nastassja Martin* The Death of a Greek Lover, by David Plante* Difficult Women: A Memoir of Three, by David Plante* Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were), by Eve Babitz* Jesus Christs, by A.J. Langguth* Effingers, by Gabriele Tergit, translated by Sophie Duvernoy* Käsebier Takes Berlin, by Gabriele Tergit, translated by Sophie Duvernoy* Things in Nature Merely Grow, by Yiyun Li* Crazy Genie, by Inès Cagnati, translated by Liesl Schillinger* Light While There Is Light: An American History, by Keith Waldrop* “The Old Forest,” by Peter Taylor* The Netanyahus, by Joshua Cohen* Onward and Upward in the Garden, by Katharine S. White* Divorcing, by Susan Taubes* Lament for Julia, by Susan Taubes* Free Day, by Inès Cagnati, translated by Liesl Schillinger* Family Lexicon, by Natalia Ginzburg, translated by Jenny McPhee* Valentino & Sagittarius, by Natalia Ginzburg, translated by Avril Bardoni* Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee* Pittsburgh, by Frank Santoro* Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and Their Doctors, by David Mendel* Shakespeare's Montaigne: The Florio Translation* Proensa: An Anthology of Troubadour Poetry, selected and translated by Paul Blackburn* The Interior Landscape: Classical Tamil Love Poems, translated by A.K. Ramanujan* After Lorca, by Jack Spicer* A Woman of Thirty, by Honoré de Balzac, translated by Jeanine Herman* Turtle Diary, by Russell Hoban* The Marzipan Pig, by Russell Hoban* Château Rouge, by Amit Chaudhuri* First Love, by Gwendolyn Riley* My Phantoms, by Gwendolyn Riley* The Palm House, by Gwendolyn Riley* Memories of the Future, by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, translated by Joanne Turnbull* Smoke, by Ivan Turgenev, translated by Donald Rayfield* Diary Without Vowels, by Aleksander Wat, translated by Alissa Valles* The Lord, by Soraya Antonius* Where the Djinn Consult, by Soraya Antonius* Levitations, by Easton Smith* Bristol, by Jean Echenoz, translated by Mark Polizzotti* Command Performance, by Jean Echenoz, translated by Mark Polizzotti* Bina: A Novel in Warnings, by Anakana Schofield* Library of Brothel, by Anakana Schofield* I Liked Rex, by Diane Williams* The Kingdom of Agamemnon, by Vladimir Sharov, translated by Oliver Ready* Borges, by Adolfo Bioy Casares, translated by Valerie Miles* Morel's Invention, by Adolfo Bioy Casares, translated by Margaret Jull Costa* Zama, by Antonio Di Benedetto, translated by Esther Allen* The Silentiary, by Antonio Di Benedetto, translated by Esther Allen* The Suicides, by Antonio Di Benedetto, translated by Esther Allen* Bomarzo, by Manuel Mujica Lainez, translated by Gregory Rabassa* Life and Fate, by Vasily Grossman, translated by Robert Chandler* Blood Dark, by Louis Guilloux, translated by Laura Marris* An African in Greenland, by Tete-Michel Kpomassie, translated by James Kirkup* A High Wind in Jamaica, by Richard Hughes* Max Havelaar: Or, the Coffee Auctions of The Dutch Trading Company, by Multatuli, translated by Ina Rilke and David McKay* The Enchanted April, by Elizabeth von Arnim* Woman Running in the Mountains, by Yūko Tsushima, translated by Geraldine Harcourt* The Culling Time, by Yūko Tsushima, translated by Dennis Washburn* Loved and Missed, by Susie Boyt* The Sweet Dove Died, by Barbara Pym* Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, by François-Réne de Chateaubriand, translated by Alex Andriesse* The Story of a Life, by Konstantin Paustovsky, translated by Douglas SmithThe Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a bookish conversation hosted by Paul and Trevor. Every other week, we explore a bookish topic and celebrate our love of reading. We're glad you're here, and we hope you'll continue to join us on this literary journey!A huge thank you to those who help make this podcast possible! If you'd like to support us, you can do so via Substack or Patreon. Subscribers receive access to periodic bonus episodes and early access to all new episodes. Plus, each supporter gets their own dedicated feed, allowing them to download episodes a few days before they're released to the public. We'd love for you to check it out! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

For he FULL EXPERIENCE head to: https://www.patreon.com/c/timbutterly Another old friend from the East Coast comes into the hideaway 3.0 to talk salacious paleontologists, Ghost of Tsushima, and Tims embarrassing late night snack. We also get to see Mike Feeneys first impressions of the sugar maxxing community, and his decent into hair mogging.  More Mike Feeney: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeFeeneyComedy  UPCOMING SHOWS AT https://timbutterly.com Catch the show live AND new eps of Metal Girl Solid live - https://www.twitch.tv/timbutterly  Get 20% off your first purchase at Mizzen & Main with code BUTTERLY20 at http://MizzenandMain.com  Download Cash App Today: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/ijd4q5z4  #CashAppPod.Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Direct Deposit, Overdraft Coverage and Discounts provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. If you're 21 or older, get 40% OFF your first order @ IndaCloud with code BUTTERLY at https://inda.shop/BUTTERLY #indacloudpod  Connect w/ a provider to see if prescription Ro Sparks are right for you at http://ro.co/TBS 

For en episode av Nerdelandslaget vi har til deg denne uka!

Another episode, another new reign--same old problems.  This episode we talk about what happened after Ohoama, aka Temmu Tenno, passed away.  We'll touch on the fact that it wasn't entirely a smooth transition, and there are certainly hints that not everyone was in agreement as to what should happen.  And then there were other problems, such that the heir apparent never actually took the throne.  So what happened? For more information on the main characters in this episode, check out the blogpost at https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-147  (Also apologies ahead of time--my voice was not in great shape, and that may come through on the audio) Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is episode 147: Here We Go Again   Iki no Hakatoko looked around the spacious room and recognized many of the faces he saw there.  There were various nobles from around the court present.  All of them were familiar, even if they were not the closest of acquaintances—they ran in similar circles and were connected to each other over various political positions.  Some were connected by marriage, some were just allies, and others were almost rivals—but they were all there for a common cause. The open chamber had been buzzing as all of those elites of Yamato talked about why they might have gathered.  Of course, the big news was the death of the sovereign.  Ohoama had passed away, and the court was formally in mourning. And yet the government seemed stable.    The Queen was at the helm, guiding t he government, and her son was beside her as the Crown Prince.  So what was everyone doing here, gathering for what they could only assume were… other options? Finally, the buzzing started to die down as the doors to the chamber were closed and guards posted.  And then, the host for the discussion arrived, as Royal Prince Ohotsu stepped out and greeted all of his soon-to-be co-conspirators….     This episode, at long last, we are about to dive into a new reign.  And if you haven't picked up by now, this, the end of the 7th century, was a turbulent time.  Although the court had been instituting reforms to be more like the courts on the continent—and it wasn't like Ohoama died without any heir whatsoever—things were still unstable.  I know, shocker, right? So what happened? Let's go over the history some, and the main players, and then we can see what happened and the aftermath. Before that, however, let's talk about what we might expect to have happened, if everything had worked like clockwork. While Ohoama passed away in 686, it wasn't as if he hadn't made any plans.  His wife and Queen, Uno no Sarara, was deeply entrenched in governmental affairs, and their son, Prince Kusakabe, had been named Crown Prince in 681.  This meant that both were in positions of significant power within the current government.  All things being equal, and assuming a Confucian model, one would expect that upon Ohoama's passing, Kusakabe would step up and take the reins of the government, ascending to the throne as the new ruler.  Uno would oversee the transition and take her place as the Queen Mother, remaining in the palace and helping to shepherd the new rule, while one of Kusakabe's wives—probably Abe-hime, who, like her half-sister Uno, was also a daughter of Naka no Oe—would become his queen. And yet that is not what happened.  Prince Kusakabe does not show up in our list of sovereigns, and we are told he never ascended the throne.  Instead, his mother, Uno no Sarara, came to power.  So what exactly happened?  Why would she not have handed over power to her only son and set him up on the throne?  To understand all of that, I think there are several things we need to discuss, first of them being just how tenuous and fragile transitions like this were. If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you might be nodding in agreement with this statement: for more than a century, at this point, whatever high-minded ideals the rulers of Yamato may have espoused, their path to the throne had been covered in blood.  Let's roll back to the events of 587.  We talked about this in Episode 91, when the Soga and Mononobe families had each lined up behind different aspirants to the royal throne.  The Mononobe were a powerful family, known to be warriors for the throne, and the head of the Mononobe, the Ohomuraji, Moriya, was one of the most influential people at court.  However, in recent years, the Soga family had been on the rise.  Soga no Iname had married his daughters to members of the royal family, and he and his son, Umako, were known as the Ohoomi.  The Mononobe were not having it with these uppity newcomers, but the Soga seem to have built their power, anyway, likely using their connections to the continent to do so.  In a series of succession disputes, the Soga came out on top, defeating the Mononobe and eventually killing Moriya.  It was a bloody fight, but eventually the Soga's royal relatives won out. This brought Hasebe Wakasasagi, aka Sushun Tennou, to the throne.  For a time, Wakasasagi and Soga no Umako ruled the land, but eventually Wakasasagi grew suspicious of Umako—perhaps jealous of his power.  He considered taking him out, but Umako caught wind and had the sovereign assassinated, instead.  Umako then put his own niece, Kashikiya Hime, on the throne, where most know her as Suiko Tennou. Kashikiya was no stranger to the court, having served as the wife of her own half-brother, Nunakura, aka Bidatsu Tennou.  Kashikya is thought to have been a compromise candidate, chosen specifically to avert any further power struggles.  Certainly, Umako did not want a repeat performance of what had just happened with Wakasasagi.  And though she reigned, power was apparently shared between Soga no Umako, Kashikiya Hime, and Kashikiya Hime's nephew—Umako's grandnephew—Crown Prince Umayado, aka the legendary Shotoku Taishi.   By all rights, it seemed like things should have gone smoothly.  Umako, the eldest, would pass away to be succeeded by his niece, and it would make sense that after Kashikiya Hime's passing, Umayado would assume the throne.  Instead, Umayado would be the first to pass, creating uncertainty as to the future of the throne.  Then Umako would follow several years later.  Finally, Suiko would pass away soon thereafter. So, in about six years the three most powerful people in court all passed away.  Soga no Umako's son, Soga no Emishi, was still coming out from under his father's shadow.  Furthermore, it was not clear who should sit the throne—should it be Prince Yamashiro no Oe, the son of the Crown Prince, Umayado?  After all, his father would have likely inherited the throne and then it would have no doubt been passed to him.  And yet, there was another contender: Prince Tamura.  Ultimately Soga no Emishi backed Prince Tamura, a man with ties to Nunakura through both his father and mother, and yet who was not truly a royal prince in that his own parents had never held the throne.  Then again, neither had Umayado.  Eventually, Prince Yamashiro no Oe would back down from his claim to avoid bloodshed—and yet blood would be shed anyway.  When Prince Tamura died,  in an apparent bid to keep Soga power and quash any resistance before it started up, Soga no Emishi had Tamura's wife, Takara hime, aka Kougyoku Tennou, installed—but Prince Yamashiro no Ohoe was still alive, and his heirs were still out there.  Soga no Emishi appeared to be content, but his son and heir, Soga no Iruka, was not. And when his father was ill and Iruka had a free hand, he ordered the destruction of Prince Yamashiro no Oe, presumably to avoid a future challenge to the throne and thus to the Soga family's hold on power. This move shocked many, and rather than preventing conflict, it seems to have stirred up ill feelings against the Soga for their heavy hand in the politics of the period.  This would lead Prince Naka no Ohoe and several co-conspirators to rise up, killing Soga no Iruka in court, and then attacking his father, Soga no Emishi, in their home.  See episode 106 for more on that, known as the Isshi Incident.  Naka no Ohoe and his supporters would take their place in the court, but Naka no Ohoe would not ascend to the throne, himself – at least not yet.  Instead, he took the position of Crown Prince, and his uncle, Prince Karu,aka Kotoku Tennou,  took the throne.  However, that still left a loose end.  Prince Furubito no Oe, who had appeared to be the favorite for the throne under the Soga, was still alive.  Furubito no Oe was the son of Tamura and a Soga consort—Hotei no Iratsume, the daughter of Soga no Umako.  Although the Chronicles do not mention it, he seems to have been well placed to be Crown Prince in place of Naka no Oe, especially in a Soga dominated court.  Without that backing, however, his claim may not have been quite so strong.  He had gone into exile in Yoshino, but opponents of Naka no Oe's faction and their bloody coup began to use him as a rallying point.  It is unclear if Prince Furubito himself had any ambitions, but the fact remained that he was a threat, nonetheless, and Prince Naka no Oe had him taken out. By controlling things from behind the throne, Prince Naka no Oe seems to have been able to keep things fairly stable.  When his uncle Karu  passed away, the throne went back to his mother, who is known as Saimei Tennou in her second reign, but Naka no Oe was still in a place of considerable power, and the continuity likely helped keep things on track.  Then Takara Hime passed away in the midst of a national crisis—the mobilization to support Baekje against the Silla-Tang alliance.  That military effort turned out to be less than successful, but by that point, there does not seem to have been much question over who was in charge – it was finally Naka no Oe's turn to take the throne, and he did, as Tenji Tennou. And so it wasn't until Naka no Oe's own death that we again see major violence.  Naka no Oe's brother, Ohoama, is said to have been the Crown Prince, but then Naka no Oe's son, Ohotomo, came of age.  He was made the Dajo Daijin and supported by the most powerful nobles in court.   It is clear that there were divergent factions within the court itself, though, with some supporting Ohotomo and others supporting Ohoama.  In the midst of this, Ohoama chose to bow out, at least while his brother Naka no Oe was still on the throne.  However, Ohotomo and his supporters could not leave Ohoama out there as a loose end.  They knew that he still had a claim and supporters, and they started to make plans to move against him after Naka no Oe's death.  They were too slow, however—Ohoama caught word and moved against the court, instead.  In a bloody struggle that upended the politics of the court one more time, Ohoama came to the throne.  That struggle, the Jinshin no Ran, was covered in detail in episodes 129 to 132. So if we look back we can see that for all of the thoughts of inheritance and legitimacy, most of those who had ascended the throne had done so by eliminating their rivals—either before or just after they assumed the royal mantle.  As such, this is something that Ohoama was, himself, quite concerned about, and he took several steps to try to avoid a repeat of this scenario. First, and perhaps somewhat confusingly, he ensured that those in positions of authority in the government were largely tied by blood to the royal family.  The royal and non-royal princes were all nominally related in one way, shape, or form.  If nothing else this meant that the nobility— those elites without direct blood ties to the throne—were not, themselves, gaining the kind of power and authority that had previously been given out to families like the Ohotomo, the Mononobe, and the Soga.  We don't even hear that much about the relatives of Nakatomi no Kamatari, who had achieved such heights under Naka no Oe that he had become the Naidaijin, the great minister of the interior. One might think that this system still had issues, however.  After all, each princely line had their own tie to a previous sovereign, and we've certainly seen times where a sovereign came in out of left field, with a nominal, but hardly convincing, connection to the throne.  This is particularly true in a time when succession was still not necessarily a strictly patrilineal custom; where it was not unusual for a senior family member to take up the mantle of leadership, rather than just the first-born son of the current ruler. And that seems to be why Ohoama also held the Yoshino conference with his immediate family members in 679.  This included his Queen Consort, Uno; the Royal Prince Kusakabe, the Royal Prince Ohotsu, the Royal Prince Takechi, the Royal Prince Kawashima, the Royal Prince Osakabe, and the Royal Prince Shiki.  These were sons of both Ohoama and Naka no Oe, but they were all considered to be loyal insiders of the royal family.  Ohoama had them swear to work together and to protect one another.  And yet, as we shall see, that promise does not seem to have survived Ohoama himself. So let's talk about some of these characters, now that we are here at another question of succession.  We'll start with the Queen herself, Uno no Sarara. Uno was born in 645, the daughter of Naka no Oe and a consort, Wochi no Iratsume, daughter of Soga no Yamada no Ishikawa no Maro.  Ishikawa no Maro had been a powerful ally of Naka no Oe, assisting with the overthrow of his own uncle and cousin, Soga no Emishi and Soga no Iruka.  In turn, he seems to have become the head of the Soga family.  Despite the rhetoric that the Soga family was destroyed, it was more that the power of Emishi and Iruka was broken.  Ishikawa no Maro had parlayed his assistance into another means to access power at the court, and married his own daughter to Naka no Oe.  That worked until it didn't—enemies in court slandered Ishikawa no Maro and Naka no Oe had him killed in 649. Wochi no Iratsume would have three children with Naka no Oe.  The eldest was Princess Ota, followed by Princess Uno, and finally Prince Takeru.  There is a theory that she died in 651, giving birth to Prince Takeru.  Prince Takeru himself would only survive a short while passing away in 658.  He was only seven years old. Both Princess Ohota and Princess Uno were married off to their uncle, Prince Ohoama.  Princess Ohota was the elder of the two, and bore Princess Ohoku and Prince Ohotsu, whom we'll discuss in a bit.  However, Princess Ohota passed away in 667, during the reign of Naka no Oe, and so did not play as big a role in the politics of the day as her younger sister. Uno, on the other hand, appears to have been Ohoama's ride-or-die.  They were married when she was only thirteen years old, and she followed him when he and Naka no Oe went to Kyushu to oversee the war on the peninsula.  It was there that she gave birth to her first and only son in 662.  She left the court behind to follow Ohoama to Yoshino, along with their son, Prince Kusakabe.  She then followed Ohoama on his lightning blitz through the mountains over to the east.  It is said that while he went on to the front, she maintained a place in the relative safety of the land of Mie.  From there she likely organized the rearguard and would have been involved with the back-end logistics.  She is also said to have made particular entreaties to the deities of Ise shrine, and may have had a hand in raising the Shrine to greater prominence during the reign of Ohoama and later. A key note is the fact that, when Ohoama became ill, and could not effectively manage the affairs of state, Uno stepped in and made sure that things continued to operate.  And so, when Ohoama finally passed away, his projects were not simply left hanging—his queen and consort, Uno no Sarara, was there to see that everything remained on track. As queen, Uno's son, Prince Kusakabe, was the favorite to succeed his father.  In fact, in 681, he was named Crown Prince at the age of 19.  Kusakabe had even married his own aunt, Princess Abe—his mother's half-sister.  Princess Abe was another daughter of Naka no Oe and a Soga related consort; in this case it was Wochi no Iratsume's younger sister, Mehi no Iratsume—sometimes called Sakurai no Iratsume.  I should note that Princess Abe was only about 20 years old in 681, only a year older than the Crown Prince, so it isn't like there was a huge age gap between them, even if he was technically marrying his own aunt.  Still, they had already had a child between them the year before, in 680—this was Princess Hidaka or Niimi.  Two years later, in 683, they had another child, Prince Karu, and later we know that they had a third child, Princess Kibi.  This is all a pretty good start for a future sovereign, and Kusakabe seems to have been on track to succeed his father. By all rights, it seems that Kusakabe should have stepped up in 686 to take the throne, but that was not to be.  Instead, his mother, Queen Uno no Sarara, would retain her place at the head of the government.  It is possible that this was meant to be merely temporary —there were still many things to be taken care of.  With Ohoama's death there were numerous rituals having to do with his interment, and the Crown Prince, Kusakabe, appears to have been integral to those events.  Whereas we may have previously seen powerful nobles step up, with the increased influence of Confucianism, it makes sense that a son would be responsible for ensuring that things were taken care of.   There was also the issue of a new palace that would need to be built, and the court would need to prepare for the various enthronement ceremonies.  After all, Naka no Oe himself wasn't formally enthroned for three years into his supposed reign. And just like his grandfather, as Crown Prince, Kusakabe maintained a powerful portfolio at the court that would still allow him to have a heavy hand on the rudder of the ship of state.  In fact, had things gone differently, then the Chroniclers may have simply counted these early years as part of Kusakabe's reign, as they had done with Naka no Oe. And all that would have been great—except that, despite all those nice family agreements at Yoshino, there were others who seem to have had designs on the throne. The first claim that likely could have been made was by Prince Takechi.  Prince Takechi—written as Takaichi, like the district of the same name—was technically the eldest son of Ohoama.  He had been called to Ohoama's side during the Jinshin no Ran, and given nominal control over the troops waiting to cross the pass from Ohowari into Afumi.  This was likely more of a sinecure, however; Prince Takechi was still quite young, and while the position would no doubt teach him much about organization and leadership, I certainly hope that there were more experienced individuals assisting him. However, for all of that, Prince Takechi had a major strike against him In the form of his parentage.  Although he was Ohoama's eldest son, his mother was not a royal princess.  Instead she was Amago no Iratsume, the daughter of the powerful head of the Munakata family, Munakata no Tokusen. Munakata was a powerful area on the northwest coast of Tsukushi—modern Kyushu.  It is famous for the three Munakata shrines.  The outer, or Hetsu, shrine is on the land, but the middle shrine is on the island of Ohoshima, 11 kilometers from the Hetsu shrine.  Then the Oki, or deep sea, shrine is on the aptly named Okinoshima, another 49 kilometers past that, out in the middle of the Genkai Sea, the body of water between Kyushu, Tsushima, and the Korean peninsula.  Even today, Okinoshima is considered a sacred place, and has never been developed: even today, only those closely associated with the shrine are allowed to set foot there.  Because of that we can see something remarkable, as Okinoshima was held as sacred for hundreds of years, during which time, offerings were regularly made to the kami there, presumably for safe passage across the waters.  These offerings have accumulated over the centuries and serve as a fascinating glimpse back into the history of the shrine and of the relations between the archipelago and the peninsula. The land of Munakata—and by extension the rulers, or Kimi—appear to have had not inconsiderable influence over the trade back and forth across the ocean to the continent.  This is further corroborated by the wealth left at Okinoshima and elsewhere, as well as by large kofun nearby, thought to be those of the ruling family of the area.  This would have no doubt been a powerful and prestigious family to be allied with, especially in Ohoama's role as a Prince.  However, despite all of that, they were not, ultimately, a royal family.   That would seem to have made Prince Takechi ineligible to take the throne—at least without some serious backing and perhaps a little re-working of his parentage. And this brings us to the third eldest son of Ohoama:  Prince Ohotsu.  Unlike Prince Takechi, Prince Ohotsu was the son of a royal princess—Princess Ohota.  In fact, not only was she a royal princess, but she was the sister to Queen Uno.  And Prince Ohotsu was born only a year later than Prince Kusakabe.  Furthermore, during the Jinshin no Ran, Prince Ohotsu was called to Ohoama's side, along with his half-brother, Prince Takechi, and he is specifically mentioned in that role, despite the fact that he was still too young to have played much of a role.  Like Prince Kusakabe, Prince Ohotsu was in his early twenties. So if we put Kusakabe and Ohotsu side-by-side, we can see that they have a lot of similar qualifications. Both were the sons of Ohoama by daughters of Naka no Oe, giving them double-royal lineages.  Their mothers were even full sisters, so they were both great-grandsons of Soga no Ishikawa no Maro, for whatever that means.  Kusakabe was older by a day, but Ohotsu's mother was the eldest of the two sisters.  But for the fact that his mother had passed away, she could possibly have been declared Queen, and Ohotsu might have ended up as Crown Prince, instead of Kusakabe.  Even if something had simply befallen Kusakabe, Ohotsu likely would have been able to step in, especially since Kusakabe had no full-blooded siblings, himself. The reign of Ohoama is replete with examples of Kusakabe, Ohotsu, and Takechi often acting together or being given honors together.  While it is always clear to rank them in that order, it is also clear that all three seemed to hold a place of high esteem.   What we don't seem to see is any ill will between them—but then again, the Chronicles rarely give much attention to anyone who is not the sovereign except to mention them in passing.  As such, we get only a simple sentence in the record, dated barely two weeks after Ohoama's passing, that Prince Ohotsu conspired against the Crown Prince, which is to say, Prince Kusakabe. As is so frustratingly often the case we aren't told how he was conspiring.  Clearly, it refers to succession and we can see that it wouldn't take much for Ohotsu to gather support and place himself on the throne—had that occurred, we likely would see some differences in the Chronicles as well.  However, as it stood, the conspiracy came to naught.  We are told that about one more week later, after the temporary interment of Ohoama's body and the many, many days spent eulogizing him and those around him—seriously, the Chronicles go into way too much detail, which is great for giving us a lot of details on people in the court and their court ranks, but otherwise is mostly paragraphs of names of individuals who were likely important enough for the Chroniclers to ensure that they got at least a mention. It was after that was finished that we are told that Prince Ohotsu's conspiracy was discovered.  He had the support of some thirty nobles, including a priest from Silla and the famous Iki no Muraji no Hakatoko—the one who had written the detailed account of the embassy that had been held under arrest by the Tang court, which we talked about back in Episode 123.  The point is these were people with some amount of clout and who moved in important circles, and for thirty of them to be in Ohotsu's camp might not seem like much, but that doesn't begin to illuminate all of the people that they would have brought with them to the party.  Furthermore, once they went public, who knows how many others might have joined them.  Fortunately for Kusakabe—and unfortunately for Ohotsu—the would-be conspiracy was quashed and quashed hard.  We are told that it was discovered on the second day of the tenth month of 686—less than 30 days after Ohoama's death—and the Queen herself, Uno no Sarara, stepped in and had Ohotsu executed at his own mansion in Wosada.  She then issued a royal decree, stating to everyone that Ohotsu had committed treason, and that the punishment for treason was death.  She also stated that those who had assisted him were also guilty, and should likewise receive the same sentence, except that she was going to be merciful.  And so she ended up pardoning Prince Ohotsu's co-conspirators.  The only exceptions were Toki no Michidzukuri, who was banished to Idzu, and the Silla priest, who was exiled to a temple in Hida.  While we aren't told what roles they played, those two apparently were considered more complicit than the others. A few days later, Prince Ohotsu's sister, Princess Oku, was recalled from her position as the shrine princess of Ise.  It is unclear if this is related, but it seems relevant given the proximity of the two events. There is one other thing I should likely mention, and that seems to come from the Kaifuso.  The Kaifuso is a collection of continental style poetry from the 8th century, similar to the Man'yoshu, but with a different focus.  In both works they often given some description of the authors of the poems, which provide us more information on the people of the time.  For instance, the Kaifuso speaks favorably of Prince Ohotomo, Ohoama's rival in the Jinshin no Ran, and seems more than a little sympathetic towards him and his cause, compared to the way he is treated in the Nihon Shoki's main narrative.  In regards to our current point in the narrative and the treason of Prince Ohotsu the Kaifuso tells us that Prince Ohotsu was ratted out to the Queen by none other than his best friend, Prince Kawashima.  Prince Kawashima was another one of the princes who had been called to Yoshino and who had pledged to work together.  He was not Ohotsu's brother or even half-brother, however, as Kawashima was the son of Naka no Oe.  He was actually a good deal older than Ohoama's actual sons, but apparently trusted by Ohoama at the same time.  The Kaifuso also seems to tell us that Kawashima was rewarded for his efforts by the court. The only problem is that the Nihon Shoki, our primary source, tells us none of this.  Not only is Prince Kawashima not mentioned in regards to the plot, neither is he mentioned as having received any kind of reward or gift by the court.  That doesn't mean the Kaifuso is wrong, but it does raise the question. Similarly, it is just as easy to suggest that the Nihon Shoki itself may be covering up what actually happened.  After all, we only have one side of the story.  What if there wasn't a conspiracy?  Or what if the conspiracy were of the Queen's making, instead.  Prince Ohotsu was clearly popular, and had a reasonable claim to the throne.  That was a threat to her own son's eventual ascension.  It is possible that the Queen, Uno no Sarara, saw a threat and decided to do away with it, herself, keeping her own son's hands relatively clean in the process. Whatever the truth, we likely will never know, and so this is all we have to go on.  Whether it was an actual conspiracy or just the paranoid  concerns of a queen and mother, it is clear that it was not yet enough to have an heir named—there was always the possibility for these things to go sideways and for someone else to jump in with a claim of their own. For all of that, while it seems that Prince Kusakabe was intended to ascend to the throne, for one reason or another, that was delayed.  For some three years, as we've mentioned, Kusakabe and his mother ruled as Queen and Crown Prince, perhaps just because they were handling Ohoama's burial and the creation of a new palace from which Kusakabe himself could then reign.  Unfortunately, it seems that time accomplished what Prince Ohotsu and his conspirators could not, and in 689, Prince Kusakabe passed away.  Shortly thereafter, the Queen, Uno no Sarara, ascended to the throne herself.  This appears to have been because Kusakabe's own son and heir, Royal Prince Karu, was only about 6 years old, having been born in 683, and his daughter was only 9.  So rather than giving up the throne to some other woman's child, Uno no Sarara took the throne for herself.  She is remembered, today, as Jitou Tennou. Jitou Tennou continued to work the initiatives that had been pushed forward during the reign of her husband.  These were projects that she herself was quite familiar with, and in fact, many of the projects are sometimes thought to have been hers, with attribution given to her husband just to give it a greater air of legitimacy.  Ultimately, however, she would oversee some quite formidable changes, even if many of them started in the previous reign or not. And so begins the last reign of the Nihon Shoki, covering the years 686 to 697.  The Nihon Shoki itself wouldn't be complete and presented to the court for another 23 years or so, and yet this is where they chose to leave off.  Perhaps that is because of when it was started, or they just didn't have all the records ready for anything beyond.  They clearly had to end somewhere, after all.  And given that both Ohoama and Uno had such a hand in many of the changes, perhaps it just made sense to end here.  Much of what would come would set the tone for centuries to come. There is one more thing that I want to address in all of this.  We've talked about the lineages of the various individuals, who trace their lineages back to either powerful noble families, like the Soga, or to specific sovereigns.  There is a tendancy by some to talk about Ohoama having started what some would call the Temmu Dynasty.  The idea being that Ohoama's offspring would continue to reign for a time, displacing the offspring of his brother, Naka no Oe.  Then, at a later date, Naka no Oe's line would reassert itself. This seems to be pretty clear cut from a strictly patrilineal viewpoint of royal succession, but I think it ignores a lot about the cultural aspects of the time.  For one thing, descent was about both the father AND the mother, and too often people discount the mother's influence, when, in fact, the mother most likely had more influence in the raising of children than did a royal father.  After all, we don't exactly get a lot of anecdotes about sovereigns spending quality time with their children—and I don't think calling them to help you on campaign counts.  To be fair we get hardly any anecdotes about children.  But we also see that sovereigns were having multiple children with multiple consorts.  Naka no Oe is said to have had about 14 children—possibly more.  I count 17 children for Ohoama.  And we see the ages spread out across the sovereigns' lifetimes, with some children being born at a point that they had not even attained the age of majority by the time their father passed away.  Put another way, look at how Prince Kusakabe was able to marry his own aunt, who was only a year older than he was.  Clearly there was a bit of an age difference between siblings.  I don't imagine that they were being raised by their father, necessarily, but probably by their mothers and the servants at the palace, generally. I would also point out that Ohoama included both his own children as well as children of his brother in the Yoshino conference, further indicating that he did not have any specific intention to entirely shut out the his brother's line. And then there is Uno no Sarara.  She was Ohoama's spouse, but also the daughter of Naka no Oe.  Are we to think that she stopped being her father's daughter because she married someone? That doesn't mean that labels might not be helpful in some ways, but I just don't want to over emphasize the familial or dynastic connections.  Brothers regularly turned on each other, and blood ties were no guarantee of cordial relations.  In fact, only maternal siblings—those with the same mother—were actually considered true siblings in most cases.  That's how they justified so much of what we would consider incest in the royal family in the first place. So while I do think that Ohoama and Uno tweaked the system set up by Naka no Oe and made their own impression on Yamato and, by extension, Japanese culture, I just don't want to read too much into the lineages.  The stories of politics and royal succession are often much more involved and complex. And hopefully, we'll get to see how complex as we continue on down this path.  For now, I think I'm going to leave it here, and so, until next time, 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.

O Galinha Viajante de hoje dá uma passadinha no sudeste asiático fantástico de Kena! Vamos falar um pouco do desenvolvimento muito legal do jogo, comentar um pouco das influências audiovisuais, e ficar babando nos fofíssimos Rot e nos seus chapeuzinhos.APOIE O GALINHA VIAJANTEAcesse catarse.me/galinhaviajanteLINKS DA GALINHACatarse | Youtube | Instagram | BlueskyContato: cast@galinhaviajante.com.brAcesse nosso SITE: galinhaviajante.com.brTRILHA SONORABefriending Spirits, Beneath Worlds, Village, Hat Cart, Flower Shrine, Trapped Spirit, Village Heart Caves, Warriors Path (Kena OST)Hydrocity Zone Funk Big Band Version (8-Bit Big Band)Rerejangan, Çudamani (Gamelan Çudamani)Battle On The Jazzy Bridge (Quasar)CITADOS NO EPISÓDIOVideogames: The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask, Okami, Ghost of Tsushima, Trek to Yomi, Oxenfree, Dynasty Warriors, Pikimin, Spyro The Dragon, Mortal Kombat 2, Mario Odyssey, Devil May Cry 5, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy IX, Metroid Prime, Crash Bandicoot 2, Fatal Fury, Smash Bros. Ultimate, DmC: Devil May Cry, Kingdom Hearts Outras Mídias: Frozen, Mickey, Major League Baseball, Dust (curta-metragem), Akira Kurosawa, Studio Ghibli, Terrible Fate (curta-metragem), Debussy, 8-bit Big BandCAPÍTULOS00:00:00 - Abertura do Episódio00:04:34 - Conhecendo os Irmãos Grier00:44:44 - O que é Gamelão?01:02:51 - Disney, Japão, Zelda e Chapeuzinhos01:52:14 - Top Dúzia Chapeus dos Games02:04:30 - Encerramento do EpisódioO Galinha vai ao ar toda semana graças aos Escudeiros da Galinha Viajante! Apoie você também o nosso projeto no Catarse e junte-se à Escudaria!Apresentado e produzido por Leon Cleveland e Samuel R. Auras.Contato: cast@galinhaviajante.com.brSupport the show

In today's Daily Fix:Cyberpunk 2077 is getting another update, this time for the PS5 Pro. The new update brings enhanced ray tracing, more framerate options, and 4K resolution for the first time on console. The update is free, and the game itself is free if you're a PS Plus Extra or Essentials member. In sadder news, Sony Pictures Entertainment went through a round of layoffs this morning. Hundreds of employees were affected, but no word yet on how this impacts their adaptations of hit games like Ghost of Tsushima and Helldivers 2. And finally, a Pokémon Go Regional Championship match has fans in an uproar as the winner was disqualified hours after he won.

Chris recaps his shows in Upstate NY, finally finishing Ghost of Tsushima and the new film starring Zendaya, The Drama.   Website: ChrisLamberth.com Twitter: @MundaneFestival @ChrisLamberth Patreon: Mundane Festival Email: mundanefestivalpod@gmail.com

Super Ciné Battle revient ! Mais ce n’est pas le bon podcast, mais on en parle un peu. Dans cet épisode on parle aussi beaucoup de stand-up. On revient sur le cas Redouane Bougheraba et aussi l’actu comédie US avec Josh Johnson. On parle d’Afroman. Et puis après, Project Hail Mary, « dernière chance ». Comment trouve-t-on le temps de parler aussi de Ghost of Tsushima et de FFIV ? C’est qu’on avait envie de faire cet épisode ! Les recommandations (1:10:00) Daniel :  le jeu Tokyo Xtreme Racing (Shutoko Battle sur PS5 et PC) Benjamin: Le film Crime 101 qui, contrairement à ce qu’on dit dans l’épisode, a été shadowdrop sur Amazon Prime le 1er avril. Quelle blague ! Montage: Baptiste Bertrand Et on remercie comme toujours chaleureusement nos généreux Patreotes !

This episode we close out discussion of this reign with a bit of a grab bag.  There is the minting of new coins, new letters to write Japanese, board games, and more. For more, check out our blogpost:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-146 Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is episode 146: Coins, Letters, Games, and More   The large audience hall was filled with nobles, sitting in pairs across from each other.  Throughout the hall, the roof and walls reverberated with the sounds of numerous stone markers being placed on painted wooden tables—or more appropriately, game boards.   It was accompanied by the sound of dice clattering.  At the far end of the hall was the royal presence, where his majesty could likewise join in the entertainment—with someone of sufficient standing, of course. Throughout the day there were bursts of joy and frustration throughout the hall.  In some instances, one could see two players sharing in the joy and love of the game.  In other cases, political rivals stared each other down, neither one willing to give away any strategic advantage.  Any smiles there were merely a mask.  And yet, no matter how hard one tried, there was only so much you could do.  Ultimately, your fate was in the hands of the dice, though you could certainly do your best to nudge it here and there. And so they continued.  As they played, small wagers were made between players.  At the conclusion of their match, each player could find another opponent, and see if their luck held out.  Victory was desired, but at the very least one didn't want to be embarrassed.  As such, losing gracefully was just as important as winning with humility.  Sure, there were  the petty stakes that were gambled here and there, but the real stakes were embedded in the politics of the court.  That was a game  that everyone was playing, except that there was no board, and the rules were often merely suggestions, at best.     This episode we are going to close out the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tenno.  It has been a while getting here—but then again, Ohoama's reign is the best documented so far, almost like the entire Chronicle has built up to this point.  We have spent about a dozen episodes on this reign—not including the four before that discussing the Jinshin no Ran. During that time we've talked about how Ohoama continued the Ritsuryou experiment, while  at the same time shaping it into something that was even more directly under his control.  A lot of this appears to have been done with the mostly willing consent of a good part of the archipelago. That may have been because of a few different things.  For one, all of this was justified through the philosophical underpinnings of the continent.  This is the new knowledge that the court had been devouring for over a century, and so I suspect that none of it seemed particularly surprising or out of place.  Furthermore, it seems that Ohoama's actions may have appealed to some of the more middle-tier elites; those for whom the idea of a government stipend was quite appealing. There was also the external threat of Silla and Tang.  Though in reality, Silla was in conflict with the Tang dynasty, up until the conclusion of the Silla-Tang War, around 676.  In truth, the Tang court wouldn't recognize Sillan sovereignty south of the Taedong river until 736, so there were still tensions.  However, early on in the reign there was at least the thought that hostilities could spill over onto the archipelago. And then there are all of the projects.  The designation of national temples, the beginning of a national history project, the founding of a permanent capital city, and the creation of a formal code—the Asuka Kiyomihara Code. Compared to all of that, the topics of this episode really are some miscellaneous stuff that I didn't have anywhere else to put, but wanted to bring to light anyway.  First, we'll talk about the minting of coins, and what that meant.  Once again, this is really neat because we actually have some coins that appear to be from this time frame, providing what might be a direct relationship between what is written down and what we have in the archaeological record.  Then we'll touch on another project of Ohoama's—this one less successful than some of the others we've discussed.  This was an attempt to create a new writing system specific to the Japanese language.  Remember, at this point literate people in the archipelago were using kanji to write everything down, and for the most part they were using kanbun—so Sinitic characters and grammar, with occasional use of characters purely for their phonetic qualities when they absolutely had to spell something out.  Eventually this would evolve into the syllabaries of katakana and hiragana, but there were several false starts before that, and we'll talk about what was being attempted during Ohoama's reign. Beyond those court projects we'll talk about some of the kami and Buddhist related rituals, especially as they related to growing merit and attempting to protect the state and its people from disasters—natural or otherwise.  And then there are various omens, and just a few edicts that were more geared towards the court but are still fun, like when Ohoama forced the entire court to join him for a day of… board games.  I guess when you are the sovereign and trying to set up a game day, scheduling is suddenly not so big of a problem. So that's what we are going to cover.  We are skipping around throughout the reign, and so while I'll mention dates here and there, I'll try not to get too bogged down with the exact dates unless it really matters. First off: coins.  We are going to start somewhere in the middle, on the 15th day of the 4th month of 683.  It is here that we see a note that Ohoama decreed that copper coins would be used, and not silver.  Remember that a silver mine had been discovered in Tsushima back in 674.  At that time we know that there were silver coins being made, but in 683 it looks like they were changing from silver to copper.  But three days later, they reversed the decision to completely cancel the silver coins, so they presumably had both silver and copper coins. Coins are interesting for several reasons.  For one, coins often help us to date various collections—if they are distinctive enough.  They can be quite helpful in telling us that a particular archaeological assemblage is almost certainly from sometime after the coins had begun to be circulated.  After all, if you unearth a stratum of an archeological dig and you find a penny dated to 1912, you can be reasonably confident that that layer was last exposed on or after 1912, unless time travel was at play. There are some exceptions where animals or tree roots or other forces can disturb the layering, but that's why archeologists carefully pay attention to soil features.  That isn't to say that all coins of the time had clear dates on them.  In fact, the oldest coins we have in the archipelago are something called "Mumon Ginsen"—literally unmarked silver coins.  They are found in various assemblages and thought to have originated under Naka no Oe, aka Tenji Tennou.  The silver from Tsushima would have likely been used for this.  For many reasons it is unclear if these were minted by the state or if they were privately minted and circulated. The copper coin mentioned in Ohoama's record in the Nihon Shoki would appear to be what is known as a Fuhonsen coin, which we also have extant examples of.  These are round copper coins with a square hole in the middle, as was common on the continent.  The previous unmarked silver coins were just small circles of solid silver.  In contrast, the Fuhonsen bear the characters "FU-HON":  FU, or "Tomi", means wealth, and HON, or "moto", means something like base or basis.  "SEN" just refers to the fact that it is a coin.  So the coin represents the basis of wealth. They are just under an inch in diameter, and 1.5 millimeters thick.  While primarily copper, they do have traces of antimony, silver, and bismuth.  The use of copper was likely because of its lower melting point, which would have been easier to cast with. So it seems that these were the new copper coins mentioned in the Chronicles, and the intent was originally to completely replace any silver currency.  I suspect that they quickly realized that they could not easily replace all of the silver, and so the older silver coins were probably still in circulation—though I don't know if any new ones were being minted. We don't exactly know how the coins were used.  They weren't being used to pay taxes or similar things—that was still all being handled in rice, silk, cloth, and labor.  They might have been used by the government to pay individuals, who would then exchange them for goods, but they were probably not used very often between individuals.  There is even some suggestion that they had a more ritual meaning.  Coins of a similar shape—round with a square hole in the center—go back to at least 350 BCE on the continent, and were quite common by the  time of the Han dynasty.  The round hole allowed them to be placed on strings—you'll often see references to strings of cash.  In the Qin dynasty, a string was meant to be a superunit, made up of 1000 coins.  Merchants and others operating at some scale could then just pay in "strings" of cash rather than counting out each and every coin.  It also provided a way of transporting them.  Anyone doing business in east Asia would have encountered coinage from one of the dynasties on the mainland, and we certainly see various coins making their way over to the archipelago, though how exactly they were used and valued isn't certain.  It may have been more important to just have them on hand for trips to the continent so that an embassy or trading vessel could participate in the economy, there. The next coin to be minted in the archipelago itself wasn't until 708, and that was the Wadokaichin, or Wado coins, named for the four characters around the square hole, which included the era name that they were created, "Wado".  This seems to have kicked off an actual national currency that would only last for a couple hundred years before it was debased and lost its value.  For centuries after that, rice was once again the primary currency, and would continue to be so, even though the Tokugawa shogunate would begin to mint and issue coins again through much of their rule.  Still, coins were often outside the grasp of most of the common people. While coins may not have fully caught on, they did better than our next project.  This was a task that was given to Sakahibe no Muraji no Iwashiki who compiled, by royal command, a new set of characters, which were recorded in a book of 44 volumes.  Though this book  is no longer extant, we do have later sources that claim it was once in the royal library.  It describes the characters as similar to Sanskrit characters.  This appears to be an attempt to create an alphabet, or syllabary, for the Japanese language. While Yamato had adopted the Sinitic systems of logographic writing, it wasn't exactly up to the task of directly writing in Japanese.  For one thing, the languages had different sounds that they used, and in different combinations.  Furthermore, grammatically, the two were quite different.  Many Sinitic languages are Subject, Verb, Object, similar to English, while Japanese is Subject, Object, Verb, meaning the verb goes at the end.  But beyond that, Japanese relies extensively on conjugation of verbs, with verbs and adjectives changing to express tense and other such things that Sinitic languages, such as modern Putonghua and languages such as Middle Chinese handle in other ways.  To give an English speaking person a similar experience, imagine writing sentences as "The bird in the tree sat"  or "the man the bread at the store bought".  Now remove many of the articles and prepositions, so you get things like "bird tree sit" and "man bread store buy".  You can imagine how that can really get unwieldy if you want to convey more nuanced concepts. Japanese would either need to add a phonetic writing system—which it did—or it would need to come up with new characters to use in place of the special qualities of the language.  Or they would need to continue to write in Sinitic grammatical order and  continue to do the translation to Japanese on the fly.   One can imagine that this was hardly efficient—in order to learn how to write you would basically have to learn a whole new language. That these new symbols were similar to characters associated with Sanskrit also makes sense, and we even see similar attempts on the continent, though they had other writing systems to compare to as well.  For example, we see the Persian Sogdian, written with a variation of Syriac script, and the Ghandari language written with its own Ghandari or Kharosthi script, but the influence of Buddhism likely explains why scripts associated with Sanskrit likely had a greater influence than other languages.  I should note here that Sanskrit itself does not have a single script—today, people probably think of the Devanagari script, commonly used in India, but that doesn't seem to have been developed until the 8th century.  The work of Iwashiki was likely based on something like the Siddham, or Kutila, script.  This is an abudgida, where consonants and vowels are connected together when written.  This would have worked well for the Japanese language as phonemes are often grouped together as consonant-vowel clusters known as morae.  Siddham evolved in the late 6th century and many Buddhist scripts that were making their way along the Silk Road would have used it.  However, it is said that Siddham proper—or at least as we know it today—was introduced to Japan by the famous monk Kuukai in the early 9th century.  If that is the case, then what script was Iwashiki using as his inspiration? Regardless of the details, this new script doesn't seem to have taken off.  It may have just been too much to ask someone to learn the various kanji AND another system on top of that.  Instead, the Japanese would adopt certain kanji over time, and simplify them into what we know, today, as kana.  Our earliest example is what we know of as Man'yogana, named for the Man'yoshu, an 8th century collection of poems attributed to various contemporary and historical figures.  Because the poetic structure of Japanese required specific counts of syllables or, more specifically, morae, it was important to capture the actual pronunciation of the language.  Certain characters were chosen and used over and over again purely for their phonetic value, rather than any other inherent meaning.  Over time, those characters were simplified and standardized, developing into the katakana and hiragana still used today.  While it was these organically-evolving systems that would eventually be most popular and fill the gap, but it is still incredible to see someone deliberately tackling the problem at this early date. Moving on from money and writing, let's turn now to matters of the kami and the Buddha.   Yamato existed in a world that saw itself as being caught between forces both seen and unseen.  Besides the natural world there was the spiritual world, and to many it was just as real as anything else. We've talked all along about the interplay between the court, the kami and the Buddha, and some of the evidence we see is relatively simple.  For instance, in 675, the Ohokami, the great god, of Tosa presented a divine sword to the sovereign.  I doubt that a kami was showing up in person to the court—this would have been priests from the shrine.   Aston suggests that the kami in question was probably either Hitokotonushi no Mikoto or Misukitakahikone no Mikoto, quoting "authorities" which he does not otherwise name.  We get more serious, though, when it comes to major events.  And the drought and famine of 676 seems to fit that description.  As you may recall from episode 144, the governor of Shimotsukeno reported a bad harvest in the 5th month, and by the 6th month we see more reports coming in of a great drought.  Clothing was collected for the Buddhist temples to help build merit.  Later, there was a comet in the sky, and then, in the 8th month, we see that the court compelled the Kuni no Miyatsuko and the governors to all contribute to an Ohoharae, or Great Purification.  Eventually, the Ohoharae would become a regular ceremony held on the 30th day of the 6th and 12th months of the year, with royal princes down to the high ministers gathering at the southern gate—the Suzaku-mon. Members of the Urabe, the Diviners, would read the various norito, the ritual prayers, to disperse evil influences.  It was, and is,also used when there is a royal visit to the Ise or Kamo shrines, as well as at the Dajosai festival at the start of a new reign.  It can also be done if there is thought to have been some kind of offense that was committed. "Harae", or "purification", is a common part of Shinto ritual today.  From the simple washing of the hands and mouth before entering the shrine grounds to pray to spiritual purification performed by a priest who waves a large stick with paper streamers—the ohonusa or haraegushi—while chanting prayers to ward off evil influences, purification is a key component in Shinto, which often concerns itself with aspects of spiritual pollution.  And so the Oho-harae, the Great Purification, is that, but turned up to eleven. The litany used for the Ohoharae, today, is also known as the Nakatomi no Ohoharae, indicating the importance of the Nakatomi in the ritual.  This Ohoharae, however, was taking place in the 8th month, and may not have had all of the traditions of the later rituals we know today.  Rather, we are told what was required:  The Kuni no Miyatsuko of the provinces were instructed to send one horse and a piece of cloth to specific shrines of purification.  In addition, the governors of the various districts were each told to supply one sword, one deerskin, one mattock, one smaller sword, one sickle, one set of arrows, and one sheaf of rice.  In addition, each household had to supply a bundle of hemp cloth.  These may not have been used in the ritual as much as they were offerings to the kami and their shrine. We'll see this in various cases where the State places rather onerous financial requirements on the population in order to perform rituals.  Of course, by the logic of the time, whatever was donated would make the ritual more effective—it would be more pleasing to the kami.  Still this seems remarkably costly in a year where we are told that the peasants were starving just a few months prior. I'll also take this moment to point out a link here to something that anyone who has been to a shrine may be familiar with, and that is the donation of horses. Horses were common enough a donation—if people of status rode horses, then how much more so the kami themselves?  Sacred or votive horses could be used to carry the kami, and even today some shrines keep sacred horses for the kami.  However, not everyone has horses to donate, and I suspect that the shrine probably didn't need an entire herd of horses.  And so some would pay money for an image of a horse, instead, to be hung in the shrine, likely indicating the donor.  Of course, this wasn't just a picture, but an official record of some kind of donation, which could theoretically go to purchase horses and other such things that the shrine might need.  These pictures of horses were known as "e-ma", literally "picture horse", and we still see them today: The most common type of e-ma will be small wooden placards sold at the shrine, and people will write their desires on the back, with their name and information.  They will often be found hanging in groups on specially designated racks meant for that purpose.  Today, e-ma might have horses on them, but more often have other pictures, associated with the particular shrine and kami.  Speaking of horses, we have a couple more references to them this year.  At some point, Ohoama had issued an edict seeking horses, not just for riding, but other good horses so that the givernment would have them when needed, distributed to the various post-stations.  So when he was returning from a banquet by the Todoroki pool in Hatsuse—modern Hase--Ohoama made a diversion to the post-station of Tomi and had the horses demonstrate their speed.  Presumably this was just a horse race, which seems to be popular around the world, in any place with horses. We see something similar when we are told that Ohoama went to Asatsuma to inspect the horses of the officials there.  At his request, the officials organized a competition of horseback archery.  This appears to reference the famous art of Yabusame—though it may not have been recognized as such just yet, there is some thought that the idea of a horsed archer shooting at three targets while galloping past may have originated in the 6th century, with ties to Usa Jingu.  Still, horseback archery would remain important, and later it would become the primary art of the warrior class from about the 12th to the 13th century or so—and arguably even up until the Sengoku period, with its spear formations and foreign guns. Later, in the 10th lunar month of 681, Ohoama and the court were prepared to go hunting on the Hirose plain.  A temporary palace was prepared and all of the bags were packed, but ultimately, Ohoama didn't go.  Instead, those from the rank of Prince to high ministers stayed at Karunoichi—a market at a cross-roads in the Nara basin that likely was the location of a government stable.  There, they inspected the horses and saddle equipment.  Those from the rank of Shokin up sat under the trees while those of Daisen and below mounted up and passed along from south to north.  Not quite as exciting as horse racing or horsed archery, but who doesn't like a parade. One wonders what happened to call off the hunt.  Perhaps Ohoama, while not bedridden, was not in the best of health.  If he was having some kind of recurring problems then that could explain some of the merit-making as well.  You may recall we discussed how much merit the state seemed to be trying to make in support of the sovereign's health, which we discussed in episode 142. Getting back to the Ohoharae—the great purification.  That was followed up by a general amnesty, which we talked about last episode, as well as a command to let loose living things.  This is a Buddhist practice that one still sees today in various places, usually in the form of letting loose animals like fish and birds that were kept by individuals.  I don't think they were just opening up the paddocks and letting the horses, cattle, and other animals go.  As fascinating as that might be to contemplate, with horses just running wild and cattle trampling the rice fields, I doubt they took it that far.  Still, this practice was clearly an attempt to make more merit for the State.   This edict was repeated only a few months later, in the 11th lunar month, but then it was confined to those provinces that were considered to be "near" to the capital, so a little more focused.  The day after that second release of animals, men were dispatched to all parts to expound the Konkwoumyou and Ninou sutras.  This was the Sutra of Golden Light and the Sutra of the Benevolent King—both sutras focused on concepts of good rulership and protection of the State.  In fact, together with the Lotus Sutra, they would come to be considered the Gokoku Sanbukyou—the Three sutras for Protection of the State.  They were read for the purpose of averting disaster, but they also helped to prop up the image of a righteous and benevolent ruler—what might be termed a golden-wheel turning sovereign, or Chakravarti. So all of this would seem to simultaneously reflect an intention to protect the State while also demonstrating performative regnal righteousness.  It was, after all, what a good ruler was supposed to do, which also conveniently told people what a good ruler was supposed to do. It is unclear whether or not the court actually felt this did anything.  I would note that a month later they were asking Princes and Ministers to gather up weapons, so it is possible that they were concerned about more than just natural disasters— such as a concern that the people were getting restless.  A few days later, we see more largess, as the court made presents to public functionaries and men of the frontier states.  It is unclear to me if this is a reward of some sort or perhaps an attempt to boost their morale and support. Later in that month we see preparations for the upcoming Feast of First Fruits, or Niinamesai, two months later.  We are told that the Jingikan, the Office of Kami Matters, had made the divination that the Yuki, the ceremonially pure rice for the ritual would come from the District of Yamada, in Owari.  For the Sugi, the "next" lower quality of rice, that would come from the district of Kasa, in Tamba.  The feast went off as usual in the 11th month, pre-empting the normal announcement of the first of the month. Later in the record we see that preparations were started for another Ohoharae, or Great Purification, and a general amnesty was issued.  This time, instead of sending horses for the kami, the Miyatsuko of each province were to supply one male and one female servant to the shrines, instead.  Fifteen days later, in the intercalary 7th lunar month—an extra month inserted to keep the lunar and solar calendars in synch—we see the queen, Uno, hosting a feast after ritual fasting.  She then had sutras expounded throughout the capital.  I find it particularly interesting that this was apparently instigated by the queen, but along with the Ohoharae, this all speaks towards the feeling that the State needed to be purified and supplied with good merit. The Ohoharae was not the only way to curry favor with the kami.  For example, in one record we see Ohoama designating sacred rice-tax for the shrines of Heaven and Earth—shrines for the Amatsu kami and Kunitsu kami.  One third of the rice was to go to the kami directly, while two thirds of the rice was to go to the priests who kept the shrines going. This same year, 677, we aren't told where the rice for the Niiname-sai came from, but we are told that those who donated as well as members of the Jingikan, who were involved in the divination and ritual more generally, were all compensated for their troubles with various presents. The Jingikan is one of those aspects of the new, bureaucratic state, that feels extremely tied to the archipelago.  It literally is the Bureau of Kami Matters, or the Bureau of Kami Affairs—the Kami no Tsukasa.  It would even come to be ranked above the Council of State in the official org chart of the government.  While the government had national temples and appointed members of the clergy who were responsible for keeping the Buddhist institutions in line with the State, the Jingikan was that entity for court ritual, and even for interfacing with various shrines around the country.   In the 10th century, all of the official shrines across the archipelago would be catalogued and assessed a rank and position, with Ise Shrine and the royal court at the top of the list. Speaking of the national temples, the fourth month of 680 was when Ohoama designated the national temples—which we also covered in Episode 142.  On the first day of month after that, we are told that he bestowed gifts of silk and cloth to 24 temples around the capital; and if there really were 24 temples just around the capital itself, one can imagine why they had to put a stop to publicly funding all of them.  That must have been quite the upkeep.  That same day, the Golden Light Sutra was expounded in the palace and at select temples as well.  As we've seen, the court relied just as heavily—or more—on Buddhism for certain rituals and providing spiritual power. While both Kami-based rituals and Buddhism were revered for their ability to affect the supernatural, Buddhist priests seem to have had a particularly revered place in—or perhaps more rightly outside—of society.  One is more likely to hear about someone who was a Buddhist priest or a novice being revered than a kannushi, or shrine priest.  For example, in the 7th month of 680, the priest Kouchou, of Asukadera, passed away. The royal princes Ohotsu and Takechi were sent to express royal condolence.  Later that same year we would see something similar, with Royal—later Crown—Prince Kusakabe visiting the eminent priest (Y)emyou on his death bed.  Yemyou died the next day, and three royal princes were sent to offer the condolences on behalf of the royal family. Towards the end of 680, Ohoama fell ill. One hundred individuals were made to take holy orders on his behalf, after which he appears to have recovered—or at least recovered enough for the time.  Earlier in the month his queen, Uno no Sarara, had taken ill, for which Ohoama had pledged to build Yakushiji, a temple of the Medicine Buddha, as we talked about in Episode 142. Although Ohoama temporarily recovered, we have mentioned how there are plenty of suggestions that he may not have been entirely better.  It could just be that time and numerous diseases were taking a toll, or perhaps he had an ailment that came and went.  I get that impression from things like in the 10th month of 685, as autumn changed to winter,  several nobles were sent to Shinano to build a temporary palace in preparation for a royal progress.  It seems that Ohoama wanted to visit the hot springs at Tsukama.  Tsukama may have been located on the outskirts of modern Matsumoto city, in Nagano, which is known for its hot springs, today.  Bentley implies  that the court was not entirely thrilled with Ohoama taking this journey.  I have to wonder whether or not this was all about Ohoama's health—hot springs were often seen as restorative.  At the same time, this sounds like a fairly long journey into the mountains as the weather was growing colder.  That also may have been part of the draw, however, allowing them to travel and see the changing leaves, a very common pastime in successive centuries, and even today. I can't help but imagine that Ohoama was seeking the restorative properties, while his court may have been apprehensive about the journey there and back as the days were getting colder.  Compare this to his actions at the start of the Jinshin no Ran, when he made that incredible dash from Yoshino, through the mountains, over to Owari.  But that was well over a decade ago, at this point, and he seems not quite so spry as he once had been. Another popular record that we find in this reign were various oddities and omens.  We've covered quite a few, but I did want to cover a few more before we pull the curtain closed on this era. First off, early in the reign, we see a record in the 10th month of 675 for a woman in the district of Takakura, in the province of Sagami, giving birth to triplets.  A quick Internet search suggests that natural triplets occur in about 1 in every 8000 or 10,000 births.  However, there is another thing to consider at this time:  giving birth to a single child was already a risky business, and death during or just after childbirth was a constant threat.  So now consider the issues with giving birth to twins or even triplets.  The odds that there is a complication just go up at that point.  So I suspect this was a very rare occurrence.  The fact that it was three sons was probably also seen as particularly auspicious, at least for any who were studying traditional Confucian scholarship. Moving on to the 4th day of the 4th lunar month of that same year, we get an omen for the court.  First is a cock sent to the court by Wanitsumi no Yogoto, from the Lower Sofu district in Yamato province.  This cock is said to have had a comb like a camelia flower, which was apparently quite auspicious.  On the other hand, a report came in from Akunami, also in Yamato province, about a hen that had turned into a cock.  Aston, of course, considers that this would have been an ominous sign—a disruption of the natural order.  To be honest, I don't see any particular judgment placed on it one way or the other.  It is just listed as a wondrous or miraculous occurrence. The year 678 has remarkably few events, in total, with nothing recorded between the 4th and 9th months.  And the 9th month was just a note about the death of one, Prince Wakasa, of the third princely rank.  The month after that we have another one of those strange occurrences.  This time it is a report of something falling from the sky like silk floss, except that it was 5 or 6 feet long and 7 or 8 inches wide.  It supposedly floated on the wind and waved from the fir woods and the reed plains.  People who saw it called it kanro, or "sweet nectar". This is really just a crazy entry.  I've wracked my brains to think of a natural event that could cause something like this, but this seems like something that was more like a rumor that got written down.  "Kanro" is thought to be something that Buddhist texts refer to as "Amrita", an exlixir of immortality.  In continental lore, it is said to be a sweet nectar that forms when yin and yang are in harmony—such as during a benevolent reign.  So whatever the truth of any natural event, to the Chroniclers the entry is clearly a chance to hype up Ohoama's reign. And then, towards the end of the 8th month, we see Katsura no Miyatsuko no Oshikatsu presenting auspicious stalks of grain.  Reportedly they all came from different plots and yet had very similar ears of grain.  Auspicious stalks of rice weren't uncommon, but Aston suggests that this was possibly an allegory for all of the royal princes who were brought together in Yoshino to swear to support each other.  The 8th month may have been when the grain was harvested—because it wasn't until the final month of the year that we see the court reacting.  At that point presents were made to the Royal and non-Royal Princes, the Ministers, and the public functionaries, all according to rank, in consequence of the auspicious stalks of grain.  In addition there was an amnesty for all offences from capital crimes on down. Now on top of all of that, there were a few edicts that touched on various topics that we just haven't gotten to, elsewhere. For instance, in the 8th month of 681, on the 10th day, we see a notification to all of the people in the archipelago who claimed descent from those from the continent—specifically those from the Korean peninsula, or the Samhan.  They were told that the taxes, which had previously been remitted for 10 years, so starting in 671, had come to an end.  However, corvee labor was still remitted for ten years to them and their children and grandchildren who had been with them when they first arrived. There are some questions about this passage, but in general it seems that those refugees who had escaped to the archipelago from Baekje and Goguryeo had previously been given 10 years from the time they arrived during which they did not owe taxes.  This included corvee labor—which also extended to any children that had been with them at the time.  Children that were born after that… well they wouldn't be of age to be used as corvee labor in 10 years so this would only apply to those who were with them at the  time and who would be of age within that 10 year timeframe. This exemption from taxes appears several times in different forms, and appears to be a grace period, during which people were expected to establish themselves, open fields, and begin to thrive.  At the end of 10 years, then they would start paying taxes, with the assumption that they had more than enough time to prepare and work the land. Moving on to one of my favorite entries, on the 18th day of the 9th lunar month in 685, Ohoama declared a game day.  He had the Princes and Ministers gather at the Ohoandono, the Great Audience Hall, and had them play a game called "Pakugi" or "Bakugi".  We aren't quite sure what the rules were—it probably wasn't Settlers of Catan, but you never know.  It was likely a game with dice, possibly a version of backgammon, which is quite old and commonly known as a game for gambling.  That same day, Ohoama gave out gifts of robes and trousers to ten princes and others—perhaps related to the gaming session? The history of games and gaming is particularly fascinating.  For one thing, many of the games that were played in the archipelago had come from the continent, and many had variants that had traversed the entirety of Eurasia.  Backgammon and Chess were both games that had variants that would be known in Japan.  Backgammon was known as sugoroku, and in Japan they played a game similar to chess known as Shogi.  They would also play go—or more appropriately igo—from at least the Nara period, though that game, invented in what is now China, does not seem to have spread quite as much as either backgammon or chess variants.  And while chess was a game that was often highly localized—with different pieces representing different things and often moving in different ways depending on the variant—backgammon seems to have been quite similar everywhere, and could probably be played by two people with wildly different cultural backgrounds with very little interpretation needed. The day after Ohoama had the court join his game day, there were more presents.  This time it was brown bear hides given to the royal and non-royal princes.  In total there were 48 hides given out, which is really pretty incredible.  I have this image in my mind of a very Asuka era wooden mansion, with wood and bronze and silk, and then a large bear hide sprawled out on the floor.  I'm not sure exactly how they were used, but I suspect that they were mostly used as floor coverings for people to sit or lay on, though I could also see them being used as sleeping mats.  It seems they were clearly elite status goods, but hardly what we think about in this period. And that is where we are going to come to a close.  There are only a few more things that we'll get to, but they are all related to what happened with the events surrounding Ohoama's death and the succession that followed, so we'll touch on those when we kick off the next reign. 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.  

En este nuevo episodio de WQX trae secuelas esperadas, remakes y joyitas menos conocidas. Definitivamente para todos los gustos.Arrancamos con Ghost of Yōtei Legends, una nueva expansión dentro del universo que nació con Ghost of Tsushima. Charlamos sobre cómo evoluciona el concepto cooperativo que la saga viene explorando desde el modo Legends y qué propone esta nueva experiencia ambientada en su mundo de mitos y guerreros.Después nos metemos con Minishoot' Adventures, un indie que mezcla acción tipo twin-stick shooter con exploración estilo aventura clásica. Un juego que sorprende por su mezcla de géneros y por cómo combina progresión, combate y descubrimiento dentro de un mundo compacto pero muy bien diseñado.También hablamos de Planet of Lana II, secuela del recordado Planet of Lana. Comentamos cómo continúa la historia de Lana y Mui, qué nuevas mecánicas introduce y cómo evoluciona esa combinación de plataformas, puzzles ambientales y narrativa visual que caracterizó al original.Por último revisitamos el terror clásico con Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly a través de su remake moderno. Una oportunidad para volver a uno de los títulos más influyentes del survival horror japonés, famoso por su atmósfera opresiva y su particular sistema de combate basado en la Camera Obscura.¿Estás jugando alguno de estos títulos? ¿Cuál te generó más curiosidad?

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. We of course set the game first in its time and at Nintendo before turning to the opening and the feel of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through the first Clock Tower entry Issues covered: our ten-year anniversary, 2000 in games, a little timeline of Zelda, making a sequel on a short development cycle, reusing engines and making a better version of your game, reusing technology, switching from cartridges to optical media, asset reuse for characters, pricing changes and getting your money's worth, falling into the warm bath, consumptive conservatism, the strange opening and some title cards, us not remembering things about Navi, choosing the legend based on the hardware or the design idea, fitting the legends together, a continuation of Ocarina, film analogues, wanting to be in the room where it happened, presenting a known quest fabric to present you with not knowing very much, getting your ocarina back to reuse a mechanic, Skull Kid as marionette, getting new masks and therefore new powers, a diversion into a film, an unsettling feel to conversations, talking about RPGs and feeling the pressure of the main plot (or not), a lower-priority feature, thinking about your audience and what types of players you have, writing quality to support your main quest, admitting you're a video game, a debatable priority, building it into your character, how we play games heroically or not, where's the wish fulfillment.   Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: PlayStation 2, The Sims, Deus Ex, Final Fantasy IX, Diablo II, Baldur's Gate II, RE: Code Veronica, Chrono Cross, Pokemon Yellow, Thief II, SEGA DreamCast, Spyro: Year of the Dragon, Vagrant Story, SSX, Skies of Arcadia, Rayman 2: The Great Escape, Paper Mario, No One Lives Forever, Donkey Kong Country (GBC), Crazy Taxi, Soul Calibur, Jet Set Radio, Star Wars: Starfighter (series), Smuggler's Run, Eiji Aonuma, Shigeru Miyamoto, Uncharted 2, Mass Effect 2, Ultima (series), Warren Spector, Richard Garriott, Ultima Underworld, Jedi Knight, Outlaws, Full Throttle 2, RTX Red Rock, Gladius, SquareSoft, Nintendo 64/GameCube, Twilight Princess, Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, LEGO, Capcom, Groundhog's Day, Outer Wilds, Rogue, Run Lola Run, A Trip to the Moon, Georges Méliès, Breath of the Wild, King of Masks, ColonelKovalyo, Morrowind/TES (series), Fallout (series), Metal Gear Solid, Republic Commando, Halo: Infinite, Paul Crocker, Troy Mashburn, Justin Dinges, Richard Lemarchand, Clint Hocking, Naughty Dog, Crystal Dynamics, Insomniac, Spider-Man (series), Sucker Punch, Ghosts of Tsushima (series), Sasha, Symphony of the Night, Lani Lum, Hitman (series), Dwarf Fortress, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.  Next time: More Majora's Mask! Notes: The word Brett was searching for was "optical" media. We regret the brain fog and blame the cold medicine. Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp  YouTube  Discord  DevGameClub@gmail.com 

This episode we'll be looking at a bunch of different references referring to the various provinces, particularly those on the far edges of the archipelago. For more, check out:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-144   Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is episode 144: On the Edge The ships sat low in the water, bobbing gently against the docks at Naniwa.  The captain eyed them warily as the officials went over the manifest.  The Seto Inland Sea was generally calm and smooth sailing—at least compared to the open ocean, anywhere else -- and yet, as he looked, he could only think of how sluggish these ships would be.  They were laden down with cargo—silk, cloth, thread, and of course provisions for the men accompanying them.  But more than that, they were laden down with iron.  Tons of iron ingots, destined for the far reaches of the archipelago.  First to Suwa, but then on to the Dazai on Tsukushi, no doubt to be forged into weapons for the defense of Yamato. But that wasn't the captain's concern.  He just needed to make sure that the ships weren't weighed down too much:  as long as they remained buoyant, they would make the journey, even if they had to travel at a snail's pace to do it.  But if the ships sat too low in the water, then all it would take was some uncooperative waves and the ships, crew, and cargo, would be sent straight down to the palace of the dragon king, beneath the waves. Fortunately, with enough ships, it looked like that wouldn't be too much of a problem, as long as the goods were properly spaced out.  Now to just hope that the weather cooperated.  Even in the relatively safe waters of the Seto Inland Sea, you never know what could happen…     So last episode we talked about two large projects that Ohoama is said to have started.  First was the history project, which likely led to the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki.  Second was the start of a brand new capital.  This episode, we are going from the macro, down to the micro—smaller events that just weren't covered in previous episodes.  For the most part the next few episodes are going to be a grab bag of various items, but I'm going to try and put some semblance of cohesion to this.  Next episode we'll be looking at some of the laws that they made, including the law code and examples of the kinds of punishment—and forgiveness—that the court could bestow.  This week, however, we are going to cover a bunch of stories focused on the areas outside of the Home Provinces.  We'll look at the Dazai in Tsukushi—and elsewhere.  We'll talk about how the provinces were governed, and what concerned them.  Granted, a lot of what concerned them, at least from the Chroniclers point of view, were taxes and economic production.  So we see recorded concern with taxes and with what was there—the land and the people that worked it.  Also with natural events, like droughts and tsunami, which would affect that same economic production.   We're starting off with the Dazai, and the person in charge there.  The Viceroy, as it is often called in English. The Dazai appears to have started off with something of a military purpose.  It was a gathering place before ships would sail off to the Korean peninsula, raiding up the rivers, or trading with their allies.  As the archipelago began to be more embroiled in the wars of the peninsula, it was that much more important.  And when Yamato's ally, Baekje, fell, and it looked like Silla and the Great Tang might turn their attention to the islands that had been a thorn in their side for so long, it became a bulwark against potential invasion. However, it also had another function.  It was the jumping off place for warships, but also for embassies and trading missions.  It was also the primary destination for most ships approaching Yamato.  They would take a route through Tsushima island, and then Iki island, and continue to the main coast of Tsukushi—Kyushu, and up and around to the sheltered waters of Hakata bay.  At some point they would even move that initial contact farther out, to Tsushima island itself.  Ships would dock on one side of the island, and transport their goods to a Yamato ship on the other side, with a pilot who knew the waters.  The local island officials could then send word ahead to the Dazai that they were coming.  No surprises, and nobody jumping the gun thinking that a fleet of warships was on their way. The Dazai played a key role in defense, trade, and diplomacy.  When the embassies arrived, they were entertained at the Dazai while word was sent to the court.  If the court deemed it appropriate, then they might have the ambassadors take the journey the rest of the way.  Otherwise, the court at the Dazai would stand in for the sovereign, and receive the messages, and various diplomatic gifts that were sent along. This was a powerful and also highly lucrative position, and it is reflected in the people who were granted the title.  This was the Dazai no Sochi, or Oho-mikoto-mochi no kami. We see the post held by Soga no Himuka in  649, during the Taika era.  Then we see Abe no Hirafu in the reign of Takara Hime, 655-661.  Hirafu would go on to become the Minister of the Left.  Then we see Prince Kurikuma. We talked about Prince Kurikuma before—he was Ohoama's ally in Tsukushi who refused the Afumi court's request for troops during the Jinshin no Ran.  He is one of the few figures that we have more than just a bit of information on.  For one thing, we have two different appointments to his position as viceroy in Tsukushi—there is one in 668, and another in 671, with Soga no Akae being given the post in between.  There are some questions about whether or not those were different people—the first one might have been someone named "Kurisaki" or "Kurimae", but it is generally assumed that was just misspelled, and it may be that there were just some questions as to when he was appointed.  We also know that he was a friend to Ohoama.  The Afumi court said as much, and in the Jinshin no Ran, when he and his sons stood up  to the Afumi court's request for troops, he came down heavily on Ohoama's side.  It is no wonder that he would have still been in such a powerful position.  His sons, by the way, are named as Prince Mino and Prince Takebe; we've seen what appears to be different Princes named Mino, but it is possible that this is the Prince Mino mentioned elsewhere in this part of the record. Sources suggest that Kurikuma was a descendant of the sovereign Nunakura, aka Bidatsu Tennou, and that he was an ancestor of the Tachibana clan.  There were stories about him in Tsukushi, beyond those in the Nihon Shoki, and while he isn't always named explicitly, one can infer that he hosted a number of embassies and ambassadors in his time.  In fact, in his position as head of the Dazaifu in Tsukushi, he was in what was perhaps the most lucrative post outside of Yamato.  In addition to being in charge of trade, diplomacy, and military readiness, the Dazaifu oversaw all of Tsukushi—the island of Kyushu, and was like a miniature representation of the central government. I suspect it is the military responsibilities that saw Kurikuma being appointed to the post of Director of Military Affairs—Tsuwamo-no-Tsukasa-no-Kami, or Heiseikan-cho. That was in the 3rd lunar month of 675, just a few years into Ohoama's reign. This would later be known as the Hyoubu-shou, or Ministry of War.  The appointment would not last long, however.  A year later, Kurikuma would pass away from disease.  Prince Kurikuma is one of those enigmatic and yet somewhat exciting individuals that exists beyond just the Nihon Shoki.   The Shoku Nihongi and later sources give us additional details, which may or may not be accurate.  Even moreso, there are stories in modern Nagasaki prefecture about Prince Kurikuma helping to regulate the animals that lived in the waters surrounding Kyushu.  According to the Shoku Nihongi record, he was reportedly granted the 2nd princely rank upon his death—which, if true, would seem to say a lot about how he was viewed at the time. Moving into the year 676, we see an edict that restricted governorships to individuals of the rank of Daisen and below.  The exceptions to this were the Home Provinces, Michinoku, and Nagato, and let's explore why these areas were excepted. Home Provinces make sense, as that is where the capital is and this more prestigious area was therefore deserving of a higher ranked noble.  Michinoku was the opposite geographically: it was the general wilderness of Tohoku, and the land of the Emishi.  It was also the farthest east of the capital, so I suspect they wanted someone of rank to handle that.  The governor of Nagato, however, is interesting.  Nagato is part of Honshu, the main island, just north of Kyushu, across the Shimonoseki strait.  Similar to Michinoku, Nagato was one of the most remote provinces on Honshu.  It was also an important province for potential defense and trade, and often coordinated with the Dazaifu in Tsukushi, to the south.  As such, it was also considered a more prominent posting than other governorships. It is somewhat interesting that the Dazaifu is not mentioned, but I suspect this is because the head of the Dazaifu was not, in fact, a governor, but more akin to a viceroy.  After all, they had to be entrusted with a certain amount of authority to be able to conduct military, trade, and diplomatic business without constantly sending back to the Yamato court for instruction.  We've already seen that there were Princes and other men of wealth and status who had been given that posting. Interestingly, in this reign we see at least one other viceroy—one other Dazai, or Ohomikotomochi—and that is in Kibi, of all places.  From what we can tell Kibi was one of the main rivals for power and authority in the prior centuries.  It has come up again and again in the stories.  Unfortunately, most of the stories only hint at what we think actually happened.  Today, when we talk about *the* Dazaifu we are almost exclusively talking about the one in Kyushu.  Besides being far flung from the center of power, it had huge responsibilities. Comparatively, though perhaps not as directly involved with trade, the rulers of Kibi were important figures, as demonstrated by the amount of manpower they were able to leverage for building their large, kingly tombs.  We talked somewhat about that back in Episode 48, looking at Tsukuriyama Kofun, one of the largest in the archipelago.  Furthermore, Kibi was well-placed on the Seto inland sea to be able to control the passage of ships.  The Kibi Dazai appears to have been established around the time of the Taika reforms, though it is only mentioned once in the Nihon Shoki, and I don't see any other examples of it.  There is also evidence that it was given authority over not just Kibi, but also the neighboring province of Harima.  Eventually, however, Kibi would be broken up into the three provinces of Bizen, Bitchu, and Bingo, and it would no longer need to be aggregated under a single administration.  Rather, each province would get its own governor, overseeing a much smaller part of the whole.  From this I can only assume that there may have been other, similar situations, prior to the various provinces being broken up like that. A couple months later, in the 5th month of 676, we are once again discussing governors.  First was a decree about governors who weren't paying their commuted taxes on time.  Aston goes on to note that non-rice taxes were due in the middle of the 8th month—at least for the home provinces.  Near provinces—a little farther away—taxes had to be received by the end of the 10th month, and for those a bit farther away—in the middle distance—they had to be there by the 11th month.  Finally,  the taxes from the farthest provinces were due by the end of the 12th month.  This would have given officials time to collect the taxes and to transport them all the way to the capital.  So when the chronicles talk about governors not paying on time, not keeping to this schedule may have been what the court was getting at—or at least some kind of similar schedule with deadlines, since it might have been modified over time.    Another record, that same month—actually a few days later—concerns specifically the governor of Shimotsukenu—or Shimotsuke, on the other side of Honshu.  He sent in a report that that province had been hit pretty hard that year with a poor harvest.  In fact, it was so bad that many peasants were seeking permission to sell their children.  The court ultimately denied the request, but this does speak to a rather disturbing—yet not exactly uncommon—cultural practice.  I don't think we need to get into the different nuances here, beyond a look at the fact that this was likely not a new practice, but it does seem that the appeal to the government for permission to sell one's children was something new.  Perhaps this came with all of the records and registrations that the government had undertaken to know who was in what household.  Regardless, one can hardly imagine that most parents would willingly take this option unless they had no other choice, and I suspect that it is meant to show both the desperation of the people in Shimotsuke, as well as the harsh benevolence of the sovereign, who would not permit the children to be separated from their families.  Of course, we aren't told how the court otherwise ameliorated the situation, since moral righteousness is tremendous, but doesn't suddenly fix the problems with the harvest or cause food to appear out of nowhere.  One hopes that the court at least sent some amount of rice or other provisions to help the people. Although it was Shimotsuke in the 5th month, in the 6th month we see a more general report of a large drought.  Messengers were sent throughout the land to get people to donate cloth, and make prayers to the kami, while Buddhist Priests called upon the power of the Three Precious Things.  It was all to no avail—the usual rains didn't come, so the wugu, the five grains didn't grow, and peasants starved.  The five grains per se are  rice, soybeans, wheat, and two types of millet, but in this case the term is just a stand-in for all types of agricultural produce. Possibly unrelated, but somewhat telling, two months later we see a record of the court granting sustenance-fiefs of all Royal princes and princesses down to the high ministers and female officials at the palace down to the rank of Shoukin.  So only two months after the peasants of Yamato were apparently starving, the court is handing out stipend increases to the elite.  So… yeah…. We do see a focus in the 8th month on an Oho-barai, or Great Purification.  I'm going to talk about this more in a future episode, though, so just noting here that they seem to have been working to purify the land and that may have been part of ongoing spiritual attempts to request the support of the kami in what appear to be difficult times.  There were also plenty of examples of attempts to make merit by demonstrating righteousness and reading various sutras. Moving on to the events of 677, things seem to have been going better than the previous year, so maybe all that merit-making had an effect?  Either way, we don't see any mention of droughts or famines this year, and we make it to the ninth month, when we see a notice that any vagabonds who returned after being sent back to their hometown would be set to forced labor.  Vagabond, in this case, is "furounin", or "person who floats on the waves".  This appears to be the origin of the term "Rounin", which would later refer to masterless samurai.  At this point it seems to refer mostly to commoners who were expected to work the land—and when workers abandoned the land that had implications for the government's tax base system.  So the State was invested in ensuring that people didn't just move somewhere else—at least without asking permission and being properly registered.  This does seem different from an actual fugitive, such as someone who was banished who tries to leave their place of banishment. The following month, the 10th month of 677,  we see that Kawabe no Omi no Momoye was appointed head of the Minbukyo, the Minister of the Interior.  In addition, Tajihi no Kimi no Maro was made a Daibu, or high official, of the province of Settsu.     The term "daibu" could just refer to high ministers of the court, but the "daibu" of a province appears to be similar to a governor, but with more expansive and comprehensive authority.  Settsu is one of the five home provinces, and as such an important part of the geographical heart of Yamato.   So we have the local chieftains, the governors, the viceroys at the Dazai, and also, apparently, a "high official" in some regions, each with what appear to be overlapping but slightly different portfolios. The next month we see that the Viceroy of Tsukushi—whoever had taken the place of Prince Yagaki—had his officials present a red crow to the court.  The person who caught the crow was granted five steps in rank—not a small reward.  Also, local officials had their own rank raised, and taxes were remitted to the peasants of that district for a year.  Finally, a general amnesty was announced across Yamato. We talked in Episode 141 how something like a red crow would have likely represented either the three-legged crow in the sun or the legendary Suzaku, the fiery bird of the south.  Either way, it was clearly an auspicious discovery.  It is interesting that we don't see any names at all associated with this event.  We do, however, see that people were no doubt incentivized to report such things up to the court.  Whoever found such a curiosity would likely have been celebrated by all of those around given the court's broad show of appreciation.  No doubt the local officials were more than pleased given that they were also likely to receive some of the benefits that accrued if the court was well pleased. As far as the type of events I'm focusing on this episode, there isn't much recorded between the red crow of 677 and a few years later in 682. Picking up in the 3rd month of that year, we get a record of the Emishi of Michinoku being granted court rank, incorporating them further into the growing Yamato polity.  As I talked about a little earlier, Michinoku on the other side of the archipelago, so this event really shows expansion of Yamato and solidification of its power over the rest of Honshu.  It is easy to forget that much of the Tohoku region was not firmly under Yamato control at this time.  They may have claimed it, but the people and culture there were still considered distinct and not a part of Yamato, proper.  But they were making inroads. In the following month, the 4th lunar month of the same year, 682, we are back on the west coast and see Tajihi no Mabito no Shima as the latest Viceroy of Tsukushi, sending as tribute a large bell.  It is somewhat interesting that, compared to the past few viceroys, Shima is actually a member of a noble family and *not* a Prince.  Of course, there was no requirement that the Dazaifu be overseen by a Prince—that certainly wasn't the case for Soga no Akaye, but it is interesting given how Ohoama had been making appointments, so far.  Even if they weren't princely, it is clear that this was an important posting, which says a lot for Tajihi no Shima, even if we didn't know anything more about him.  Fortunately, there are a few clues. For one thing, there are records that claim he was descended from one of the previous sovereigns, but he did not hold the title of "Prince".  That is reflected in his family's kabane of "Mabito", however, or "True person", which seems to indicate at least a nominal descent from a previous ruler.  Shima would continue to rise in the government, and would eventually serve as the Minister of the Right and then Minister of the Left, and at one point he would be the highest ranking noble in the government—though that was still a ways off.  All of this speaks to the importance of the position of viceroy, and probably gives us a clue as to why the Chroniclers were so interested in someone sending a bell, large as it might be, to the government. A day after the bell tribute arrived, Emishi of Koshi, including Ikokina and others, requested 70 households of prisoners of war to create a new district.  While we've talked about the Emishi of Koshi, before, what is particularly interesting is the request for prisoners of war—captives.  Were these Wajin, or Japanese, who had been captured by the Emishi and they were requesting permission to resettle them?  Were they asking for 70 households of people being held captive by the Yamato government?  It isn't clear.  It also isn't clear if "Ikokina" is the name of an individual or of multiple individuals.  Aston originally translated it as Itaka, Kina, and others, while Bentley's more recent translation suggests it is one name.  However, given that this is an Emishi name, being transliterated in Kanji through a Japanese translator, it is hard to know without further sources. From the fourth month to the 7th month of 682, we see a small entry that presents were given to men from Tanegashima, Yakushima, and Amami no Shima.  This simple entry is important mostly just because of its mention of continued contact with these islands south of Kyushu.  This helps us maintain some idea of the extent of Yamato's influence. In the late summer of 683, we once again see a drought.  It began in the 7th lunar month and lasted until the 8th.  A priest named Douzou prayed for rain and eventually obtained it. Douzou is said to have been a monk from Kudara, or Baekje.  Aston suggests that this means he was a priest of Kudaradera, but it isn't really clear to me.  In the early 8th month, we also see that there was a general amnesty ordered throughout Yamato, which I suspect was connected with the disaster of the drought and an attempt to help build merit and otherwise strengthen the state in the face of natural disaster and potential unrest. At the end of 683, we see a survey team being sent out.  The sovereign sent Prince Ise along with Hata no Kimi no Yakuni, Ohoshi no Omi no Homuchi, and Nakatomi no Muraji no Ohoshima with clerks and artisans to tour the realm and determine the border of the various provinces, but they were unable to determine them all in a year. This really must have been quite the task.  Certainly, the provinces were the ancient lands which people had been living in for some time, but there was never really a need for political lines on a map to determine where the boundaries were.  People generally knew if they were in one or the other, and unless there was a very contentious piece of property, mostly you didn't worry about which exact land or province you were in.  Now, however, the court was in the midst of trying to lock down all of the data about the land, including what was where and how much there was.  After all, their entire tax base was built on arable land, so they had to know where it was and what to expect.  There is no way that such a project was going to be completed in a single year. I would also note that Aston has this particular record misplaced.  He seemed to think it was on the 23rd day of the month, but it is then followed by the 17th.  It seems that Aston just got his dates wrong, and can you blame him?  There was a lot that he was dealing with. We do see, almost a year later, in the 10th month of 684, Prince Ise and others are once again sent to determine the boundaries of the provinces.  Second time's the charm, maybe?  Evidently not, because we then see another mention in the 10th month of 685, where the court gave them gifts of robes and trousers as they headed back out to the Eastern Countries one more time. In the 11th month of 684 we are given a small report of a huge disaster.  The governor of Tosa reported that a great tide had risen high, with an overflowing rush, and destroyed many of the ships used to convey tribute. Tosa is on Shikoku, facing out to the Pacific Ocean.  It is the first piece of dry land just past the continental shelf.  As such, a quake just off shore could create conditions not dissimilar to the 2011 disaster in Fukushima, and send a tsunami wave flooding the coastline.  It looks like that is what happened, which would have devastated the fleet.  Since Shikoku was an island, they relied on those ships to get taxes and tribute conveyed up to Yamato.  So this was Tosa letting the court know that the "sea ate my homework." I can't help but wonder if this tsunami wasn't related to an earthquake recorded for the month earlier, which we mentioned back in Episode 139.  It was a huge earthquake that seems to have had a tremdous impact.  Much of it was mentioned as being focused on the Toukaidou region, but that region still lies along a related fault line all the way down through Shikoku.  It may be that it took a while for the two events to be reported, and there may not have been an understanding that the event in one place could have had an impact elsewhere. I don't know if they had yet connected that earthquakes could cause tsunami or not.  On the other hand, it could be that it was a separate, but related quake, or even an aftershock, which caused the tsunami. Overall, the year 684 does not appear to have been the best.  We are told that in the lower district of Katsuraki, there was reported a chicken with four legs.  Then, in the district of Higami, in Tanba province, there was a calf born with twelve horns.  These don't sound like great omens, and given the tsunami, and the earthquake, and other such things, I can perhaps understand why the court focused on trying to do some merit-making towards the end of the year.  For instance they pardoned all criminals except those guilty of capital crimes.  And we are also told that Iga, Ise, Mino, and Wohari were notified that in future years, if they were paying commuted taxes—that is taxes other than rice, in lieu of service—that force labour would be remitted, and vice versa.   That is, if it was a year where they would pay in corvee labour, the commuted taxes would be remitted instead.  In other words, they didn't need to do both in one year.  Similarly , in the 7th lunar month of 685, we are told that the Provinces on the Tousandou, east of Mino, and the Toukaidou, east of Ise, were all exempted from sending in conscript laborers as part of their taxes. We aren't told exactly why any of this was done, but I suspect that it had something to do with either construction going on in those regions, or just needing to have people to work the fields.  Labor could always be remitted just because of something good like a good omen, but in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, I wonder if there wasn't a lot of rebuilding that had to take place, and maybe the court just wanted to make sure those regions had the people they needed for those projects. The Tousandou and the Toukaidou were just two of the 7 official circuits around the archipelago.  In this case, the Toukaidou hugged the coastal areas, heading from Ise out to modern Tokyo.  Meanwhile, the Tousandou would have cut through the mountains in the middle of that area of Honshu, passing north of Fuji and through modern Gunma.    The other circuits were the San'youdou, the San'indou, the Nankaidou, the Hokurikudou, and Tsukushi, which was considered its own "circuit".  The San'youdou and San'indou were the Yang and Yin roads, going through the western part of Honshu. The San'youdou was along the Seto Inland Sea, while the San'indou was along the Japan sea.  The Nankaidou, or South Sea Road, was the Kii peninsula and Shikoku.  The Hokurikudou went north on eastern Honshu, through the Koshi region. Finally, Tsukushi, which would also be known as the Saikaidou, or Western Sea Road, was its own circuit In the 9th lunar month of 685 we see Commissioners or Royal Messengers appointed to six of the seven circuits, the Hokurikudou being the one left out.    The commissioners were to tour and inspect the provincial and district offices and make sure they were good.  Each person took a facility manager and a secretary to assist them.  Bentley notes that there is, in later legal codes, a role of "Inspector", who was similarly expected to tour and inspect the various provinces – but these were assigned on an as needed basis, so it wasn't a permanent position. Along with the inspection of the government offices, there was one other edict that same day in the 9th month of 685: the court ordered that male and female singers, as well as pipers/flute-players should pass down their skills to their descendants and make them practice singing and the flute.  Thus they effectively created hereditary musicians which, at the time, was how you made sure that you had the different professions and skillsets you needed to run the State. Then, in the 11th month of 685, we see a bunch of iron sent to the General Magistrate of Suwa.  How much is a bunch?  10,000 kin, which is thought to be equivalent to roughly 6.6 tons.  That is a huge amount of iron, assuming the record is true.  At the same time, the viceroy of Tsukushi requested 100 bolts of coarse silk, 132 pounds of thread, 300 bundles of cloth, 4000 feet of labor tax cloth, 6.6 tons of iron, and 2,000 sets of bamboo arrows.   And by all accounts, the court sent it all out.  No idea why—but there we go.  Presumably it was to make things—probably clothing and weapons. We see something similar in the 12th month, when the ships carrying the newest border guards out to Tsukushi were battered by bad seas and, eventually, they were left adrift in the water.  They were rescued, but lost all of their clothing, so rather than sending clothes, the court sent cloth.  450 bolts of cloth were sent, to be made into new sets of clothing for the soldiers.  Sending raw materials makes sense.  After all, there were likely artisans all over the place who just needed them.  Furthermore, that way you could customize the equipment to the people who would be using it, rather than shipping off finished goods. And with that, I think we are going to call it.  Next episode will be a similar overview, but we'll take a look at some of the laws that were passed, as well as how they dealt with law and order in the archipelago. 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.  

Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson Discord, Socials and more- https://linktr.ee/talesfromthebacklog Ghost of Tsushima (2020) was one of my favorite games of that year, and happens to be episode 2(!!) of this podcast, an early game that screamed to me "you should talk about this into a microphone for 2+ hours). That being the case, Sucker Punch's follow-up, Ghost of Yotei, was an instant day-one buy. And while the things I expected to impress were great, there were certain aspects of the game that felt worse to me than Tsushima's version. Did I change over the past five years? Did the game adjust to industry trends? A secret third answer? All of this is part of the discussion, so I hope you enjoy it! Guest info: Jacob Price (he/him) Check out The Pre-Order Bonus podcast https://www.buzzsprout.com/747596 Check out Jake's reviews at So Many Games https://somanygames.co.uk/ Follow on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/chipdip18 Follow on BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/chipdip.bsky.social TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Title Card 0:23 Introductions 5:18 Our Histories With This Series/Game 9:24 Opening Thoughts About Ghost of Yotei 18:50 Story Setup, Atsu and Revenge Stories 26:59 Presentation and Comparisons to Westerns 35:24 A Well-Made Known Commodity and Further Worldbuilding 49:51 Open World Design and Reward Structure 1:10:23 Stealth and Clearing Camps 1:16:33 Duels and Boss Fights 1:31:45 Closing Thoughts 1:37:34 The Pre-Order Bonus and So Many Games 1:42:12 Spoiler Wall and Patron Thank-Yous 1:44:02 Spoiler Section- The Onryo and Ghost Connections 1:57:56 The Snake, The Oni and The Kitsune 2:14:46 The Spider, The Dragon and Saito Music used in the episode is credited to Toma Otowa: Ghost of Yotei, The Yotei Six, The Wrath of the Ghost, The Wilds of Ezo, Battle No.3, Battle No.1, Atsu's Theme Cover art by Jack Allen- find him at https://linktr.ee/JackAllenCaricatures

In Folge 395 von Rolling Sushi geht es um die Entsorgung von Museums-Objekten, die zunehmende Ablehnung von Ausländern, Studenten in Not, KI statt Arbeitskräfte, den umkämpften Hamburger Markt, Klagen wegen Lügen auf Dating-Apps, wie Souvenirs auf die Premierministerin setzen, Müllberge auf Tsushima, Rechenzentren, erhöhte Krankenhausgebühren, Druck auf Tokyos Gouverneurin und ein skandallastiger Wahlkampfchef.

Your favorite Blerds are back brining you all of their thoughts on everything happening in nerd culture. In this episode of the Birds Nerds podcast, Shannon, Jaja and James discuss their recent nerdy activities, including gaming, anime, and media. They delve into the latest trends in the gaming industry, including anticipated releases like GTA 6 and Final Fantasy, as well as highlights from the recent Nintendo Direct. The conversation also touches on the impact of AI in gaming and the industry's future. They also explore various themes including the implications of AI on the job market, the potential chaos of flying cars, and the excitement surrounding Marvel's newest show, Wonder Man. They delve into the unique storytelling of House of the Dragon and the complexities of Jujutsu Kaisen's power systems, while also discussing the challenges faced by the upcoming Baldur's Gate TV series. 00:00-Welcome and Introductions 00:54-Nerdy Activities and Recent Shows 02:35-Gaming Updates and New Releases 05:18-Learning Japanese and Future Plans 09:20-Video Game News and Industry Updates 10:36-Discussion on Ghost of Tsushima and Yotei 13:40-Upcoming Xbox Plans and Fallout Remaster 16:29-Square Enix and Final Fantasy Updates 20:48-Anticipation for Upcoming Game Releases 22:58-Nintendo Direct Highlights and Reactions 25:38-GTA 6 Marketing and Release Expectations 29:13-Horizon Multiplayer Game Announcement 31:59-Impact of AI on the Gaming Industry 40:43-The Future of Jobs in an AI World 43:23-Flying Cars: A New Era of Transportation 44:20-The Rise of AI in Gaming and Development 45:06-Exploring the New Pokémon Park 47:51-Wonder Man: A Unique Take on Superhero Stories 01:02:35-The Seven Kingdoms: A Game of Thrones Perspective 01:04:59-Game of Thrones: A New Era 01:06:06-Jujutsu Kaisen: Over-Explaining Powers 01:12:56-Baldur's Gate: A Risky Continuation 01:19:59-Live Action Adaptations: Mixed Reviews and Expectations   Make sure to subscribe to us on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your podcast app of choice.   Follow Us!  https://linktr.ee/blerdsnerds National Resources List https://linktr.ee/NationalResourcesList Youtube  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK56I-TNUnhKhcWLZxoUTaw Email us: Blerdsnerds@gmail.com Follow Our Social: https://www.instagram.com/blerdsnerds/ https://twitter.com/BlerdsNerds https://www.facebook.com/blerdsnerds https://tiktok.com/blerdsnerds_pod Shannon: https://www.instagram.com/luv_shenanigans James: https://www.instagram.com/llsuavej  Jaja: https://www.instagram.com/jajasmith3 

Today on Mega Dads Live Antonio finally draws his blade with Sucker Punch Productions' Ghost of Tsushima for the PC

In today's Daily Fix:Sony's Ghost of Yōtei not only reviewed well when it was released in October of last year, but it sold really well, too. According to Sony's latest financial earnings report, Yōtei actually sold more units during its launch than its predecessor, Ghost of Tsushima, did during that game's same launch period in 2020. This is notable since Tsushima was released at the end of the PS4's life cycle, while Yōtei—a PS5 console exclusive—had a much smaller install base to sell to. In other Sony news, a new Horizon game, Horizon Hunters Gathering, was revealed. It's a live-service co-op action game for PS5 and PC. And finally, Xbox gave us a peek into their software plans for 2026, which includes a currently-unannounced game.

W 330. odcinku Bezimiennego wchodzimy w pełen przekrój growych klimatów — od pikselowych strzelanek, przez mroczne doliny, aż po wielkie, otwarte światy.Na rozgrzewkę bierzemy Absolum, świeżutką produkcję, która próbuje połączyć retro‑sznyty z nowoczesnym podejściem do akcji. Potem przenosimy się do Rue Valley, gdzie klimat robi połowę roboty, a druga połowa to… no właśnie, o tym usłyszycie w dyskusji. Dorzucamy też nasze wrażenia z Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, czyli kolejnej próby udowodnienia, że krasnoludy naprawdę potrafią wszystko — nawet wejść w gatunek survivorów.W temacie głównym odcinka rozkładamy na czynniki pierwsze Where Winds Meet. Czy to duchowy kuzyn Ghost of Tsushima? Chińskie RPG z rozmachem? A może ambitny projekt, który jeszcze szuka własnej tożsamości? Mamy sporo do powiedzenia.Jak zawsze: słuchajcie, komentujcie, podrzucajcie swoje opinie — bo to dzięki Wam ta rozmowa nigdy się nie kończy.(00:00:00) Hydepark(00:38:33) Absolum(00:47:33) Temat Główny: Where Winds Meet(01:14:24) Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor(01:29:38) Rue ValleyMożecie komentować pod odcinkiem, na naszym fanpage'u oraz możecie wysłać do nas maile. Poza tym jesteśmy na Youtube'ie i Spotify.Newsletter: https://forms.gle/iVS3Q1su9b6aUXzj8Patronite: Bezimienny Podcast Ogólny: podcast@bezimienny.pl Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Giga Bytes Podcast 395: Hoy hablamos de GTA 6, numeros de PS y Nintendo, próximo Xbox y mucho Mas Horizon Hunter Gathering anunciado para PS5 y PC Nioh 3 review Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase Reporte 3QTR 2025 PS5 (Oct-Dic 2025) 2 millones de PS5 MAU aumenta a record 132m $914 en ingresos para la division (operating income) 8 millones de unidades en el QTR Ghost of Yotei vendiendo mejor que Tsushima en el mismo periodo Aseguran RAM para próximo año fiscal 2026 (PS5), negociando para el futuro Strauss Zelnick confiado en lanzamiento de GTA 6 este noviembre 19 2026, publicidad comienza en verano (copias físicas no se atrasarán) Take 2: 138 millones de consolas Gen 9 hasta Dic 31 2025 (estimado) Switch 2: 17.37m PS5: 92.2 m Xbox Series X/S (Estimados): 28.08 m AMD CEO Lisa Su: Steam Machine para principios 2026, Next Xbox podría lanzar 2027 Tekken 8 S3: Kunimitsu (Primavera), Bob (Verano), Jack Jr (otoño) y otro personaje secreto, rank reset y mas Adelantan Knight of the Seven Kingdom e Industry por Superbowl Reporte Financiero Nintendo acabando dic 31 2025: Switch 2 17.37 millones vendidos Switch 155.37m (2nda mas vendida en la historia) Ventas aumentan 99% Mario Kart World 14.03m Donkey Kong Bananza 4.25m Pokemon Z to A 3.89m Kirby Air Riders 1.76m Stranger Things Tales from '85 teaser Michael Teaser Rumor: PS Portal OLED en camino Encuesta GDC: 2025 vs 2026 Highguard fracasa God of War Prime video: se agranda el elenco de la serie Ryan Hurst (Sons of Anarchy) Cast como Kratos Mandy Patinkin (Homeland) Cast como Odin Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Severance) como Thor Max Parker (Boots) como Heimdall Teresa Palmer (Warm Bodies) posiblemente como Phoebe/Sif Alastair Duncan (Mimir en GOW) como Mimir Jeff Gulka (X-Files, Stargate SG-1) como Sindri Danny Woodburn (Seinfeld, The Witcher) como Brok PSN Febrero: Undisputed Subnautica Below Zero Ultros Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown Xbox Dev Direct: Forza Horizon 6 Beast of Reincarnation Kiln Fable Marathon Marzo 5, tendrá open beta antes de su lanzamiento   Sigueme y Suscribete: Facebook.com/elgiga Youtube.com/elgiga947 Instagram.com/elgiga947                                                                                                                                    Twitch.tv/elgiga947 Twitter.com/elgiga947 Giga Bytes Podcast   #monsterenergypr @monsterenergy @Stephreyesmarketing @caribbeanxsports @eriberto213 #gigabytespodcast #PS5pro PS5 #PC #Xbox #Switch #gigabytespodcast #2026

Remember when you had to decide between obviously Good things or cartoonishly Evil things in video games? We're tired of pretending that wasn't dumb, but we're even more tired of pretending that we don't miss how dumb they were. MORE PLACES TO FIND USCrubscribe ► https://bit.ly/CrubcastGet the show early and get exclusive content at our Patreon ► https://www.patreon.com/crubOur Crubcasts are recorded LIVE at https://www.twitch.tv/crub_official every Tuesday at 7pm Eastern, with EXCLUSIVE Pre- and Post-ShowsJoin our Discord ► https://crub.org/joinBlueSky ► https://bsky.app/profile/crub.orgCome join our Steam group ► https://steamcommunity.com/groups/crubclubPodcasts are available on Apple, Google, Spotify, and other platforms are available at ► https://crub.orgTODAY'S CRUBCAST HOSTSBrody: https://www.youtube.com/@RACROXChris: https://www.youtube.com/@MykonosFanKevin: https://www.youtube.com/@TheGoldenBoltCHAPTERS00:00 Karma Moment!!!05:32 Paragon or Renegade?09:07 We're still upset about inFAMOUS Second Son15:06 Taking it back to Fallout 3 and New Vegas19:38 When did this stuff vanish from AAA games?24:51 It was getting very easy to make fun of29:07 How Ghost of Tsushima did this well34:33 Shouting out some recent games that still do this ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

This month, we were lucky to once again sit down with singer/songwriter Jenny Plant for a wide-ranging conversation about her life as a mother, her cancer diagnosis, as well as the recent Strands of Harmony concert tour. It was a pleasure to chat with Jenny, we hope you all enjoy the conversation as much as we did! Buy tickets for the Strands of Harmony World Tour https://www.deathstrandingconcert.com/ 00:00 - 4:10 Intro 4:11 - 10:30 What Jenny is up to 10:31 - 32:47 Following up since our last conversation 32:48 - 50:01 Jenny's journey through cancer, kids, losing a friend and the new meaning of BB's Theme 50:02 - 1:04:52 Chatting about Jenny's other work | Little Mermaid, Ghost of Tsushima, Lotide, Solo work 1:04:53 - 1:24:00 Death Stranding Strands of Harmony Tour 1:24:01 - 1:27:15 Outro Hosts: Chris Trio & Anthony Ragucci Guest: Jenny Plant https://www.jennyplantmusic.com/ https://www.instagram.com/jennyplantmusic/ https://www.youtube.com/@UCBoDXN2771Uuopp8aXZaaYw https://open.spotify.com/artist/0QXISEsGJSrlBCYIfQdz5K?si=H6Z-kmCkQQutKa8av00oYA https://music.apple.com/us/artist/jenny-plant/1245690862 https://open.spotify.com/artist/35WafjAzljbV3CYQlPqg6Z?si=QTMJy4tLSSWwr_0h5Brrvw https://music.apple.com/us/artist/lotide/622358829 Join our community! https://discord.gg/sTwgsXYGwc Watch us live on twitch at https://twitch.tv/delconerdnetwork Follow Us! https://linktr.ee/delconerds Intro and Outro Music by Alex Rome. https://www.youtube.com/AlexRome Lower Thirds By Alejandro Hernandez https://alejandrojhernandez.com Table by House of Me https://www.instagram.com/athomewithelm/ https://www.athomewithelm.com/

We check back in on one of last years best games with Ghost of Yotei. How does it stand up compared to Ghost of Tsushima? Is there more here than a copy of the that game?

It is a new year and the vibes are in shambles. But we remain steadfast in our mission to read some comics and tell you about them.Best BooksNova Centurion #3Batman #5Book BlurbsSpider-Man Noir #4, Absolute Superman #15, JSA #15, Batman/Green Arrow/The Question Arcadia #2, All New Spider-Gwen Ghost Spider #5, Arcadia #2, Sorcerer Supreme #1, Batman Ark M Special #1Uncle's One More ThingThe TowerFire Emblem Path of RadianceGhost of Tsushima

If I had a mon for every first-party PlayStation game about revenge...yada yada. This time we talk about the latest samurai-ish game out of Sucker Punch Productions. Join us as we discuss a predictable narrative, various influences, and yet another rant from Mark about AAA video games in the modern era.Note: The music track at the start of the episode is “Ghost of Yōtei," composed by Toma Otowa for the Ghost of Yōtei Original Soundtrack. We in no way have or claim ownership of this music.Email us at: dcellmedia@gmail.com

Ghost of Yotei is the highly anticipated follow-up to Ghost of Tsushima. The Ghost series is a perfect blend of samurai action set against Japan's most beautiful backdrops. Yotei, our new protagonist, has some big kegutsu's to fill, and from what was shown at the Ghost of Yotei showcase, it looks like that won't be a problem.

On this episode Matt and Jon go back and forth with what they've been seeing. Both have checked out the premiere of Fallout, while Jon checked out Spider-Man, Roof Man, Smiling Friends and Ghost of Tsushima while Matt check out Black Bag, Freaks, Gleeks and Dawson's Creek by Thea Glassman, Ghost in the Shell, Six Feet Under and Sorry, Baby! Threads: https://www.threads.net/@jonwahizzle Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/damnthattelevision/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/damntvpod Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mattlovestv.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/jonwahizzle.bsky.social Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/mattlovestv/ https://letterboxd.com/jonwahizzle/ Jon on AIPT: https://aiptcomics.com/author/jonathanw/ Matt's show The Drop: A Pop Culture Mix Tape: wscafm.org Sundays 6-8 PM: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thedropwsca/

The Yotei Three are here to give you a full deep dive review of the latest Sucker Punch title: Ghost of Yotei. Following up approx. 300 years after the events of Ghost of Tsushima we follow Atsu on a mission of revenge and spirit! This title was fantastic and we have lots of thoughts on how this game hit us. Too many birds? Too few wolves? Take some time with us this Friday to figure out what makes this game sing!Time Stamps:0:00 - Intro4:06 - Histories w/ Ghost & Sucker Punch18:34 - Combat & Mechanics01:11:29 - Open World & Minigames!01:47:01 - Spoiler Wall & Narrative Discussion02:31:55 - OutroPlease find Dave at his links below!https://linktr.ee/talesfromthebacklogMusic used in this episode Composed by: Toma Otowa-Way of the Shamisen-Mother's Song-Twin Wolves-Atsu's Theme-The Wilds of EzoSupport the show

In this episode, we look ahead to 2026, not with resolutions or reading quotas, but with curiosity about what we're drawn to next. We talk about a handful of upcoming releases we're excited for, and then share some longer, looser reading plans for the year ahead, including big novels, rereads, and ongoing projects we're hoping to live with slowly.Along the way, we acknowledge the heaviness many people are feeling right now and talk about why reading, conversation, and community continue to matter. Whether you're planning your own reading year or just looking for company, we're glad you're here.2026 Novella Book ClubWe have announced the four novellas we will be reading for The Mookse and Gripes Novella Book Club in 2026!* January: Daisy Miller, by Henry James* April: An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, by César Aira* July: The Hour of the Star, by Clarice Lispector* September: Prelude, by Katherine MansfieldDiscussions will be hosted at The Mookse and the Gripes Discord (see below!).We've got some fantastic author-focused episodes lined up for the foreseeable future, and we want to give you plenty of time to dive in if you'd like to read along with us. These episodes come around every ten episodes, and with our bi-weekly release schedule, you'll have a few months to get ready for each. Here's what we have in store:* Episode 125: Flannery O'Connor* Episode 135: William Faulkner* Episode 145: Elizabeth Taylor* Episode 155: Naguib MahfouzThere's no rush—take your time, and grab a book (or two, or three) so you're prepared for these as they come!ShownotesUpcoming Releases Mentioned* Vigil, by George Saunders* Now I Surrender, by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer* The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary, by Terry Tempest Williams* Vilhelm's Room, by Tove Ditlevsen, translated by Jennifer Russell & Sophia Hersi Smith* The Beginnings, by Antonio Moresco, translated by Max Lawton* Theodorus, by Mircea Cărtărescu* Five, by César Aira, translated by Chris Andrews* Ada, by Mark HaberReading Projects & Plans Discussed* The NYRB Classics Big Books project* Currently reading: Bomarzo, by Manuel Mujica Láinez, translated by Gregory Rabassa* On deck: Effingers, by Gabriele Tergit, translated by Sophie Duvernoy* Reading Pilgrimage (Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage)* Monthly conversations and resources; videos posted online as a long-term archive by Brad Bigelow* The website* Shakespeare! Up next: King Lear* Trevor's 2026 “in the mix” authors/projects:* Henry James (next up The Ambassadors)* Charles Dickens (Everyman editions; weighing Bleak House vs. other Christmas gifts)* Émile Zola (returning to the Rougon-Macquart project)* Virginia Woolf journals + moving toward Mrs Dalloway* NYRB Women readalong with Kim McNeil (starting with Lolly Willowes)* Library book club (next up: Loved and Missed, by Susie Boyt)* Paul's year-long/slow-burn plans:* Pilgrimage alongside the community project* Continuing Flannery O'Connor and Cormac McCarthy* Deeper into Mircea Cărtărescu, William H. Gass, and Clarice Lispector* Potential Big Classics like The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas and Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray* Bookstore book club focus on translated fiction/small presses* Taiwan Travelogue, by Yang Shuangzi, translated by Lin King* Time Shelter, by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel* Woman Running in the Mountains, by Yūko Tsushima, translated by Geraldine HarcourtBooks Also Mentioned* In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust* The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann* The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, by Margaret Renkl* The Land in Winter, by Andrew MillerJoin the Mookse and the Gripes on DiscordWant to share your thoughts on these upcoming authors or anything else we're discussing? Join us over on Discord! It's the perfect place to dive deeper into the conversation—whether you're reading along with our author-focused episodes or just want to chat about the books that are on your mind.We're also just now in the first novella book club of 2026, where we're reading Daisy Miller, by Henry James. It's a fantastic book, and we'd love to have you join the discussion. It's a great space to engage with fellow listeners, share your insights, and discover new perspectives on the books you're reading.The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a bookish conversation hosted by Paul and Trevor. Every other week, we explore a bookish topic and celebrate our love of reading. We're glad you're here, and we hope you'll continue to join us on this literary journey!A huge thank you to those who help make this podcast possible! If you'd like to support us, you can do so via Substack or Patreon. Subscribers receive access to periodic bonus episodes and early access to all new episodes. Plus, each supporter gets their own dedicated feed, allowing them to download episodes a few days before they're released to the public. We'd love for you to check it out! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

Happy New Year!  As we start a new year, here is a new recap, covering all of the previous year and bringing us up to date with where we are today.  Enjoy! As usual, we have our sources and more over at our website:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/newyears2026   Rough Transcription: Shinnen Akemashite!  Happy New Year and Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is the New Year's Recap episode for 2026! Here's hoping that everyone has had a great new year.  I'm not sure about everyone else, but this past year seemed particularly long, and yet what we have covered on this podcast is only a relatively small part of the history of Yamato, so let's get into it. And in case anyone is wondering, this is covering episodes 118 to episode 140, though we will likely dip a little bit into the past as well, just to ensure we have context, where needed. We started last year in the 650's, in the second reign of Takara Hime, where we know her as Saimei Tennou.  We discussed Yamato's place in the larger world, especially in connection with the Silk Road.  In fact, we spent several episodes focused on the wider world, which Yamato was learning about through students, ambassadors, and visitors from far off lands.  Of course, that all came to a head at the Battle of Baekgang, when Yamato and their ally, Baekje, were defeated by a coalition of Tang and Silla forces, putting an end to the Kingdom of Baekje and driving Yamato to fall back and reinforce the archipelago. This was also the start of the formal reign of Naka no Oe, who would go on to be known as Tenji Tennou.  Naka no Oe would be a major proponent of substantial reforms to the Yamato government, as well as moving the capital to a new, more defensible location called Ohotsu, on the shores of Lake Biwa, in the land of Afumi.  He also introduced new concepts of time through water clocks both in Asuka and in the Afumi capital. Upon Naka no Oe's death, almost immediately, violence broke out between the Yamato court's ruling council led by Naka no Oe's son, Prince Ohotomo, and Naka no Oe's brother, Prince Ohoama.  Ohoama would emerge victorious and ascend the throne, being known as Temmu Tennou.   During his reign he took his brother's government and placed upon it his own stamp.  He reinvigorated Shinto rites while also patronizing Buddhism.  Meanwhile, relations with the continent appear to be improving. So that is the summary, let's take a look at what we discussed in more detail. First off, back to the reign of Takara Hime, aka Saimei Tennou—as opposed to her first reign, where she is known as Kougyoku Tennou.  Takara Hime came back to the throne in 654 after a nine-year hiatus, having abdicated in 645 when her son, Prince Naka no Oe, had killed Soga no Iruka in front of her at court, violently assassinating one of the most powerful men in Yamato. Naka no Oe had then gone on to take out Soga no Iruka's father, Soga no Emishi, a few days later.  Upon abdicating, Taka Hime's brother, Prince Karu, aka Koutoku Tennou, took the throne, but there are many that suggest that the real power in court was Naka no Oe and his allies—men such as the famous Nakatomi no Kamatari.  When Karu passed away, Naka no Oe still did not take the throne, officially, and instead it reverted back to his mother. Takara Hime is interesting in that she is officially recognized as a sovereign and yet she came to the throne when her husband, known as Jomei Tenno, passed away, even though neither of her parents were sovereigns themselves.  This may have something to do with the fact that much of the actual power at the time was being executed by individuals other than the reigning sovereign.  First it was the Soga family—Soga no Emishi and Soga no Iruka—but then it was Naka no Oe and his gaggle of officials.  This makes it hard to gauge Takara Hime's own agency versus that of her son's. Still, the archipelago flourished during her reign.  This was due, in no small part, to the growing connectivity between the Japanese archipelago and the continent—and from there to the rest of the world.  And that world was expanding. We see mention of the men from "Tukara" and a woman—or women—from Shravastri.  Of course it is possible, even likely, that these were a misunderstanding—it is most likely that these were individuals from the Ryukyuan archipelago and that the Chroniclers bungled the transcription, using known toponyms from the Sinitic lexicon rather than creating new ones for these places.  However, it speaks to the fact that there were toponyms to pull from because the court had at least the idea of these other places.  And remember, we had Wa students studying with the famous monk Xuanzang, who, himself, had traveled the silk road all the way out to Gandhara and around to India, the birthplace of Buddhism.  The accounts and stories of other lands and peoples were available—at least to those with access to the continent.  This helped firm up the Japanese archipelago's location at the end of a vast trading network, which we know as the Silk Road.  Indeed, we find various material goods showing up in the islands, as well as the artisans that were imported to help build Buddhist temples. And just as all of this is happening, we hit a rough patch in relations between Yamato and the Tang dynasty.  In fact, in one of our most detailed accounts of an embassy to date, thanks to the writings of one Iki no Hakatoko.  Because the fateful embassy of 659 saw the Tang take the odd step of refusing to let the embassy return to Yamato.  It turns out that the Tang, who had, for some time now, been in contact with Silla, had entered into an alliance and were about to invade Baekje.  It was presumed that if the Yamato embassy left the Tang court they might alert Baekje, their ally, that something was up.  And so it was safer to place them under house arrest until the invasion popped off. Sure enough, the invasion was launched and in less than a year King Wicha of Baekje and much of the Baekje court had been captured.  With the initial invasion successful, the Yamato embassy was released, but that is hardly the end of the story.  Baekje had sent a request to Yamato for support, but it came too late for Yamato to muster the forces necessary.  That said, some factions of the Baekje court remained, and one of their Princes was still in Yamato.  And so, as they had done in the past, Yamato sailed across the strait with the goal of restoring a royal heir to the throne. Unfortunately, this was not quite as simple as it had been, previously.  For one thing, the Tang forces were still in Baekje, and the fight became long and drawn out.  Things finally came to a head in the early months of 663, at the mouth of the Baekgang river—known in Japanese as Hakusuki-no-e.  This was a naval battle, and Yamato had more ships and was also likely more skilled on the water.  After all, much of the Tang fighting was on land or rivers, while the Wa, an island nation, had been crossing the straits and raiding the peninsula for centuries.  Even with all of the resources of the Tang empire, there was still every reason to think that the forces from the archipelago could pull off a victory.  However, it was not to be.  The Tang forces stayed near the head of the river, limiting the Wa and Baekje forces' ability to manuever, drawing them in and then counterattacking.  Eventually the Tang ended up destroying so much of the fleet that the remaining Wa ships had no choice but to turn and flee. This defeat had profound consequences for the region.  First and foremost was the fall of Baekje.  In addition, Yamato forces pulled back from the continent altogether.  Along with those Baekje refugees who had made it with them back to the archipelago they began to build up their islands' defenses.  Baekje engineers were enlisted to design and build fortresses at key points, from Tsushima all the way to the home countries.  These fortresses included massive earthworks, some of which can still be seen.  In fact, parts of the ancient fortifications on Tsushima would be reused as recently as World War II to create modern defenses and gun placements. Even the capital was moved.  While many of the government offices were possibly operating out of the Toyosaki palace in Naniwa, the royal residence was moved from Asuka up to Ohotsu, on the shores of Lake Biwa.  This put it farther inland, and behind a series of mountains and passes that would have provided natural defenses.  Fortresses were also set up along the ridgelines leading to the Afumi and Nara basins. And all of this was being done under a somewhat provisional government.  The sovereign, Takara Hime, had passed away at the most inconvenient time—just as the Yamato forces were being deployed across to the peninsula.  A funerary boat was sent back to Naniwa, and Naka no Oe took charge of the government.  That there was little fanfare perhaps suggests that there wasn't much that actually changed.  Still, it was a few years before the capital in Ohotsu was completed and Naka no Oe formally ascended the throne, becoming known to future generations as Tenji Tennou.  Naka no Oe's rule may have only formally started in the 660s, but his influence in the government goes all the way back to 645.  He assassinated the Soga family heads, and then appears to have been largely responsible for organizing the governmental reforms that led that era to be known as the Taika, or era of great change.  He served as Crown Prince under Karu and Takara Hime, and from that office he ensured his supporters were in positions of authority and instituted broad changes across the board. He continued in this position under the reign of his mother, Takara Hime, and so the transition upon her death was probably more smooth than most.  This also explains how things kept running for about three years before he took the throne. In officially stepping up as sovereign, however, Naka no Oe continued to solidify the work that he had done, focused largely on consolidating power and control over the rest of the archipelago.  There were tweaks here and there—perhaps most notably changes to the ranking system, which allowed for a more granular level of control over the stipends and privileges afforded to different individuals as part of the new government.  This work was presumably being done with the help of various ministers and of his brother, Ohoama.  Ohoama only really shows up in the Chronicle around this time, other than a brief mention of his birth along with a list of other royal progeny of the sovereign known as Jomei Tennou. We also see the death of the Naidaijin, Nakatomi no Kamatari—and supposedly the head of what would become known as the Fujiwara family.  His position as Inner Great Minister was not backfilled, but rather Naka no Oe's son, Ohotomo, was eventually named as Dajo Daijin, the head minister of the Council of State, the Dajokan, placing a young 20 year old man above the ministers of the left and right and in effective control of the government under his father—though his uncle, Prince Ohoama, maintained his position as Crown Prince. However, even that wasn't for long.  As Naka no Oe became gravely ill, he began to think of succession.  Ohoama, having been warned that something was afoot, offered to retire from his position as Crown Prince and take up religious orders down in Yoshino, theoretically clearing the line of succession and indicating his willingness to let someone else inherit.  His actual suggestion was that Naka no Oe turn the government over to his wife, who could act as a regent for Ohotomo.  What actually happened, however, was that the movers and shakers in the Council of State pledged their loyalty to the Dajo Daijin, Prince Ohotomo, who was named Crown Prince and ascended the throne when his father passed away. Here there is a bit of a wobble in the historical record.  The Chronicles never mention Prince Ohotomo formally assuming the throne and therefore the Chroniclers never provide him a regnal name.  It isn't until more modern times that we get the name "Kobun Tennou" for his short-lived reign. And it was short-lived because early on Ohoama raised an army, and after several months of fighting, took the throne for himself.  Because the year this happened was known by its sexagenary term as "Jinshin", often colloquially known as a Water Monkey year, the conflict is known as the Jinshin no Ran.  "Ran" can mean disturbance, or chaos, and so is often translated as "Jinshin Disturbance", "Jinshin Revolution", or the "Jinshin War".  The entirety of the fighting is given its own chapter in the Chronicles, known as either the first year of Temmu or sometimes as the record of the Jinshin War.  This chapter actually shows some stylistic differences with the chapter on Tenji Tennou, just before it, and tells the story of the events slightly differently, in a light generally favorable to Ohoama, who would go on to become Temmu Tennou.  As such, while the broad strokes and military actions are likely correct, there are a lot of questions around the details, especially around the motivating factors. Regardless, what is known is that Ohoama was able to quickly move from his quarters in Yoshino eastward towards Owari and Mino, where he was able to cut off the capital from support and gather troops from the eastern lands.  The Court tried to take the Nara Basin—a huge symbolic and strategic point—as well as cut off his supply lines, but these actions were thwarted by those loyal to Ohoama.  Attempts to gather troops from the west had mixed results, with several allies of Ohoama resisting the Court—most notably Prince Kurikuma, who at that time was the head of the government presence in Kyushu, where a large number of troops had been stationed to defend against a possible Tang invasion.  Eventually, Ohoama's troops defeated those of the Court.  Ohotomo was killed, and those running the government, including Soga no Akae, Nakatomi no Kane, Soga no Hatayasu, Kose no Hito, and Ki no Ushi, were either executed or exiled. Ohoama then swept into power.  He moved the court back to Asuka—the move to Ohotsu had not been a popular one in the first place—and took up residence in his mother's old palace, renovating it.  It would eventually be known as the Kiyomihara palace.  From there Ohoama continued his brother's reforms, though with his own spin. First off was a reform to the ceremonies around royal ascension.  Taking the existing feast of first fruits, the Niiname-sai, Ohoama made it into a new public and private ceremony known as the Daijo-sai, which is still practiced today upon the elevation of a new sovereign.  He reformed the government court rank system and also instituted reforms around the ancient kabane system—the ancient rank system that contained both clan and individual titles. These old kabane titles had certain social cachet, but were otherwise being made obsolete by the new court ranks, which were, at least on paper, based on merit rather than just familial connections.  Of course, the truth was that family still mattered, and in many ways the new kabane system of 8 ranks simply merged the reality of the new court with the traditions of the older system. And this was something of a trend in Ohoama's reign.  The court seems to have taken pains to incorporate more kami-based ritual back into the court, with regular offerings, especially to gods associated with food, harvest, and weather.  There is also a clear focus on the shrine at Ise.  The Chroniclers claim that Ise was established and important since the time of Mimaki Iribiko, but it is only rarely mentioned, and while its founding story might be tied to that era, the Chroniclers, who appear to have started their work this reign, appear to have done their best to bolster that connection. As for actual governance, we see another change from the government of Naka no Oe.   The former sovereign relied heavily on noble families to run the government, granting them positions of responsibility.  In the Ohoama court, however, most of those positions appear to lay dormant.  Instead we see copious mention of princes—royal and otherwise—being delegated to do the work of the throne. Indeed, Ohoama seemed to want to reinstate the majesty of the royal society, including both the royal family, but also others with royal titles as well.  Still, there were plenty of ways that the noble families continued to have an influence in various spheres of government, they just weren't handed the kind of prime ministerial powers that previous generations had achieved. Within the royal family, itself, Ohoama attempted to head off future succession disputes.  He had been through one himself, and history was littered with the violent conflicts that followed on the heels of a sovereign's death.  So Ohoama gathered his family together, to include sons and nephews of consequence, and he had them swear an oath to support each other and the Crown Prince.  After doing so, he seems to have utilized them to help run the country, as well. Of course, we've seen how such pledges played out in the past, so we'll have to wait to see how it all plays out, eventually.  I'm sure it will be fine… Whilst the archipelago was going through all of this transition—from the death of Takara Hime, and then the reign and death of her son, Naka no Oe, along with the Jinshin no Ran that followed-- we have a glimpse of what was happening on the peninsula.  Yamato had fortified against a combined Silla-Tang invasion, but it seems they needn't have done so.  First off, that alliance's attention was turned northwards, to Goguryeo.  With the death of the belligerent tyrant and perpetual-thorn-in-the-side-of-the-Tang-Court, Yeon Gaesomun, the Tang armies were finally able to capture the Goguryeo court.  However, for years afterwards they were dealing with rebellions from those who had not gone quite so quietly.  And to make matters worse it turns out that these Goguryeo recalcitrants were apparently being funded by none other than Silla, the Tang's supposed ally. From the Yamato perspective this manifested, initially, as embassies from both the Tang court and the Silla court.  While the content of the embassies' messages are not fully recorded, we can imagine that both the Tang dynasty and Silla were looking for support.  At one point there was a direct request for military support, but Yamato offered a half-hearted reply along the lines of the fact that they didn't have as many able-bodied men as they once did—not after the fighting in Korea.   And that might have even been true. Either way, the Tang embassies petered out, as the Silla influence came to dominate the embassies and trade more generally.  The Tang attempted to push back against Silla, militarily—their alliance now long since dead.  Silla took some initial losses, but ultimately was able to push the Tang off of the peninsula, uniting everything from Pyongyang south.  North of Pyongyang, though still nominally under Tang dynasty control, a rebel Goguryeo court continued to act as though they were still a going concern.  They hitched a ride on Silla ships and traveled to Yamato for regular missions, maintaining diplomatic ties. As such, Yamato itself relaxed, to a certain extent, its defensive posture—but not entirely.  They continued to maintain the fortresses and there were several edicts addressing military preparedness, so as to ensure that Yamato would be ready should anything occur. And though the missions to the Tang court themselves may have been stymied in this period, it doesn't mean that Yamato lost interest in continental learning.  They had acquired numerous texts, and appear to have been devouring them, as well as generating their own observational data.  They were recording a variety of phenomena, some more clearly consequential than others.  Some of that was practical, but, in a time where there was very little dividing the natural and the supernatural in the minds of the people, they were just as likely to record a storm or an earthquake as they were the finding of a white or albino animal that is not normally that color.  Science, myth, and legend often clashed and intermingled.  Regardless, they carried on, figuring out what they could and filling in the gaps where they had to do so. And I believe that catches us up for the year.  If I were to add anything, it would probably be a short note on Ohoama's wife, Uno no Sarara hime.  Uno no Hime is only mentioned occasionally during Ohoama's reign, and yet those few times are more than many others appear to have been mentioned.  She is explicitly said to have traveled with him when he went on campaign, and is said to have been there when he made his prayers to Ise shrine.  She was also there when the family was gathered to swear to assist each other in the smooth running of the government. There is plenty to suggest that, especially with many of the Great Minister roles left empty, that Uno Hime had a much greater role in the administration of the government than is otherwise assumed.  This may have also been the case with Naka no Oe's wife.  Both women are mentioned in ways that suggest they were considered to have some amount of political clout and savvy, and had greater agency than one might otherwise conclude.  Remember, Takara Hime had twice reigned in her own right, and we aren't so many generations removed that people wouldn't know the name of Kashikiya Hime, aka Suiko Tennou.  We also know that there was a lot more going on, but the focus of the Chronicles is pretty firmly on the sovereign, and it is only with the greatest  of reluctance that the Chroniclers turn that lens on anyone else except the sovereign who was reigning at the time.  So I think it is safe to say that Uno likely played a large role in the court, and we will see even more of that in the coming year. But first, there is going to be more to say about the reign of Ohoama.  After all, we aren't entirely through with his reign.  We have only barely touched on the various Buddhist records in the Nihon Shoki, nor some of the various court events, as well as some sign of how the government enforced these new laws and punishments—the Ritsuryo system.  Finally, we'll talk about Ohoama's dream and vision for a new capital—a permanent capital city unlike anything that had yet been seen.  Ohoama would not see that through to completion, but we can talk about what it meant, the first permanent capital city in the archipelago:  Fujiwara-kyo. Until then, I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday season.   As usual, thank you for listening and for all of your support.  Thanks also to my lovely spouse, Ellen, for their continued work at helping to edit these episodes! Remember, 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 Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

The last time Yamato was heavily involved on the continent, they were defeated militarily, and they returned to fortify their islands.  So how are things looking, now? This episode we will talk about some of what has been going on with Tang and Silla, but also touch on the Mishihase, the Hayato, the people of Tamna and Tanegashima, and more! For more information and references, check out:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-140   Rough Transcript   Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is episode 140: Improving Diplomatic Ties Garyang Jyeongsan and Gim Hongsye looked out from the deck of their ship, tossing and turning in the sea.  The waves were high, and the winds lashed at the ship, which rocked uncomfortably beneath their feet.  Ocean spray struck them from below while rain pelted from above. Through the torrential and unstable conditions, they looked out for their sister ship.  It was their job to escort them, but in these rough seas, bobbing up and down, they were at the mercy of the elements.  One minute they could see them, and then next it was nothing but a wall of water.  Each time they caught a glimpse the other ship seemed further and further away.  They tried calling out, but it was no use—even if they could normally have raised them, the fierce winds simply carried their voices out into the watery void.  Eventually, they lost sight of them altogether. When the winds died down and the seas settled, they looked for their companions, but they saw nothing, not even hints of wreckage on the ocean.  They could only hope that their fellow pilots knew where they were going.  As long as they could still sail, they should be able to make it to land—either to the islands  to which they were headed, or back to the safety of the peninsula. And so the escort ship continued on, even without a formal envoy to escort.  They would hope for the best, or else they would explain what would happen,  and hope that the Yamato court would understand. The seas were anything but predictable, and diplomacy was certainly not for the faint of heart.   We are going through the period of the reign of Ohoama, aka Temmu Tennou.  It started in 672, with the death of his brother, Naka no Oe, remembered as the sovereign Tenji Tenno, when Temmu took the throne from his nephew, Ohotomo, aka Kobun Tenno, in what would become known as the Jinshin no Ran.  From that point, Ohoama continued the work of his brother in creating a government based on a continental model of laws and punishments—the Ritsuryo system.  He accomplished this with assistance from his wife, Uno, and other members of the royal family—his own sons, but also nephews and other princes of the time.  And so far most of our focus has been on the local goings on within the archipelago. However, there was still plenty going on in the rest of the world, and though Yamato's focus may have been on more local affairs, it was still engaged with the rest of the world—or at least with the polities of the Korean Peninsula and the Tang Dynasty.  This episode we are going to look at Yamato's foreign relations, and how they were changing, especially as things changed on the continent. Up to this point, much of what had been happening in Yamato had been heavily influenced by the mainland in one way or another.  And to begin our discussion, we really should backtrack a bit—all the way to the Battle of Baekgang in 663, which we discussed in Episode 124.  That defeat would lead to the fall of Baekje, at the hands of the Silla-Tang alliance.  The loss of their ally on the peninsula sent Yamato into a flurry of defensive activity.  They erected fortresses on Tsushima, Kyushu, and along the Seto Inland Sea.  They also moved the capital up to Ohotsu, a more easily defended point on the shores of Lake Biwa, and likewise reinforced various strategic points in the Home Provinces as well.  These fortresses were built in the style and under the direction of many of the Baekje refugees now resettled in Yamato. For years, the archipelago braced for an invasion by the Silla-Tang alliance.  After all, with all that Yamato had done to support Baekje, it only made sense, from their perspective, for Silla and Tang to next come after them.  Sure, there was still Goguryeo, but with the death of Yeon Gaesomun, Goguryeo would not last that long.  With a unified peninsula, then why wouldn't they next look to the archipelago? And yet, the attack never came.  While Yamato was building up its defenses, it seems that the alliance between Silla and Tang was not quite as strong as their victories on the battlefield may have made it seem.  This is hardly surprising—the Tang and Silla were hardly operating on the same scale.  That said, the Tang's immense size, while bringing it great resources, also meant that it had an extremely large border to defend.  They often utilized alliances with other states to achieve their ends.  In fact, it seems fairly common for the Tang to seek alliances with states just beyond their borders against those states that were directly on their borders.  In other words, they would effectively create a pincer maneuver by befriending the enemy of their enemy.  Of course.  Once they had defeated said enemy well, wouldn't you know it, their former ally was now their newest bordering state. In the case of the Silla-Tang alliance, it appears that at the start of the alliance, back in the days of Tang Taizong, the agreement, at least from Silla's perspective, was that they would help each other against Goguryeo and Baekje, and then the Tang dynasty would leave the Korean peninsula to Silla.  However, things didn't go quite that smoothly.  The fighting against Goguryeo and Baekje can be traced back to the 640s, but Tang Taizong passed away in 649, leaving the throne to his heir, Tang Gaozong.  The Tang forces eventually helped Silla to take Baekje after the battle of Baekgang River in 663, and then Goguryeo fell in 668, but the Tang forces didn't leave the peninsula.  They remained in the former territories of Baekje and in Goguryeo, despite any former agreements.  Ostensibly they were no doubt pointing to the continuing revolts and rebellions in both regions.  While neither kingdom would fully reassert itself, it didn't mean that there weren't those who were trying.  In fact, the first revolt in Goguryeo was in 669.  There was also a revolt each year until 673.  The last one had some staying power, as the Goguryeo rebels continued to hold out for about four years. It is probably worth reminding ourselves that the Tang dynasty, during this time, had reached out on several occasions to Yamato, sending diplomatic missions, as had Silla.  While the Yamato court may have been preparing for a Tang invasion, the Tang perspective seems different.  They were preoccupied with the various revolts going on, and they had other problems.  On their western border, they were having to contend with the kingdom of Tibet, for example.  The Tibetan kingdom had a powerful influence on the southern route around the Taklamakan desert, which abuts the Tibetan plateau.   The Tang court would have had to divert resources to defend their holdings in the western regions, and it is unlikely that they had any immediate designs on the archipelago, which I suspect was considered something of a backwater to them, at the time.  In fact, Yamato would have been much more useful to the Tang as an ally to help maintain some pressure against Silla, with whom their relationship, no longer directed at a common enemy, was becoming somewhat tense. In fact, just before Ohoama came to the throne, several events had occurred that would affect the Silla-Tang alliance. The first event is more indirect—in 670, the Tibetan kingdom attacked the Tang empire.  The fighting was intense, and required serious resources from both sides.  Eventually the Tibetan forces were victorious, but not without a heavy toll on the Tibetan kingdom, which some attribute to the latter's eventual demise.  Their pyrrhic victory, however, was a defeat for the Tang, who also lost troops and resources in the fighting.  Then, in 671, the Tang empire would suffer another loss as Silla would drive the Tang forces out of the territory of the former kingdom of Baekje. With the Baekje territory under their control, it appears that Silla was also working to encourage some of rebellions in Goguryeo.  This more than irked the Tang court, currently under the formal control of Tang Gaozong and the informal—but quite considerable—control of his wife, Wu Zetian, who some claim was the one actually calling most of the shots in the court at this point in time.  Silla encouragement of restoration efforts in Goguryeo reached the Tang court in 674, in and in 675 we see that the Tang forces were sent to take back their foothold in the former Baekje territory.  Tang defeated Silla at Gyeonggi, and Silla's king, Munmu, sent a tribute mission to the Tang court, apologizing for their past behavior. However, the Tang control could not be maintained, as they had to once again withdraw most of their troops from the peninsula to send them against the Tibetan kingdom once more.  As soon as they did so, Silla once again renewed their attacks on Tang forces on the peninsula.  And so, a year later, in 676, the Tang forces were back.  They crossed the Yellow Sea to try and take back the Tang territories on the lower peninsula, but they were unsuccessful.  Tang forces were defeated by Silla at Maeso Fortress in modern day Yeoncheon.  After a bit more fighting, Silla ended up in control of all territory south of the Taedong River, which runs through Pyongyang, one of the ancient capitals of Goguryeo and the capital of modern North Korea.  This meant that the Tang dynasty still held much of the territory of Goguryeo under their control. With everything that was going on, perhaps that explains some of the apparently defensive measures that Yamato continued to take.  For example, the second lunar month of 675, we know that Ohoama proceeded to Takayasu castle, likely as a kind of formal inspection.  Then, in the 10th lunar month of 675 Ohoama commanded that everyone from the Princes down to the lowest rank were to provide the government with weapons.  A year later, in the 9th month of 676, the Princes and Ministers sent agents to the capital and the Home Provinces and gave out weapons to each man.  Similar edicts would be issued throughout the reign.  So in 679 the court announced that in two years time, which is to say the year 681, there would be a review of the weapons and horses belonging to the Princes of the Blood, Ministers, and any public functionaries.  And in that same year, barrier were erected for the first time on Mt. Tatsta and Mt. Afusaka, along with an outer line of fortifications at Naniwa. While some of that no doubt also helped to control internal movements, it also would have been useful to prepare for the possibility of future invasions.  And the work continued.  In 683  we see a royal command to all of the various provinces to engage in military training.  And in 684 it was decreed at that there would be an inspection in the 9th month of the following year—685—and they laid out the ceremonial rules, such as who would stand where, what the official clothing was to look like, etc.  Furthermore, there was also an edict that all civil and military officials should practice the use of arms and riding horses.  They were expected to supply their own horses, weapons, and anything they would wear into battle. If they owned horses, they would be considered cavalry soldiers, while those who did not have their own horse would be trained as infantry.  Either way, they would each receive training, and the court was determined to remove any obstacles and excuses that might arise.   Anyone who didn't comply would be punished.  Non compliance could mean refusing to train, but it could also just mean that they did not provide the proper horses or equipment, or they let their equipment fall into a state of disrepair.  Punishments could range from fines to outright flogging, should they be found guilty.  On the other hand, those who practiced well would have any punishments against them for other crimes reduced by two degrees, even if it was for a capital crime.  This only applied to previous crimes, however—if it seemed like you were trying to take advantage of this as a loophole to be able to get away with doing your own thing than the pardon itself would be considered null and void. A year later, the aforementioned inspection was carried out by Princes Miyatokoro, Hirose, Naniwa, Takeda, and Mino.  Two months later, the court issued another edict demanding that military equipment—specifically objects such as large or small horns, drums, flutes, flags, large bows, or catapults—should be stored at the government district house and not kept in private arsenals.  The "large bow" in this case may be something like a ballista, though Aston translates it to crossbow—unfortunately, it isn't exactly clear, and we don't necessarily have a plethora of extant examples to point to regarding what they meant.  Still, these seem to be focused on things that would be used by armies—especially the banners, large bows, and catapults.  The musical instruments may seem odd, though music was often an important part of Tang dynasty military maneuvers.  It was used to coordinate troops, raise morale, provide a marching rhythm, and more.  Granted, much of this feels like something more continental, and it is unclear if music was regularly used in the archipelago.  This could be more of Yamato trying to emulate the Tang dynasty rather than something that was commonplace on the archipelago.  That might also explain the reference to the Ohoyumi and the catapults, or rock throwers. All of this language having to do with military preparations could just be more of the same as far as the Sinicization of the Yamato government is concerned; attempts to further emulate what they understood of the civilized governments on the mainland—or at least their conception of those governments based on the various written works that they had imported.  Still, I think it is relevant that there was a lot of uncertainty regarding the position of various polities and the potential for conflict.  Each year could bring new changes to the political dynamic that could see military intervention make its way across the straits.  And of course, there was always the possibility that Yamato itself might decide to raise a force of its own. Throughout all of this, there was continued contact with the peninsula and other lands.  Of course, Silla and Goguryeo were both represented when Ohoama came to the throne—though only the Silla ambassador made it to the ceremony, apparently.  In the 7th lunar month of 675, Ohotomo no Muraji no Kunimaro was sent to Silla as the Chief envoy, along with Miyake no Kishi no Irishi.  They likely got a chance to witness first-hand the tensions between Silla and the Tang court.  The mission would return in the second lunar month of the following year, 676.  Eight months later, Mononobe no Muarji no Maro and Yamashiro no Atahe no Momotari were both sent.  That embassy also returned in the 2nd lunar month of the following year. Meanwhile, it wasn't just Yamato traveling to Silla—there were also envoys coming the other way.  For example, in the 2nd lunar month of 675 we are told that Silla sent Prince Chyungweon as an ambassador.  His retinue was apparently detained on Tsukushi while the actual envoy team went on to the Yamato capital.  It took them about two months to get there, and then they stayed until the 8th lunar month, so about four months in total. At the same time, in the third month, Goguryeo and Silla both sent "tribute" to Yamato.  And in the 8th month, Prince Kumaki, from Tamna, arrived at Tsukushi as well.  Tamna, as you may recall, refers to nation on the island known today as Jeju.  The late Alexander Vovin suggested that the name originated from a proto-Japonic cognate with "Tanimura", and many of the names seem to also bear out a possible Japonic influence on the island nation. Although they only somewhat recently show up in the Chronicles from our perspective, archaeological evidence suggests that they had trade with Yayoi Japan and Baekje since at least the first century.  With the fall of Baekje, and the expansion of Yamato authority to more of the archipelago, we've seen a notable uptick in the communication between Tamna and Yamato noted in the record.  A month after the arrival of Prince Kumaki in Tsukushi, aka Kyushu, it is noted that a Prince Koyo of Tamna arrived at Naniwa.  The Tamna guests would stick around for almost a year, during which time they were presented with a ship and eventually returned in the 7th lunar month of the following year, 676.   Tamna envoys, who had also shown up in 673, continued to be an annual presence at the Yamato court through the year 679, after which there is an apparent break in contact, picking back up in 684 and 685. 676 also saw a continuation of Silla representatives coming to the Yamato court, arriving in the 11th lunar month.  That means they probably passed by the Yamato envoys heading the other way.  Silla, under King Mumnu, now had complete control of the Korean peninsula south of the Taedong river.  In the same month we also see another mission from Goguryeo, but the Chronicle also points out that the Goguryeo envoys had a Silla escort, indicating the alliance between Silla and those attempting to restore Goguryeo—or at least the area of Goguryeo under Tang control.  The Tang, for their part, had pulled back their commandary to Liaodong, just west of the modern border between China and North Korea, today.  Goguryeo would not go quietly, and the people of that ancient kingdom—one of the oldest on the peninsula—would continue to rise up and assert their independence for years to come. The chronicles also record envoys from the somewhat mysterious northern Mishihase, or Sushen, thought to be people of the Okhotsk Sea culture from the Sakhalin islands.  There were 11 of them, and they came with the Silla envoys, possibly indicating their influence on the continent and through the Amur river region.  Previously, most of the contact had been through the regions of Koshi and the Emishi in modern Tohoku and Hokkaido.  This seems to be their only major envoy to the Yamato court recorded in this reign. Speaking of outside groups, in the 2nd lunar month of 677 we are told that there was an entertainment given to men of Tanegashima under the famous Tsuki tree west of Asukadera.  Many people may know Tanegashima from the role it played in the Sengoku Period, when Europeans made contact and Tanegashima became a major hub of Sengoku era firearm manufacturing.  At this point, however, it seems that it was still a largely independent island in the archipelago off the southern coast of Kyushu.  Even southern Kyushu appears to have retained some significant cultural differences at this time, with the "Hayato" people being referenced in regards to southern Kyushu—we'll talk about them in a bit as they showed up at the capital in 682.  Tanegashima is actually closer to Yakushima, another island considered to be separate, culturally, from Yamato, and could be considered the start of the chain of islands leading south to Amami Ohoshima and the other Ryukyuan islands.  That said, Tanegashima and Yakushima are much closer to the main islands of the archipelago and show considerable influence, including Yayoi and Kofun cultural artifacts, connecting them more closely to those cultures, even if Yamato initially saw them as distinct in some way. A formal Yamato envoy would head down to Tanegashima two years later, in the 11th lunar month of 679.  It was headed up by Yamato no Umakahibe no Miyatsuko no Tsura and Kami no Sukuri no Koukan.  The next reference to the mission comes in 681, when the envoys returned and presented a map of the island.  They claimed that it was in the middle of the ocean, and that rice was always abundant. With a single sowing of rice it was said that they could get two harvests.  Other products specifically mentioned were cape jasmine and bulrushes, though they then note that there were also many other products that they didn't bother to list.  This must have been considered quite the success, as the Yamato envoys were each awarded a grade of rank for their efforts.   They also appear to have returned with some of the locals, as they were entertained again in Asuka—this time on the riverbank west of Asukadera, where various kinds of music were performed for them. Tanegashima and Yakushima would be brought formally under Yamato hegemony in 702 with the creation of Tane province, but for now it was still considered separate.  This was probably just the first part of the efforts to bring them into Yamato, proper. Getting back to the Silla envoys who had arrived in 676, they appear to have remained for several months.  In the third lunar month of 677 we are told that they, along with guests of lower rank—thirteen persons all told—were invited to the capital.  Meanwhile, the escort envoys and others who had not been invited to the capital were entertained in Tsukushi and returned from there. While this was going on, weather out in the straits drove a Silla boat to the island of Chikashima.  Aboard was a Silla man accompanined by three attendants and three Buddhist priests.  We aren't told where they were going, but they were given shelter and when the Silla envoy, Kim Chyeonpyeong, returned home he left with those who had been driven ashore, as well. The following year, 678, was not a great one for the Silla envoys.  Garyang Jyeongsan and Gim Hongsye arrived at Tsukushi, but they were just the escorts.  The actual envoys had been separated by a storm at sea and never arrived.  In their place, the escort envoys were sent to the capital, probably to at least carry through with the rituals of diplomacy.  This was in the first month of the following year, 679, and given when envoys had previously arrived, it suggests to me that they waited a few months, probably to see if the envoys' ship eventually appeared and to give the court time to figure out what to do.  A month later, the Goguryeo envoys arrived, still being accompanied by Silla escorts, also arrived. Fortunately the Yamato envoys to Silla and elsewhere fared better.  That year, 679, the envoys returned successfully from Silla, Goguryeo, and Tamna.  Overall, though, I think it demonstrates that this wasn't just a pleasure cruise.  There was a very real possibility that one could get lost at sea.  At the same time, one needed people of sufficient status to be able to carry diplomatic messages and appropriately represent the court in foreign lands.  We often seen envoys later taking on greater positions of responsibility in the court, and so you didn't have to go far to find those willing to take the risk for later rewards. That same year, another tribute mission from Silla did manage to make the crossing successfully.  And in this mission we are given more details, for they brought gold, silver, iron, sacrificial cauldrons with three feet, brocade, cloth, hides, horses, dogs, mules, and camels.  And those were just the official gifts to the court.  Silla also sent distinct presents for the sovereign, the queen, and the crown prince, namely gold, silver, swords, flags, and things of that nature. This appears to demonstrate increasingly close ties between Silla and Yamato. All of that arrived in the 10th lunar month of 679, and they stayed through the 6th lunar month of 680—about 7 to 9 months all told, depending on if there were any intercalary months that year.  In addition to entertaining the Silla envoys in Tsukushi—it is not mentioned if they made it to the capital—we are also told that in the 2nd lunar month, halfway through the envoys' visit, eight labourers from Silla were sent back to their own country with gifts appropriate to their station. Here I have to pause and wonder what exactly is meant by this.  "Labourer" seems somewhat innocuous.  I suspect that their presence in Yamato may have been less than voluntary, and I wonder if these were captured prisoners of war who could have been in Yamato now for over a decade.  If so, this could have been a gesture indicating that the two sides were putting all of that nastiness with Baekje behind them, and Yamato was accepting Silla's new role on the peninsula.  Or maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it does seem to imply that Silla and Yamato were growing closer, something that Yamato would need if it wanted to have easy access, again, to the wider world. Speaking of returning people, that seems to have been something of a common thread for this year, 680, as another mission from Goguryeo saw 19 Goguryeo men also returned to their country.  These were condolence envoys who had come to mourn the death of Takara Hime—aka Saimei Tennou.  They must have arrived in the midst of all that was happening peninsula, and as such they were detained.  Their detention is somewhat interesting, when you think about it, since technically Baekje and Goguryeo—and thus Yamato—would have been on the same side against the Silla-Tang alliance.  But perhaps it was just considered too dangerous to send them home, initially, and then the Tang had taken control of their home.  It is unclear to me how much they were being held by Yamato and how much they were just men without a country for a time.  This may reflect how things on the mainland were stabilizing again, at least from Yamato's perspective.  However, as we'll discuss a bit later, it may have also been another attempt at restoring the Goguryeo kingdom by bringing back refugees, especially if they had connections with the old court.  The Goguryeo envoys—both the recent mission and those who had been detained—would remain until the 5th lunar month of 681, when they finally took their leave.  That year, there were numerous mission both from and to Silla and Goguryeo, and in the latter part of the year, Gim Chyungpyeong came once again, once more bearing gives of gold, silver, copper, iron, brocade, thin silk, deerskins, and fine cloth.  They also brought gold, silver, flags of a rosy-colored brocade and skins for the sovereign, his queen, and the crown prince. That said, the 681 envoys also brought grave news:  King Munmu of Silla was dead.  Munmu had reigned since 661, so he had overseen the conquest of Silla and Goguryeo.  His regnal name in Japanese might be read as Monmu, or even "Bunbu", referencing the blending of literary and cultural achievements seen as the pinnacle of noble attainment.  He is known as Munmu the Great for unifying the peninsula under a single ruler—though much of the Goguryeo territory was still out of reach.  Indeed he saw warfare and the betterment of his people, and it is no doubt significant that his death is recorded in the official records of the archipelago.   He was succeeded by his son, who would reign as King Sinmun, though the succession wasn't exactly smooth. We are told that Munmu, knowing his time was short, requested that his son, the Crown Prince, be named king before they attended to Munmu's own funerary arrangements, claiming that the throne should not sit vacant.  This may have been prescient, as the same year Munmu died and Sinmun ascended to the throne there was a revolt, led by none other than Sinmun's own father-in-law, Kim Heumdol.  Heumdol may, himselve, have been more of a figurehead for other political factions in the court and military.  Nonetheless, the attempted coup of 681 was quickly put down—the envoys in Yamato would likely only learn about everything after the dust had settled upon their return. The following year, 682, we see another interesting note about kings, this time in regards to the Goguryeo envoys, whom we are told were sent by the King of Goguryeo.  Ever since moving the commandery to Liaodong, the Tang empire had claimed dominion over the lands of Goguryeo north of the Taedong river.  Originally they had administered it militarily, but in 677 they crowned a local, Bojang as the "King of Joseon", using the old name for the region, and put him in charge of the Liaodong commandery.  However, he was removed in 681, and sent into exile in Sichuan, because rather than suppressing revolt, he had actually encouraged restoration attempts, inviting back Goguryeo refugees, like those who had been detained in Yamato.  Although Bojang himself was sent into exile, his descendants continued to claim sovereignty, so it may have been one of them that was making the claim to the "King of Goguryeo", possibly with Silla's blessing. Later that year, 682, we see Hayato from Ohosumi and Ata—possibly meaning Satsuma—the southernmost point of Kyushu coming to the court in 682.  They brought tribute and representatives of Ohosumi and Ata wrestled, with the Ohosumi wrestler emerging victorious.  They were entertained west of Asukadera, and various kinds of music was performed and gifts were given. They were apparently quite the sight, as Buddhist priests and laiety all came out to watch. Little is known for certain about the Hayato.  We have shields that are attributed to them, but their association may have more to do with the fact that they were employed as ceremonial guards for a time at the palace.  We do know that Southern Kyushu had various groups that were seen as culturally distinct from Yamato, although there is a lot of overlap in material culture.  We also see early reports of the Kumaso, possibly two different groups, the Kuma and So, in earlier records, and the relationship between the Kumaso and the Hayato is not clearly defined. What we do know is that southern Kyushu, for all that it shared with Yamato certain aspects of culture through the kofun period, for example, they also had their own traditions. For example, there is a particular burial tradition of underground kofun that is distinct to southern Kyushu.  A great example of this can be found at the Saitobaru Kofun cluster in Miyazaki, which contains these unique southern Kyushu style burials along with more Yamato style keyhole shaped and circular type kofun.  Miyazaki sits just north of the Ohosumi peninsula, in what was formerly the land of Hyuga, aka  Himuka.  This is also where a lot of the founding stories of the Heavenly grandchild were placed, and even today there is a shrine there to the Heavenly Rock Cave.  In other words there are a lot of connections with Southern Kyushu, and given that the Chronicles were being written in the later 7th and early 8th centuries, it is an area of intense interest when trying to understand the origins of Yamato and Japanese history. Unfortunately, nothing clearly tells us exactly how the Hayato were separate, but in the coming century they would both come under Yamato hegemony and rebel against it, time and again.  This isn't the first time they are mentioned, but it may be the first time that we see them as an actual people, in a factual entry as earlier references in the Chronicles are suspect. Continuing on with our look at diplomacy during this period, the year 683 we see a continuation of the same patterns, with nothing too out of the ordinary.  Same with most of 684 until the 12th lunar month.  It is then that we see a Silla ship arrive with Hashi no Sukune no Wohi and Shirawi no Fubito no Hozen.  They had both, previously been to the Tang empire to study, though we don't have a record of them leaving for that or any other purpose.  They are accompanied by Witsukahi no Muraji no Kobito and Tsukushi no Miyake no Muraji no Tokuko, both of whom had apparently been captured and taken by the Tang dynasty during the Baekje campaign.  Apparently they had all traveled back from the Tang empire together to Silla, who then provided them passage to Yamato. The timing of this suggests it may have had something to do with the changes going on in the Tang empire—changes that I desperately want to get into, but given that we are already a good ways into this current episode, I think I will leave it for later.  But I will note this:  Emperor Gaozong had passed away and his wife, Empress Wu Zetian, was now ruling as regent for her sons.  Wu Zetian is probably the most famous empress in all of Chinese history, and while she held de facto power as a co-regent during her husband's reign and as a regent during her sons' reigns, she would actually ascend the throne herself in 690.  Her reign as a woman during a time of heightened patriarchal tradition is particularly of note, and it leads us to wonder about the vilification that she received by the men who followed her rule.  And I really want to get into all of that but, thematically, I think it better to wait.  Those of you reading ahead in the syllabus—which is to say the Chronicles—probably know why.  So let us just leave it there and say that the Tang was going through a few things, and that may explain why students were returning back in the company of former war captives. A few months later, the Silla escort, Gim Mulyu, was sent home along with 7 people from Silla who had been washed ashore—presumably during a storm or other such event, again illustrating the dangers of taking to the ocean at this time.  Perhaps related to that theme is the entry only a month later, which merely stated that Gim Jusan of Silla returned home.  Gim Jusan was an envoy sent to Yamato in the 11th lunar month of 683.  He was entertained in Tsukushi, and we are told that he returned to his own country on the 3rd month of 684.  Now we are seeing an entry in the 4th month of 685 that this same person apparently returned home. It is possible that something got mixed up, and that the Chroniclers were dealing with a typo in the records that made it seem like this took place a year later than it did.  This was certainly an issue at this time, given all the math one had to do just to figure out what day it was.  There is also the possibility that he returned on another embassy, but just wasn't mentioned for some reason.  The last possible explanation is that he somehow got lost and it took him a year to find his way back.  Not entirely impossible back then, though I am a bit skeptical.  Among other things, why would that note have found its way into the Chronicles in Yamato?  While they were certainly using some continental sources, this seems like something they were talking about as far as him leaving the archipelago, rather than discussion of something happening elsewhere. Speaking of happening elsewhere, I'm wondering about another event that happened around this time as well.  In fact, it was while Gim Mulyu was still in the archipelago.  For some reason the Yamato court granted rank to 147 individuals from Tang, Baekje, and Goguryeo.  Interestingly, they don't mention Silla.  Furthermore, there is no real mention of any Tang envoys during this reign.  In fact, there is hardly mention of the Tang dynasty at all.  There is a mention of some 30 Tang men—captives, presumably—being sent to the Yamato court from Tsukushi.  Those men were settled in Toutoumi, so there were men of Tang in the archipelago.  But beyond that, there are only three other mentions of the Tang dynasty.  One was when the students and war captives came back.  Another was this note about giving rank to 147 individuals.  Finally there is a similar record in 686, at the very end of the reign, where it is 34 persons who were given rank.  This time it was to carpenters, diviners, physicians, students from Tang—possibly those who had just come back a year or so earlier.  So if there weren't envoys from Tang, Goguryeo, and Baekje, who were these people and why were they being granted Yamato court rank?  My assumption is that it was foreigners living in the archipelago, and being incorporated into the Yamato court system.  Still, it is interesting that after the overtures by the Tang in the previous reign we have heard virtually nothing since then.  Again, that is likely largely due to the conflicts between Tang and Silla, though now, things seem to be changing.  The conflicts have settled down, and new rulers are in place, so we'll see how things go. Speaking of which, let's finish up with the diplomatic exchanges in this reign.  I'm only hitting some of the highlights here.  First is the return from Silla, in the 5th month of 685, of Takamuku no Asomi no Maro and Tsuno no Asomi no Ushikahi.  They had traveled to Silla in 684, and they did not come back emptyhanded.  The new King of Silla presented them with gifts, including 2 horses, 3 dogs, 2 parrots, and 2 magpies.  They also brought back the novice monks Kanjou and Ryoukan.  Not bad, overall. Then, 6 months later, another tribute mission came, but this one has an interesting—if somewhat questionable—note attached to it.  It is said that the envoys Gim Jisyang and Gim Geonhun were sent to request "governance" and to bring tribute.  This certainly go the court's attention.  They didn't bring the envoys all the way to the capital, but they did send to them, in Tsukushi, Prince Kawachi, Ohotomo no Sukune no Yasumaro, Fujiwara no Asomi no Ohoshima, and Hodzumi no Asomi no Mushimaro. About three months later they send the musical performers from Kawaradera to provide entertainment during a banquet for the Silla envoy, and in payment some 5,000 bundles of rice rom the private lands attached to the queen's palace were granted to the temple in gratitude. The Silla tribute was then brought to the capital from Tsukushi.  This time it was more than 100 items, including one fine horse, one mule, two dogs, a gold container inlaid with some kind of design, gold, silver, faint brocade, silk gauze, tiger and leopard skins, and a variety of medicines.  In addition, as was now common, the envoys, Gim Jisyang and Gim Geonhun, apparently had personal gifts to give in the form of gold, silver, faint brocade, silk gauze, gold containers, screens, saddle hides, silk cloth, and more medicine.  There were also gifts specifically for the sovereign, the queen, the Crown Prince, and for the various princes of the blood. The court returned this favor with gifts to the envoys, presented at a banquet just for them, before sending them on their way. A couple of notes.  First off, it is interesting that they are entertained at Tsukushi rather than being invited to the capital, and I wonder if this was because the sovereign, Ohoama, wasn't doing so well.  This was all happening in 685 and 686, and the sovereign would pass away shortly afterwards.  So it is possible that Ohoama just was not up to entertaining visitors at this time.  Of course, the Chronicles often don't tell us exactly why a given decision was made, only that it was.  And sometimes not even that. The other thing that seems curious is the mention of a request for governance.  That almost sounds like Silla was asking to come under Yamato hegemony, which I seriously doubt.  It may be that they were asking something along the lines of an alliance, but it is also possible that the scribes recording things for Yamato heard what they wanted to hear and so wrote it down in the light most favorable to Yamato laying claim to the peninsula. Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding exactly what they were asking for.  Maybe "governance" here means something else—perhaps just some kind of better relationship. And with that, we'll leave it for now.  There is more developing in the next reign, but I think we want to wait until we get there.  There are still a lot more things to cover in this reign before we move on—we haven't even touched on the establishment of the new capital, on the various court events, not to mention some of the laws and punishments that this period is named for.  And there is the minor issue of a rebellion.  All of that will be dealt with.  And then, after that, we get to the final reign of the Chronicles: the reign of Jitou Tennou.  From there?  Who knows. It is the winter holiday season, so I hope everyone is enjoying themselves.  Next episode will be the New Year's recap, and then we should finish with this reign probably in January or early February. 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.

(Over the last 6 months, we have been on an uphill battle to get episodes up. We noticed there were a few episodes that never hit Spotify or other platforms, so we are posting them now!)Episode 385“In this episode, Caleb “Soleb '' Gayle and co-host discuss some of the latest gaming news and More!” “What have you Been Gaming?”Show introduction, this used to be called “what you've been drinking and gaming” but …who has time for that now?“The 2ND Opinion”Is Ghost of Yotei as Good as Tsushima?*THE GAMING MILL*“This is where we will discuss all the latest news.”1. Microsoft delays Xbox Game Pass Ultimate price hikes for some subscribershttps://www.theverge.com/news/794032/microsoft-xbox-game-pass-ultimate-price-changes-countries 2. Call of Duty Black Ops 7 VS. Battlefield 6

Foomanchu gives us the breakdown of Ghost of Tsushima. A podcast by gamers for the gaming community. Join us each week as we talk new games, old games, AAA and Indie. No drama. No guilt. Games, a little real life and community. Gaming is an all inclusive world.Find us onhttps://twitter.com/3rdfactionshowhttps://twitter.com/MsListra https://bsky.app/profile/mslistra.bsky.social and Twitch.tv/Mslistrahttps://twitter.com/RPGamer4life and Twitch.tv/RPGovanDiscord Serverhttps://discord.gg/jNYr9mVNN7You can email the show onthethirdfactionshow@gmail.comPatreonhttps://www.patreon.com/cw/thethirdfactionshow

The Blerds are back bringing you all of their thoughts on everything happening in nerd culture. This week, Shannon, Jaja and James discuss a variety of topics including the biggest news of the delay of GTA 6 yet again. They also discuss Nintendo's upcoming titles for the Switch 2, the restructuring and layoffs at Square Enix, and the impact of AI on game development. They also touch on issues surrounding digital game ownership, the ongoing console wars between Xbox and PlayStation, and the announcement of a new animated spin-off of Stranger Things. Additionally, they discuss the upcoming season of Jujutsu Kaisen, casting news for One Piece, and the future of Funko Pops in the collectibles market. 00:00-Introduction to Nerd Culture 02:47-Anime Discussions: Gachiyakuta and More 05:46-Gaming Adventures: Ninja Gaiden 4 and Astro Bot 08:13-Stranger Things and Manga Updates 11:04-Anime and Gaming: One Punch Man and Ghost of Tsushima 13:51-Weather Talk and Comic Book Collecting 16:43-Reading Adventures: Hunger Games and Chainsaw Man 19:32-Video Game News: GTA 6 Delayed Again 22:20-The Impact of Game Delays 27:58-The Future of Marvel Games 29:57-Cloud Gaming on the Portal 32:12-Nintendo's Upcoming Releases 36:42-Square Enix Layoffs and AI Integration 42:24-The Debate on Game Ownership and Accessibility 44:24-Console Wars: The PlayStation Portal vs. ROG Ally 48:58-Fanboy Wars and Community Dynamics 49:52-Stranger Things: Animation and Spin-Offs 53:47-Anime News: Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 56:55-Live Action Adaptations: One Piece Casting 58:03-The Decline of Funko Pops 01:05:39-The Future of Collectibles   Make sure to subscribe to us on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your podcast app of choice!   Follow Us!  https://linktr.ee/blerdsnerds National Resources List https://linktr.ee/NationalResourcesList Youtube  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK56I-TNUnhKhcWLZxoUTaw Email us: Blerdsnerds@gmail.com Follow Our Social: https://www.instagram.com/blerdsnerds/ https://twitter.com/BlerdsNerds https://www.facebook.com/blerdsnerds https://tiktok.com/blerdsnerds_pod Shannon: https://www.instagram.com/luv_shenanigans James: https://www.instagram.com/llsuavej  Jaja: https://www.instagram.com/jajasmith3 

Last time we spoke about the Changsha fire. Chiang Kai-shek faced a brutal choice: defend Wuhan to the last man or flood the land to slow the invaders. He chose both, pushing rivers and rallying a fractured army as Japanese forces pressed along the Yangtze. Fortresses at Madang held long, but the cost was high—troops lost, civilians displaced, a city's heart burning in the night. Wuhan fell after months of brutal fighting, yet the battle did not break China's will. Mao Zedong urged strategy over martyrdom, preferring to drain the enemy and buy time for a broader struggle. The Japanese, though victorious tactically, found their strength ebbing, resource strains, supply gaps, and a war that felt endless. In the wake of Wuhan, Changsha stood next in the Japanese crosshairs, its evacuation and a devastating fire leaving ash and memory in its wake. Behind these prices, political currents swirled. Wang Jingwei defected again, seeking power beyond Chiang's grasp, while Chongqing rose as a western bastion of resistance. The war hardened into a protracted stalemate, turning Japan from an aggressive assailant into a wary occupier, and leaving China to endure, persist, and fight on.   #175  The Soviet-Japanese Border Conflicts Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. So based on the title of this one, you probably can see we are taking a bit of a detour. For quite some time we have focused on the Japanese campaigns into China proper 1937-1938. Now the way the second sino-japanese war is traditionally broken down is in phases. 1937-1938, 1939-1942 and 1942-1945. However there is actually even more going on in China aside from the war with Japan. In Xinjiang province a large full blown Islamic revolution breaks out in 1937. We will be covering that story at a later date, but another significant event is escalating border skirmishes in Manchukuo. Now these border skirmishes had been raging ever since the USSR consolidated its hold over the far east. We talked about some of those skirmishes prior to the Sino-Soviet war in 1929. However when Japan created the puppet government of Manchukuo, this was a significant escalation in tensions with the reds. Today we are going to talk about the escalating border conflicts between the Soviets and Japan. A tongue of poorly demarcated land extends southeast from Hunchun, hugging the east bank of the Tumen River between Lake Khasan to the east and Korea to the west. Within this tongue stands Changkufeng Hill, one of a long chain of highlands sweeping from upstream along the rivers and moors toward the sea. The twin-peaked hill sits at the confluence area several miles northwest of the point where Manchuria, Korea, and the Russian Far East meet. The hill's shape reminded Koreans of their changgo, which is a long snare drum constricted at the center and tapped with the hands at each end. When the Manchus came to the Tumen, they rendered the phonetic sounds into three ideographic characters meaning "taut drum peaks" or Chang-ku-feng. The Japanese admired the imagery and preserved the Chinese readings, which they pronounce Cho-ko-ho. From their eastern vantage, the Russians called it Zaozernaya, "hill behind the lake." Soviet troops referred to it as a sugar-loaf hill. For many years, natives and a handful of officials in the region cultivated a relaxed attitude toward borders and sovereignty. Even after the Japanese seized Manchuria in 1931, the issue did not immediately come to a head. With the expansion of Manchukuo and the Soviet Far East under Stalin's Five-Year plans, both sides began to attend more closely to frontier delimitation. Whenever either party acted aggressively, force majeure was invoked to justify the unexpected and disruptive events recognized in international law. Most often, these incidents erupted along the eastern Manchurian borders with the USSR or along the 350-mile frontier south of Lake Khanka, each skirmish carrying the seeds of all-out warfare. Now we need to talk a little bit about border history. The borders in question essentially dated to pacts concluded by the Qing dynasty and the Tsardom. Between the first Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 and the Mukden Agreement of 1924, there were over a dozen accords governing the borders. Relevant to Changkufeng were the basic 15-article Convention of Peking, supplementing the Tientsin Treaties of November 1860, some maps made in 1861, and the eight-article Hunchun Border Protocol of 1886. By the 1860 treaty, the Qing ceded to Tsarist Russia the entire maritime province of Siberia, but the meaning of "lands south of Lake Khanka" remained rather vague. Consequently, a further border agreement was negotiated in June 1861 known as "the Lake Khanka Border Pact", by which demarcations were drawn on maps and eight wooden markers erected. The border was to run from Khanka along ridgelines between the Hunchun River and the sea, past Suifenho and Tungning, terminating about 6 miles from the mouth of the Tumen. Then a Russo-Chinese commission established in 1886 drew up the Hunchun Border Pact, proposing new or modified markers along the 1860–1861 lines and arranging a Russian resurvey. However, for the Japanese, in 1938, the Chinese or Manchu texts of the 1886 Hunchun agreement were considered controlling. The Soviets argued the border ran along every summit west of Khasan, thereby granting them jurisdiction over at least the eastern slopes of all elevations, including Changkufeng and Shachaofeng.  Since the Qing dynasty and the house of Romanov were already defunct, the new sovereignties publicly appealed to opposing texts, and the Soviet side would not concede that the Russian-language version had never been deemed binding by the Qing commissioners. Yet, even in 1938, the Japanese knew that only the Chinese text had survived or could be located.    Now both the Chinese and Russian military maps generally drew the frontier along the watershed east of Khasan; this aligned with the 1861 readings based on the Khanka agreement. The Chinese Republican Army conducted new surveys sometime between 1915 and 1920. The latest Chinese military map of the Changkufeng area drew the border considerably closer to the old "red line" of 1886, running west of Khasan but near the shore rather than traversing the highland crests. None of the military delimitations of the border was sanctified by an official agreement. Hence, the Hunchun Protocol, whether well known or not, invaluable or worthless, remained the only government-to-government pact dealing with the frontiers.  Before we jump into it, how about a little summary of what became known as the Soviet-Japanese border conflicts. The first major conflict would obviously be the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. Following years of conflict between the Russian Empire and Japan culminating in the costly Battle of Tsushima, Tsar Nicholas II's government sought peace, recognizing Japan's claims to Korea and agreeing to evacuate Manchuria.  From 1918 to 1920, the Imperial Japanese Army, under Emperor Taishō after the death of Meiji, assisted the White Army and Alexander Kerensky against the Bolshevik Red Army. They also aided the Czechoslovak Legion in Siberia to facilitate its return to Europe after an Austrian-Hungarian armoured train purportedly went astray. By 1920, with Austria-Hungary dissolved and Czechoslovakia established two years earlier, the Czechoslovak Legion reached Europe. Japan withdrew from the Russian Revolution and the Civil War in 1922. Following Japan's 1919-1920 occupations and the Soviet intervention in Mongolia in 1921, the Republic of China also withdrew from Outer Mongolia in 1921. In 1922, after capturing Vladivostok in 1918 to halt Bolshevik advances, Japanese forces retreated to Japan as Bolshevik power grew and the postwar fatigue among combatants increased. After Hirohito's invasion of Manchuria in 1931–1932, following Taishō's death in 1926, border disputes between Manchukuo, the Mongolian People's Republic, and the Soviet Union increased. Many clashes stemmed from poorly defined borders, though some involved espionage. Between 1932 and 1934, the Imperial Japanese Army reported 152 border disputes, largely tied to Soviet intelligence activity in Manchuria, while the Soviets accused Japan of 15 border violations, six air intrusions, and 20 cases of "spy smuggling" in 1933 alone. Numerous additional violations followed in the ensuing years. By the mid-1930s, Soviet-Japanese diplomacy and trust had deteriorated further, with the Japanese being openly labeled "fascist enemies" at the Seventh Comintern Congress in July 1935. Beginning in 1935, conflicts significantly escalated. On 8 January 1935, the first armed clash, known as the Halhamiao incident, took place on the border between Mongolia and Manchukuo. Several dozen cavalrymen of the Mongolian People's Army crossed into Manchuria near disputed fishing grounds and engaged an 11‑man Manchukuo Imperial Army patrol near the Buddhist temple at Halhamiao, led by a Japanese military advisor. The Manchukuo Army sustained 6 wounded and 2 dead, including the Japanese officer; the Mongols suffered no casualties and withdrew after the Japanese sent a punitive expedition to reclaim the area. Two motorized cavalry companies, a machine‑gun company, and a tankette platoon occupied the position for three weeks without resistance. In June 1935, the first direct exchange of fire between the Japanese and Soviets occurred when an 11‑man Japanese patrol west of Lake Khanka was attacked by six Soviet horsemen, reportedly inside Manchukuo territory. In the firefight, one Soviet soldier was killed and two horses were captured. The Japanese requested a joint investigation, but the Soviets rejected the proposal. In October 1935, nine Japanese and 32 Manchukuoan border guards were establishing a post about 20 kilometers north of Suifenho when they were attacked by 50 Soviet soldiers. The Soviets opened fire with rifles and five heavy machine guns. Two Japanese and four Manchukuoan soldiers were killed, and another five were wounded. The Manchukuoan foreign affairs representative lodged a verbal protest with the Soviet consul at Suifenho. The Kwantung Army of Japan also sent an intelligence officer to investigate the clash. On 19 December 1935, a Manchukuoan unit reconnoitering southwest of Buir Lake clashed with a Mongolian party, reportedly capturing 10 soldiers. Five days later, 60 truck‑borne Mongolian troops assaulted the Manchukuoans and were repulsed, at the cost of three Manchukuoan dead. On the same day, at Brunders, Mongolian forces attempted three times to drive out Manchukuoan outposts, and again at night, but all attempts failed. Further small attempts occurred in January, with Mongolians using airplanes for reconnaissance. The arrival of a small Japanese force in three trucks helped foil these attempts; casualties occurred on both sides, though Mongolian casualties are unknown aside from 10 prisoners taken. In February 1936, Lieutenant-Colonel Sugimoto Yasuo was ordered to form a detachment from the 14th Cavalry Regiment to "drive the Outer Mongol intruders from the Olankhuduk region," a directive attributed to Lieutenant-General Kasai Heijuro. Sugimoto's detachment included cavalry guns, heavy machine guns, and tankettes. They faced a force of about 140 Mongolians equipped with heavy machine guns and light artillery. On February 12, Sugimoto's men drove the Mongolians south, at the cost of eight Japanese killed, four wounded, and one tankette destroyed. The Japanese began to withdraw, but were attacked by 5–6 Mongolian armored cars and two bombers, which briefly disrupted the column. The situation was stabilized when the Japanese unit received artillery support, allowing them to destroy or repel the armored cars. In March 1936, the Tauran incident occurred. In this clash, both the Japanese Army and the Mongolian Army deployed a small number of armored fighting vehicles and aircraft. The incident began when 100 Mongolian and six Soviet troops attacked and occupied the disputed village of Tauran, Mongolia, driving off the small Manchurian garrison. They were supported by light bombers and armored cars, though the bombing sorties failed to inflict damage on the Japanese, and three bombers were shot down by Japanese heavy machine guns. Local Japanese forces counter-attacked, conducting dozens of bombing sorties and finally assaulting Tauran with 400 men and 10 tankettes. The result was a Mongolian rout, with 56 Mongolian soldiers killed, including three Soviet advisors, and an unknown number wounded. Japanese losses were 27 killed and 9 wounded. Later in March 1936, another border clash occurred between Japanese and Soviet forces. Reports of border violations prompted the Japanese Korean Army to send ten men by truck to investigate, but the patrol was ambushed by 20 Soviet NKVD soldiers deployed about 300 meters inside territory claimed by Japan. After suffering several casualties, the Japanese patrol withdrew and was reinforced with 100 men, who then drove off the Soviets. Fighting resumed later that day when the NKVD brought reinforcements. By nightfall, the fighting had ceased and both sides had pulled back. The Soviets agreed to return the bodies of two Japanese soldiers who had died in the fighting, a development viewed by the Japanese government as encouraging. In early April 1936, three Japanese soldiers were killed near Suifenho in another minor affray. This incident was notable because the Soviets again returned the bodies of the fallen servicemen. In June 1937, the Kanchazu Island incident occurred on the Amur River along the Soviet–Manchukuo border. Three Soviet gunboats crossed the river's center line, disembarked troops, and occupied Kanchazu Island. Japanese forces from the IJA 1st Division, equipped with two horse-drawn 37 mm artillery pieces, quickly established improvised firing positions and loaded their guns with both high-explosive and armor-piercing shells. They shelled the Soviet vessels, sinking the lead gunboat, crippling the second, and driving off the third. Japanese troops subsequently fired on the swimming crewmen from the sunken ships using machine guns. Thirty-seven Soviet soldiers were killed, while Japanese casualties were zero. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs protested and demanded the Soviet forces withdraw from the island. The Soviet leadership, apparently shocked by the incident and reluctant to escalate, agreed to evacuate their troops. By 1938 the border situation had deteriorated. The tangled terrain features, mountain, bog, stream, forest, and valley, would have complicated even careful observers' discernment of the old red line drawn in 1886. Fifty years later, the markers themselves had undergone a metamorphosis. Japanese investigators could find, at most, only 14 to 17 markers standing fairly intact between the Tumen estuary and Khanka—roughly one every 25 miles at best. The remainder were missing or ruined; five were found in new locations. Marker "K," for example, was 40 meters deeper inside Manchuria, away from Khanka. Japanese military experts noted that of the 20 markers originally set along the boundaries of Hunchun Prefecture alone, only four could be found by the summer of 1938. The rest had either been wrecked or arbitrarily moved and discarded by Russian or Chinese officials and inhabitants. It is even said that one missing marker could be seen on display in Khabarovsk. The Chinese had generally interpreted the boundary as the road line just west of Khasan, at least in practice. Free road movement, however, had become a problem even 20 years before the Japanese overran Manchuria in 1931–1932 during the so-called Manchurian Incident. The Japanese adopted, or inherited, the Chinese interpretation, which was based on the 1886 agreement on border roads; the key clause held that the frontier west of Khasan would be the road along the lake. Japanese sources emphasize that local residents' anger toward gradual Soviet oppression and penetrations westward into Manchurian territory fueled the conflict. Many natives believed the original boundaries lay east of the lake, but the Soviets adjusted the situation to suit their own convenience. In practice, the Russians were restricting road use just west of Khasan by Manchurian and Korean residents. There was speculation that this was a prelude to taking over the ridgelines, depending on the reaction of the Manchukuoan–Japanese side. Villagers who went to streams or the lake to launder clothing found themselves subjected to sniper fire. Along a 25-mile stretch of road near Shachaofeng, farmers reported coming under fire from new Soviet positions as early as November 1935. Nevertheless, Japanese and Koreans familiar with the Tumen area noted agrarian, seasonal Korean religious rites atop Changkufeng Hill, including fattened pigs sacrificed and changgo drums beaten. Village elders told Japanese visitors in 1938 that, until early the preceding year, no Russians had come as far as Changkufeng Hill. Looking only at the border sector around Changkufeng, the easy days were clearly behind us. In the summer of 1938, Gaimusho "Foreign Ministry" observers described the explosive situation along the Korea–Manchuria–USSR borders as a matter of de facto frontiers. Both sides pressed against each other, and their trigger-happy posture was summed up in the colloquial refrain: "Take another step and we'll let you have it." Near dawn on 13 June 1938, a Manchurian patrol detected a suspicious figure in the fog swirling over Changlingtzu Hill on the Siberian–Manchurian frontier. Challenged at 15 feet, the suspect hurled two pistols to the ground and raised his hands in surrender. At headquarters, the police soon realized this was no routine border-trespassing case. The man was a defector and he was a Russian general, in fact he was the director of all NKVD forces in the Soviet Far East. Beneath a mufti of spring coat and hunting cap, he wore a full uniform with medals. His identification card No. 83 designated him as G. S. Lyushkov, Commissar 3rd Class, countersigned by Nikolai Yezhov, NKVD head in Moscow. Lyushkov was promptly turned over to the Japanese military authorities, who transferred him to Seoul and then to Tokyo under close escort. On 1 July, the Japanese press was permitted to disclose that Lyushkov had sought refuge in Japan. Ten days later, to capitalize on the commissar's notoriety and to confound skeptics, the Japanese produced Lyushkov at a press conference in Tokyo. For the Japanese and foreign correspondents, who met separately with him, Lyushkov described Soviet Far East strength and the turmoil wracking the USSR, because for those of you unfamiliar this was during the Stalinist purges. Clearly, the Japanese had gained a unique reservoir of high-level intelligence and a wealth of materials, including notes scratched in blood by suspects incarcerated at Khabarovsk. A general tightening of Russian frontier security had recently been reported. Natives of Fangchuanting asserted that a Soviet cavalry patrol appeared in June, seemingly for the first time. Contact with Yangkuanping, northwest of Khasan, was severed. More importantly, Japanese Army Signal Corps intelligence detected a surge of Soviet message traffic from the Posyet Bay district. After Lyushkov's defection, a drastic reshuffle in the local Russian command apparently occurred, and responsibility for border surveillance seems to have been reallocated. Japanese records indicate that the Novokievsk security force commander was relieved and the sector garrison replaced by troops from Vladivostok. Gaimusho intelligence also received reports that a border garrison unit had been transferred from Khabarovsk or Chita to the Tumen sector. The Kwantung Army signal monitors also intercepted two significant frontline messages on 6 July from the new Russian local commander in the Posyet region, addressed to Lieutenant General Sokolov in Khabarovsk. Decoded, the messages suggested (1) that ammunition for infantry mortars amounted to less than half the required supply; and  (2) a recommendation that higher headquarters authorize Russian elements to secure certain unoccupied high ground west of Khasan.  The commander noted terrain advantages and the contemplated construction of emplacements that would command Najin and the Korean railway. As a start, at least one Russian platoon should be authorized to dig in on the highest ground (presumably Changkufeng) and deploy four tons of entanglements to stake out the Soviet claim. Korea Army Headquarters received a telegram from the Kwantung Army on 7 July conveying the deciphered messages. On the same day, the 19th Division in North Korea telephoned Seoul that, on 6 July, three or four Soviet horsemen had been observed reconnoitering Manchurian territory from atop a hill called Changkufeng. The alarming intelligence from the Kwantung Army and the front warranted immediate attention by the Korea Army. Some Kwantung Army officers doubted the significance of the developments, with one intelligence official even suggesting the Russian messages might be a deliberate ploy designed to entrap the Japanese at Changkufeng. On 7–8 July, all staff officers in Seoul convened at army headquarters. The name of Changkufeng Hill was not well known, but maps and other data suggested that neither the Japanese nor the Russians had previously stationed border units in the ridge complex west of Khasan. As early as March 1936, Army Commander Koiso Kuniaki had distributed maps to subordinate units, indicating which sectors were in dispute. No patrol was to enter zones lacking definitive demarcation. Until then, the only Japanese element east of the Tumen was a Manchurian policeman at Fangchuanting. Ownership of the high ground emerged as an early issue. A number of other points were raised by  the Kwantung Army: At present, Soviet elements in the area were negligible. The intrusion must not be overlooked. The Russians could be expected to exploit any weakness, and half-measures would not suffice, especially regarding the Japanese defense mission along a 125-mile frontier. In Japanese hands, Changkufeng Hill would be useful, but two excellent observation posts already existed in the neighboring sector of the Manchurian tongue. With dissidence and purges underway, the Russians may have judged it necessary to seal border gaps, particularly after Lyushkov's defection. They may also have sought to control Changkufeng to offset Japanese dominance of the high ground to the north. Soviet seizure of Changkufeng would upset the delicate status quo and could provoke a contest for equivalent observation posts. In broader terms, it mattered little whether the Russians sought a permanent observation post on Changkufeng Hill, which was of relatively minor strategic value. Japan's primary concern lay in the China theater; Changkufeng was peripheral. The Japanese should not expend limited resources or become distracted. The matter required consultation with the high command in Tokyo. In the absence of more comprehensive intelligence, the assembled staff officers concluded that the Korea Army should, at a minimum, ignore or disregard Soviet actions for the time being, while maintaining vigilant observation of the area. The consensus was communicated to Major General Kitano Kenzo, the Korea Army chief of staff, who concurred, and to Koiso. Upon learning that the recommendation advocated a low posture, Koiso inquired only whether the opinion reflected the unanimous view of the staff. Having been assured that it did, he approved the policy. Koiso, then 58, was at the threshold of the routine personnel changes occurring around 15 July. He had just been informed that he would retire and that General Nakamura Kotaro would succeed him. Those acquainted with Koiso perceived him as treating the border difficulties as a minor anticlimax in the course of his command tour. He appeared unemphatic or relaxed as he prepared to depart from a post he had held for twenty-one years. Although neither Koiso nor his staff welcomed the Soviet activities that appeared under way, his reaction likely reflected a reluctance to make decisions that could constrain his soon-to-arrive successor. On 8 July Koiso authorized the dispatch of warnings to the 19th Division at Nanam, to the Hunchun garrison, and to the intelligence branch at Hunchun. These units were instructed to exercise maximum precautions and to tighten frontier security north of Shuiliufeng. In response to the initial appearance of Soviet horsemen at Changkufeng, the Kucheng Border Garrison Unit of the 76th Infantry Regiment maintained close surveillance across the Tumen. By about noon on 9 July, patrols detected approximately a dozen Russian troops commencing construction atop Changkufeng. Between 11 and 13 July, the number of soldiers on the slopes increased to forty; there were also thirty horses and eleven camouflaged tents. Operating in shifts on the western side, thirty meters from the crest, the Russians erected barbed wire and firing trenches; fifty meters forward, they excavated observation trenches. In addition to existing telephone lines between Changkufeng, Lake Khasan, and Kozando, the Russians installed a portable telephone net. Logistical support was provided by three boats on the lake. Approximately twenty kilometers to the east, well within Soviet territory, large forces were being mobilized, and steamship traffic into Posyet Bay intensified. Upon learning of the "intrusion" at Changkufeng on 9 July, Lt. General Suetaka Kamezo, the commander of the 19th Division, dispatched staff officers to the front and prepared to send elements to reinforce border units.  The special significance of Suetaka and his division stemmed from a series of unusual circumstances. Chientao Province, the same zone into which Lyushkov had fled and the sector where Soviet horsemen had appeared, fell within Manchukuo geographically and administratively. Yet, in terms of defense, the configuration of the frontier, the terrain, and the transportation network more closely connected the region with North Korea than with southeastern Manchuria. Approximately 80% of the population was of Korean origin, which implied Japanese rather than Manchukuoan allegiance. Consequently, the Korea Army had been made operationally responsible for the defense of Chientao and controlled not only the three-battalion garrison at Hunchun but also the intelligence detachment located there. In the event of war, the Korea Army's mission was defined as mobilization and execution of subsidiary operational tasks against the USSR, under the control and in support of the Kwantung Army.  The Korea Army ordinarily possessed two infantry divisions, the 19th in North Korea and the 20th stationed at Seoul, but the 20th Division had already departed for China, leaving only the 20th Depot Division in the capital. Beyond sparse ground units, devoid of armor and with weak heavy artillery, there were only two air regiments in Korea, the nearest being the unit at Hoeryong. The Korea Army was designed to maintain public security within Korea as well as fulfill minimal defensive responsibilities. Such an army did not require a full-time operations officer, and none was maintained. When needed, as in mid-1938, the task fell to the senior staff officer, in this case Colonel Iwasaki Tamio. In peacetime, training constituted the primary focus.  Thus, the 19th Division was entrusted with defending northeastern Korea. Its commander, Suetaka, a seasoned infantryman, resented the fact that his elite force had never engaged in combat in China. He intensified training with zeal, emphasizing strict discipline, bravery, aggressiveness, and thorough preparation. Japanese veterans characterized him as severe, bullish, short-tempered, hot-blooded, highly strung, unbending, and stubborn. Nonetheless, there was widespread respect for his realistic training program, maintained under firm, even violent, personal supervision. His men regarded Suetaka as a professional, a modern samurai who forged the division into superb condition. Privately, he was reputed for sensitivity and warmth; a Japanese phrase "yakamashii oyaji" captures the dual sense of stern father and martinet in his character. At the outset, however, Suetaka displayed little aggression. Although not widely known, he did not welcome the orders from army headquarters to deploy to the Tumen. Until late July, he remained somewhat opposed to the notion of dislodging the Soviets from the crest, a proposition arising from neither the division staff nor, initially, Suetaka himself. Colonel Sato noted that, for a week after reports of Soviet excavation at Changkufeng, the division's response was limited to preparations for a possible emergency, as they perceived the matter as a local issue best settled through diplomacy. Korea Army officers acknowledged that, around the time the Soviets consolidated their outpost strength at Changkufeng, an informal and personal telegram arrived in Seoul from a Kwantung Army Intelligence field-grade officer who specialized in Soviet affairs. If the Korea Army hesitated, the Kwantung Army would be obliged to eject the Russians; the matter could not be ignored. While the telegram did not demand a reply and struck several officers as presumptuous and implausible, the message was promptly shown to Koiso. Koiso was driven to immediate action, he wired Tokyo asserting that only the Korea Army could and would handle the incident. One staff officer recalled "We felt we had to act, out of a sense of responsibility. But we resented the Kwantung Army's interference." The Korea Army staff convened shortly after receipt of the unofficial telegram from Hsinking. Based on the latest intelligence from the division dated 13 July, the officers prepared an assessment for submission to the army commander. The hypotheses were distilled into three scenarios: The USSR, or the Far East authorities, desires hostilities. Conclusion: Slightly possible. The USSR seeks to restrain Japan on the eve of the pivotal operations in China: the major Japanese offensive to seize Hankow. Conclusion: Highly probable. The Posyet district commander is new in his post; by occupying the Changkufeng ridges, he would demonstrate loyalty, impress superiors, and seek glory. Conclusion: Possible. Late on 13 July or early on 14 July, Koiso approved the dispatch of a message to the vice minister of war, and the Kwantung Army chief of staff:  "Lake Khasan area lies in troublesome sector USSR has been claiming . . . in accordance with treaties [said Secret Message No. 913], but we interpret it to be Manchukuoan territory, evident even from maps published by Soviet side. Russian actions are patently illegal, but, considering that area does not exert major or immediate influence on operations [Japan] is intending and that China Incident is in full swing, we are not going to conduct counterattack measures immediately. This army is thinking of reasoning with Soviets and requesting pullback, directly on spot. . . . In case Russians do not accede in long run, we have intention to drive Soviet soldiers out of area east of Khasan firmly by use of force."  The message concluded with a request that the Tokyo authorities lodge a formal protest with the USSR, on behalf of Manchukuo and Japan, and guide matters so that the Russians would withdraw quickly. Dominant in Japanese high command thinking in 1938 was the China theater; the Changkufeng episode constituted a mere digression. A sequence of Japanese tactical victories had preceded the summer: Tsingtao fell in January; the Yellow River was reached in March; a "reformed government of the Republic of China" was installed at Nanking several weeks later; Amoy fell in early May; Suchow fell on the 20th. With these gains, northern and central fronts could be linked by the Japanese. Yet Chinese resistance persisted, and while public statements anticipated imminent Chinese dissension, private admissions acknowledged that the partial effects of Suchow's fall were ominous: control might pass from Chiang Kai-shek to the Communists, Chinese defiance might intensify, and Soviet involvement could ensue. A Hankow drive appeared desirable to symbolize the conclusion of the military phase of hostilities. The Japanese and their adversaries were in accord regarding the importance of the summer and autumn campaigns. Even after Suchow's fall, the government discouraged public insinuations that enemy resistance was collapsing; when Chiang addressed the nation on the first anniversary of hostilities, Premier Konoe prophetically proclaimed, "The war has just begun." Colonel Inada Masazum served as the Army General Staff's principal figure for the Changkufeng affair, occupying the position of chief of the 2nd Operations Section within the Operations Bureau in March 1938. A distinguished graduate of the Military Academy, Inada completed the War College program and held a combination of line, instructional, and staff assignments at the War College, the Army General Staff, and the War Ministry. He was recognized as a sharp, highly capable, and driveful personality, though some regarded him as enigmatic. Following the capture of Suchow, Imperial General Headquarters on 18 June ordered field forces to undertake operational preparations for a drive to seize the Wuhan complex. Inada favored a decisive move aimed at achieving a rapid political settlement. He acknowledged that Soviet intervention in 1938, during Japan's involvement in China, would have been critical. Although Japanese forces could still defeat the Chinese, an overextended Japanese Army might be fatally compromised against the Russians. Soviet assistance to China was already pronouncedly unwelcome. The Soviets were reported to possess roughly 20 rifle divisions, four to five cavalry divisions, 1,500 tanks, and 1,560 aircraft, including 300 bombers with a range of approximately 3,000 kilometers, enabling reach from Vladivostok to Tokyo. Soviet manpower in Siberia was likely near 370,000. In response, Japanese central authorities stressed a no-trouble policy toward the USSR while seeking to "wall off" the border and bolster the Kwantung Army as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, the envisaged correction of the strategic imbalance could not occur before 1943, given shortages in ammunition, manpower, and materiel across existing theaters in China. By the end of 1937 Japan had committed 16 of its 24 divisions to China, bringing the standing force to roughly 700,000. Army General Staff planners reallocated three ground divisions, intended for a northern contingency, from north to central China, even as the Kwantung Army operated from a less favorable posture. Attitudes toward the northern problem varied within senior military circles. While concern persisted, it was not universal. As campaigns in China widened, planning at the high command level deteriorated, propagating confusion and anxiety to field armies in China. The Japanese Navy suspected that the Army general staff was invoking the USSR as a pretext for broader strategic aims—namely, to provoke a more consequential confrontation with the USSR while the Navy contended with its own strategic rivalries with the Army, centered on the United States and Britain. Army leaders, however, denied aggressive intent against the USSR at that time. The Hankow plan encountered substantial internal opposition at high levels. Private assessments among army planners suggested that a two-front war would be premature given operational readiness and troop strength. Not only were new War Ministry officials cautious, but many high-ranking Army general staff officers and court circles shared doubts.  Aggressive tendencies, influenced by subordinates and the Kwantung Army, were evident in Inada, who repeatedly pressed Tada Shun, the deputy army chief of staff, to endorse the Wuhan drive as both necessary and feasible, arguing that the USSR would gain from Japan's weakening without incurring substantial losses. Inada contended that Stalin was rational and that time favored the USSR in the Far East, where industrial buildup and military modernization were ongoing. He argued that the Soviet purges impeded opportunistic ventures with Japan. He posited that Nazi Germany posed a growing threat on the western front, and thus the USSR should be avoided by both Japan, due to China and Russia, due to Germany. While most of the army remained engaged in China, Tada did not initially share Inada's views; only after inspecting the Manchurian borders in April 1938 did he finally align with Inada's broader vision, which encompassed both northern and Chinese considerations. During this period, Inada studied daily intelligence from the Kwantung Army, and after Lyushkov's defection in June, reports suggested the Soviets were following their sector commander's recommendations. Russian troops appeared at Changkufeng, seemingly prepared to dig in. Inada recollects his reaction: "That's nice, my chance has come." I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The simmering Soviet–Japanese border clashes centered on Changkufeng Hill near Lake Khanka, set within a broader history of contested frontiers dating to Qing and Tsarist treaties. Japan, prioritizing China, considered Changkufeng peripheral but ready to confront Soviet encroachment; Moscow aimed to consolidate border gains, with high-level war planning overlaying regional skirmishes. Conflict loomed over Manchuria.

Time sure is moving, but has a sufficient amount of it passed for us to start considering the next generation of PlayStation console? According to two reliable leakers, the answer is yes: Sony is very much aiming to get PS6 out in 2027. This makes sense by historical standards -- seven years between consoles is fairly normal, if not even a little slow -- but it really doesn't feel like we need this thing. Or do we? By 2027, who knows what our ecosystem might look like. Let's discuss! Plus: Legendary Tecmo director and producer Tomonobu Itagakai has sadly passed away, Sony-owned studio Bluepoint is hiring for a mysterious third-person action project, San Diego Studio appears primed to finally bring its smash-hit MLB: The Show series to PC, Ghost of Yotei is selling at parity with Ghost of Tsushima, we could have very easily gotten a mobile The Last of Us game, and more. Then: Listener inquiries! Do we like to partake in New Game+, when applicable? With Xbox's displacement as a hardware competitor, is Sony and Nintendo's long-standing rivalry primed to be reignited? Why don't we talk more about the fighting scene? Will Dustin regale us with some of his Japanese language skills? Please keep in mind that our timestamps are approximate, and will often be slightly off due to dynamic ad placement. 0:00:00 - Intro0:38:55 - Shoutout Saxon0:43:38 - Eloping in Vegas0:54:26 - Dagster check in?0:55:44 - 今週何個の瓶を埋めたか教えてください0:57:31 - RIP Tomonobu Itagaki1:07:17 - PlayStation 6 in 20271:44:10 - Bluepoint hiring for a 3rd person melee action game1:53:40 - Ghost of Yotei sales similar to Tsushima , Suckerpunch can only do one game at a time2:05:41 - MLB: The Show coming to PC?2:12:13 - Tencent pitched a mobile Last of Us2:24:34 - PSVR2 controller for sale2:32:23 - Fans revive ModNation Racers2:36:49 - Quantic Dream reveals multiplayer game2:48:20 - Remedy's FBC Firebreak is in the red2:57:15 - Build A Rocket Boy in trouble3:01:13 - New PS+ games3:08:23 - What We're Playing (Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost of Yotei, Battlefield 6, Lumines Arise)3:53:35 - Why is New Game+ late?3:58:58 - Why isn't Nintendo competition?4:06:34 - Video game betting4:14:01 - What do we want from a PlayStation handheld?4:19:03 - Why aren't we into fighting games? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With Jeff out on vacation, Christian welcomes developers and friends, Alex Sulman and Daanish Syed to the show this week to discuss Quantic Dream's upcoming multiplayer game, the Horizon: Zero Dawn movie coming in 2027, the passing of an industry legend, and more! The Playlist: Alex: Keeper, Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, Ghost of Tsushima, Lego Voyagers Daanish: Ghost of Yōtei, The Midnight Walk, Slots and Daggers Christian: Ghost of Yōtei,  Pokémon Legends: Z-A Parting Gifts!

Follow The Trophy Room Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pstrophyroom Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/2PglU1a Discord: https://discord.gg/wPNp3kC -------- TimeStamps! Intro - 00:00 - 16:14 Ghost Sales - 19:00 Bluepoint's Next Game - 39:43 PS6 set to Release in 2027 - 48:25 The Outer Worlds 2 Interview - 01:05:35 -------- This week on the show, we break down the latest PlayStation and industry headlines — starting with Ghost of Yotei's massive debut across Europe, matching the launch success of Ghost of Tsushima and becoming Sony's biggest first-party hit since Spider-Man 2. We then dive into Sucker Punch's future as a single-project studio, Bluepoint's new third-person action game (is it Bloodborne Remake or God of War-related?), and fresh reports that the PlayStation 6 could launch in 2027. Plus, Silent Hill 2, Until Dawn (PS5), and Yakuza: Like a Dragon join the PlayStation Plus lineup, while Halo remake leaks and The Outer Worlds 2 devs drop fresh insights. All that and more on this week's deep dive into the world of PlayStation and beyond!  

In this one, Eddie and Jerry talk knowing when you were in trouble as a kid, Jerry loves Ghost of Tsushima, why could it not be a Star Wars game?, Eddie has some dope Marvel Legends figures and so much more... Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're a regular purchaser of games, you're a stark minority within the very industry you know and love. We've known all about the revenue-related trends directing games as of late, but recent data indicates things are far more dire than they seem, particularly if you're a single player purist. For instance, a third of gaming consumers purchase less than one game a year; 12% buy one game a year; 18% buy two games a year. Only 14% of players buy at least one game a month! Yet, there's more money flowing than ever. Like, lots more. What gives? A migration of customers and their habits, of course! We discuss. Other news this week includes a brief Mark Cerny video celebrating Sony's collaboration with AMD for PlayStation 6, the reemergence of Marathon with invites to an NDA'd closed test, the bluest DualSense controller you could possibly imagine, rumors of a cancelled Reconstruction-era Assassin's Creed, and more. Then: Listener inquiries! Could Sony be on the precipice of adding to its family of first party studios? Is there a potential unfilled niche for medical-themed titles? Does PlayStation need to spin-up a new loyalty program? Forget about your favorite color. What's your favorite shape? Download the PrizePicks app and use code SACRED to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 Please keep in mind that our timestamps are approximate, and will often be slightly off due to dynamic ad placement. 0:00:00 - Intro0:37:16 - Strange places to listen to Sacred0:41:27 - Ben Debate0:52:43 - Favorite shape0:58:31 - Mark Cerny appears!1:09:26 - New player purchasing data1:29:11 - New Marathon technical test coming1:49:59 - New early PlayStation lore1:58:37 - New blue Dualsense2:03:38 - PlayStation Concert cancelled2:10:25 - Cancelled Assassin's creed leaked2:33:10 - Expedition 33 sells over 5 million, new content coming2:35:40 - New Circana data2:43:33 - Top PSN downloads2:47:34 - PowerWash Simulator 2 release date and Mina the Hollower delayed2:54:28 - What We're Playing (Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost of Yotei, Baby Steps, Mario Galaxy)3:27:58 - SIE and Sword of the Sea?3:31:39 - Will Rockstar innovate gameplay in GTA VI3:37:38 - What's the end point of live service?3:42:44 - What do "fans" want?3:55:38 - PlayStation Stars still floating around3:59:19 - Where are the medical games? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week's big release is Ghost of Yotei, which brings back one of our favorite features from its predecessor, Ghost of Tsushima: the adorable foxes that lead you to Inari Shrines. These furry friends are essentially collectibles, which got us thinking about other games that let you collect animals. After that, we give our impressions of Ghost of Yotei and other big new releases, including The Super Mario Galaxy Collection, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, and Digimon Story: Time Stranger. Then we talk about that Nintendo teaser animation and other news of the week.  Question of the Week: What is a spin-off game that got you into the main series? Break Song is "Animal" by Pearl Jam Vidjagame Apocalypse theme by Matthew Joseph Payne.

Ben, Matt James, and Justin Charity break down the bombshell news about Electronic Arts being sold for $55 billion, Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass price hike, and the showdown between ‘Battlefield' and ‘Call of Duty.' Then Ben, Matt, and Daniel Chin share their spoiler-free reviews of the new spiritual sequel to ‘Ghost of Tsushima,' the PlayStation 5 exclusive ‘Ghost of Yotei.' EA is being acquired (01:43) Microsoft Xbox Game Pass price increase (14:04) 'Call of Duty' vs. 'Battlefield' (28:29) 'Ghost of Yotei' reactions (35:58) Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Matt James, Justin Charity, and Daniel Chin Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Besties were mixed on 2020's Ghost of Tsushima, but have found a lot to love in its new sequel, Ghost of Yotei. What makes this open-world Sony-exclusive stand out? Plus, Griffin updates the group on the brilliant remake of Final Fantasy Tactics. And we make some time to pick through the mailbag! Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

What if the keys to becoming a better CEO were hiding in the way you show up as a father? In this episode of The Game Changing Attorney Podcast, Michael and Jessica Mogill shift from strategy to storytelling and get personal. From showing up as mystery readers in their daughter's classroom to rewatching KPop Demon Hunters on repeat, Michael shares how fatherhood has shaped his values, his leadership, and the legacy he wants to leave. He also talks about the video games that shaped his mindset and reveals the surprising ways he uses AI in his personal life to improve his health, habits, and decision-making. Here's what you'll learn: Why choosing presence over productivity can create more impact in the long run What Michael's favorite video games say about how he thinks, leads, and solves problems How AI helps him stay sharp, build better routines, and prepare for his next triathlon A straightforward look at how Michael approaches parenting, hobbies, and personal development. ---- 01:45 – Why reading to a first-grade class was more nerve-wracking than speaking at a Summit 03:37 – The books Michael and Jessica chose, and what they taught the kids about mindset and choices 04:27 – Why being a mystery reader matters more than missing a meeting 06:03 – What Michael has learned from being a girl dad 12:22 – Michael's top video games of all time and what they reveal about how he thinks 19:54 – Why hobbies like gaming are critical for high performers 20:15 – How Michael uses AI to improve decisions, habits, and health 24:45 – The key ingredient that makes AI actually valuable in your personal life Links & Resources: The Power to Choose Amelia Bedelia American Kingpin by Nick Bilton  The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow The Road by Cormac McCarthy Video Games Chrono Trigger The Last of Us  Half-Life Cyberpunk 2077 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Red Dead Redemption 2 Death Stranding 2 Expedition 33 Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Ghost of Tsushima 2 Call of Duty TV & Film Mr. Robot  Children of Men The Road (film adaptation) Blade Runner AI Tools & Technology ChatGPT (OpenAI) Gemini (Google) Grok (xAI) Claude (Anthropic) ---- Do you love this podcast and want to see more game changing content? Subscribe to our YouTube channel. ---- Past guests on The Game Changing Attorney Podcast include David Goggins, John Morgan, Alex Hormozi, Randi McGinn, Kim Scott, Chris Voss, Kevin O'Leary, Laura Wasser, John Maxwell, Mark Lanier, Robert Greene, and many more. ---- If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like: 394. How to Grow Without Losing Culture (Or Your Sanity) with Varghese Summersett 389. AMMA — Stop Fixing $5 Problems and Start Solving $1M Ones 332. Cliff Bleszinski — What the Legal Industry Can Learn From the Gaming Industry