Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/44

 But Masashige, appreciating the helplessness of a direct conflict, would have resorted to stratagem: he proposed to strike at Takauji's line of communications. This wise counsel being derided as cowardice by the Court nobles, who knew nothing of warfare, Masashige gathered seven hundred of his stanchest followers and struck full at the huge phalanx of the enemy. Six hundred and fifty of the brave band fell fighting, and Masashige with the remaining fifty committed suicide on the banks of the Minato River. Thereafter Yoshisada's army was easily routed, and Takauji re-entered Kyōtō.

The Emperor now fled to a monastery and Takauji nominated his successor. There was no arbitrary exercise of king-making power: Takauji merely set up the junior Imperial line in lieu of the senior. Democratic as was the spirit of the northern captains, they did not venture to openly flout the national traditions of the sovereign's divine right. In the desultory struggle that ensued there is only one phase worthy of special attention. It is the conduct of the Emperor Godaigo. Invited by Takauji to return to Kyōtō on the slender plea that the Ashikaga had fought against the Imperial followers, not against the Imperial person, Godaigo left his son and his faithful general, Nitta Yoshisada, disregarded his promises to them, and abandoned himself to a life of safety under the shadow of the Ashikaga. Yoshisada, with a little band of seven hundred