The Gosannen War (後三年合戦, ''gosannen kassen''), also known as the Later Three-Year War, was fought in the late 1080s in Japan's Mutsu Province on the island of

Honshū , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the seventh-largest island in the world, and the second-most populous after the Indonesian ...

History

The Gosannen War was part of a long struggle for power within the warrior clans of the time. The ''Gosannen kassen'' arose because of a series of quarrels within the

Kiyohara clan The was a powerful clan of the far north of Japan during the Heian period, descended from Prince Toneri, son of Emperor Tenmu (631–686). Kiyohara no Fusanori (9th century) had two sons: the elder was the ancestor of the samurai branch fam ...

(sometimes referred to as "Kiyowara"). The long-standing disturbances were intractable. When Minamoto no Yoshiie, who became Governor of Mutsu province in 1083, tried to calm the fighting which continued between

Kiyohara no Masahira The was a powerful clan of the far north of Japan during the Heian period, descended from Prince Toneri, son of Emperor Tenmu (631–686). Kiyohara no Fusanori (9th century) had two sons: the elder was the ancestor of the samurai branch fam ...

, Iehira, and Narihira. Negotiations were not successful; and so Yoshiie used his own forces to stop the fighting. He was helped by

Fujiwara no Kiyohira was a samurai of mixed Japanese- Emishi parentage of the late Heian period (794–1185), who was the founder of the Hiraizumi or Northern Fujiwara dynasty that ruled Northern Japan from about 1100 to 1189. Biography Kiyohira was the son of Fuj ...

. In the end, Iehira and Narihira were killed. During the siege of Kanezawa, 1086–1089, Yoshiie avoided an ambush by noticing a flock of birds take flight from a forest.

In art

Much of the war is depicted in an '' e-maki'' narrative handscroll, the ''Gosannen kassen emaki'', which was created in 1171.Varley, p. 41. A copy of the work is owned today by the Watanabe Museum in Tottori city,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, the original having been lost.

History

In art

See also

References

Further reading