Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/242

 castle in Tamba, Mitsuhide induced its holders, two brothers, to surrender by giving his mother as a hostage that their lives should be spared. But Nobunaga ordered the two men to be burned at the stake. Their followers then inflicted the same fate on Mitsuhide's mother, and Mitsuhide avenged her by rebelling against Nobunaga and compassing his death. So, too, the value of family relations was recognised in the celebrated campaign which the Kamakura men undertook against Kyōtō at the instance of Masa, Yoritomo's widow. In order to guard against disaffection at the eleventh hour, a danger not to be slighted inasmuch as the war was virtually a rebellion against the Emperor, the Kamakura chiefs divided their soldiers so that, if a father went with the army, his son remained in Kamakura, and if one brother was despatched to the south, another stayed in the north.

Neglect of family ties in deference to fealty was a respectable act compared with the unnatural sacrifices made at the shrine of ambition. From the time (1156) when, in the Hōgen insurrection, two brothers fought against two brothers, a father against his son, and a nephew against his uncle, the annals are disfigured by many such incidents. Yoritomo destroyed his brothers, his uncle, and his cousin. His widow Masa did her step-son to death. Nobunaga waged war with his father-in-law and his brother-in-law. Takeda Harunobu fought against his father,