The Execution of an Immoral Soldier — Kyoto, April 1569
Oil on canvas, 72.7 × 60.6 cm, 2011-2022, M.Tsushima
Nobunaga, as a new ruler in Kyoto, kept his troops in order; the occupation force shall not offend any citizen. Not a petty misdemeanor shall be overlooked. The punishment he gave to an immoral soldier was of utmost severity.
Background
Kyoto was in chaos before Nobunaga marched his army to Kyoto in October 1568. There, he supported Ashikaga Yoshiaki to be enthroned to Shogun to stabilize the government. But just three months later, on 31 January 1569, the hostile warlords, Miyoshi Triumvirate, attacked the Shogun who was besieged in Honkokuji Temple. Though the Shogun managed to defend against the enemy attacks, Nobunaga thought the Honkokuji Temple not strong enough to secure the Shogun.
So, on 12 February 1569, Nobunaga embarked on the construction of a fortified palace for the Shogun[1]. He engaged 25,000 workers[2] from 14 provinces[3] in the construction. Spectators were allowed to see the building, while Nobunaga directed the construction himself.
One day at the construction site, Nobunaga saw a soldier tried playfully to look at a noble lady's face and raised her hat a little. Then in front of the spectators, Nobunaga immediately decapitated him.
Accounts
Luis Frois(1532-1597), a Jesuit missionary, writes[2]:
Since feudal lords and all nobles in Japan gathered to be engaged in the construction, it is said, usually 25,000 men worked, 15,000 at the least. Nobunaga, holding a hand plane in his hand, directed the work.
Nobunaga almost always wrapped his waist with a tiger skin, and dressed in poor clothes. Most of all the nobles and vassals, following his example, wore a leather dress for labor. During the construction work, no one came out in front of him in a beautiful court-style costume.
Those who wished to see the architecture, either men or women, were given the freedom to pass in front of him (Nobunaga) without taking off the sandals.
By the way, when a soldier once tried playfully to look at a noble lady's face and raised her hat a little while doing the construction work, Nobunaga happened to witness it and in front of the audience immediately decapitated him.
Venue
The palace Nobunaga built for Ashikaga Yoshiaki was at Nijo, the second avenue of Kyoto. So, the palace was later called the Old Nijo Castle. It was at the different site from the present Nijo Castle which was built by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603. The place Nobunaga chose was adjacent to the today's Kyoto Imperial Palace.
It was the place where Ashikaga Yoshiaki's brother, the 13th shogun Ashikaga Yoshitel, had been building a palace five years earlier, in 1564, but before its completion Yoshitel was killed by the attack of Miyoshi Triumvirate.
The new palace should be strongly fortified. The moats were enlarged and stone walls were newly built.
The Nijo Palace Nobunaga built in 1569 was demolished by Nobunaga seven years later, in 1576, after he drove out Ashikaga Yoshiaki who had rebelled against Nobunaga in 1573. The moats were filled. The stones were removed. The timber structures were moved away to Azuchi where Nobunaga was building his new castle. So, there are no remnants of the palace today on the ground. The excavations conducted in 1992, 1993 and 2012 found the evidence of moats that indicates that the area of the palace was around 400 m × 400 m square, that matches the description of Luis Frois[4].
The Construction of the Shogun's Palace
The construction of the Shogun's palace started on 12 February 1569. Nobunaga engaged 25,000 workers from 14 provinces in the construction.
Nobunaga directed the construction himself. In order to shorten the construction time, Nobunaga ordered Buddhist temples in Kyoto to supply materials. Alters, statues of Buddha were destroyed to be used for stone walls. From Honkokuji Temple, where Ashikaga Yoshiaki resided, luxurious rooms, with artworks like gilded folding screens, were dismantled and moved to the Nijo Palace where the rooms were reconstructed[2].
Nobunaga made the construction not a mere work, but a festival. In order to build a rock garden, he collected rocks from nobles' mansions and Buddhist temples. A famous rock called Fujito-Ishi was carried from Hosokawa Akimoto's house. It was covered with twill damask and brocade, decorated with various flowers, pulled by a lot of thick ropes. Three to four thousands men moved the rock while cheered up by a music band[1]. Other famous rocks and trees were collected from in and out of Kyoto. Cherry trees were planted at a horse stable[3].
The construction attracted many people. During Nobunaga's sojourn in Kyoto for three months, a noble Yamashina Tokitsugu visited Nobunaga several times to celebrate the construction. It was also at this time Luis Frois saw Nobunaga for the first time. He writes about Nobunaga:
He was medium-height, slender, with a thin beard and a good voice, extremely fond of war, enthusiastic about military discipline, honorable, and strict in justice.
The Execution of an Immoral Soldier
Thus, thousands of workers from remote provinces and local people in Kyoto gathered together in the construction site. While the workers were all or mostly men, among the local people was a noble woman, who might possibly be there without her husband. Women in Japan in those days seemed liberated, at least in terms of going out. Luis Frois writes about Japanese women of the day[5]:
In Europe, a wife cannot leave the house without her husband's permission. Japanese women have the freedom to go wherever they like without telling their husbands.
Noble women while going out wore a hat with strips of cloth hung from the rim, called ichimegasa, in order to veil their face. Among the soldiers deployed at the construction site was a guy who wanted to see her face. He perhaps did not notice Nobunaga who was so humbly dressed that he did not look like a warlord. In the sight of Nobunaga, the soldier raised the noble woman's hat a little. Nobunaga did not forgive him; he deserved exemplary punishment.
There is no account which shows who the noble woman was, how old she was. But that does not matter to Nobunaga, who, according to Frois, was strict in justice. He immediately beheaded the soldier in front of the audience.
References
[1] 言継卿記 第４ 永禄十二年正月二十七日 p157/327, 山科言継
[2] 日本史, Luis Frois
[3] 信長公記, 太田牛一
[4] 『言継卿記』・『信長公記』から見た京都の城, 金沢大学考古学紀要 36 2015, 57-70, 馬瀬 智光
[5] 日欧文化比較, Luis Frois
[6] 洛中洛外図屏風 上杉本, 狩野永徳, 1565
Nobunaga On Canvas https://nobunagaoncanvas.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-execution-of-immoral-soldier-kyoto.html
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