Imagawa Sadayo

Imagawa Sadayo
Picture of Imagawa Sadayo by Kikuchi Yosai
Native name	今川貞世
Other name(s)	Imagawa Ryōshun
Born	1326
Died	(1420-10-05)October 5, 1420[citation needed]
Buried	Kaizō Temple Shizuoka Prefecture Shizuoka City Kaizou
Allegiance	Ashikaga Takauji Ashikaga Yoshiakira Ashikaga Yoshimitsu
Moromachi Shogunate	Governor, Headman Samurai-dokoro, Constable

Imagawa Sadayo (今川 貞世, 1326 – 1420), also known as Imagawa Ryōshun (今川 了俊), was a renowned

.

Sadayo's early life

During his early years Sadayo was taught

Bakufu

northern Kyūshū, and ensuring the eventual failure of the rebellion and the consequent success of the Bakufu Shogunate.

Kyūshū Tandai (1371–1395)

Sadayo's skill as a strategist was obvious, and he moved rapidly through northern Kyūshū with a great deal of success, bringing the region under his control by October 1372. This was an impressive achievement considering Prince Kanenaga had been fortifying his position in this region for more than a decade. Kanenaga was not defeated outright however, and went on the defensive, leading to a stalemate that lasted through to 1373, when Kanenaga's general, Kikuchi Takemitsu, died, leaving his military with no strong leader. Sadayo seized the opportunity and planned a final attack.^[1]

Sadayo met with three of the most powerful families on Kyūshū to gain their support in the attack, those families being the Shimazu, the Ōtomo and the Shōni. Things seemed to be going well until Sadayo suspected the head of the Shoni family of treachery and had him killed at a drinking party. This outraged the Shimazu clan, who had originally been the ones to convince the Shōni to throw their lot in with Sadayo, and they returned to their province of Satsuma to raise a force against Sadayo. This gave Prince Kanenaga time to regroup, and he forced Sadayo back North, prompting Sadayo to request assistance from the Bakufu.^[1]

Sadayo took matters into his own hands, but was aided by his son Yoshinori and his younger brother Tadaaki. Sadayo continued to push the loyalists forces until their resistance ended with Prince Kanenaga's death in 1383. The death of Shimazu clan chieftain Ujihasa in 1385 also helped ease tensions between Sadayo and the Shimazu for a time.^[1] In 1377, Korean diplomat Jeong Mong-ju arrived in Japan with complaints about the raids of wokou - Japanese pirates striking from bases on Kyūshū and other southern isles of Japan. Sadayo defeated many of the pirate bands and returned captured civilians and property to Korea.^[2][3]

In 1395 both the Ōuchi and Ōtomo families conspired against Sadayo, informing the Bakufu that he was plotting against the shōgun, in a move that was likely an attempt to restore the post of constable to the family that had held it prior to Sadayo, the Shibukawa family. Sadayo was relieved of his post and returned to the capital. Sadayo had, in addition, acted fairly independently in his negotiations with the Shimazu, the Ōtomo and the Shōni, and also in negotiations with Korea about the wokou; this recall was prompted by all three causes being used against him by his enemies in the Shogun's court.

Later years (1395–1420)

In 1400 Sadayo was once again questioned by the Bakufu, this time in relation to the Imagawa's province of

's failure to respond to a levy issued by the Bakufu—a negligence interpretable as treason and rebellion. This charge saw Sadayo stripped of his post as constable of Suruga and Tōtōmi provinces, and gave him reason to believe he might be assassinated. With this in mind he fled the capital for a time, though was later pardoned and returned to the capital, spending the rest of his days pursuing religious devotions and poetry until his death in 1420.

Sadayo's poetry

Sadayo began composing poetry from an early age: by the age 20, he had a poem included in an

or "Collection of Elegance"; Earl Miner gives the specific entry as XV: 1473). His teacher was Reizei no Tamehide (d. 1372). His poems were displayed to more effect in his fairly popular and influential travel diary, Michiyukiburi ("Travellings"). It was this travel diary that in large part won Sadayo a place as a respected critic of poetry: he felt that poetry should be a direct expression of personal experience, a fact that can be seen from his own poems.

Even though Sadayo is better known for his criticism of the more conservative poetry styles, the Nijo school in particular, and his tutoring of Shōtetsu (1381–1459), who would become one of the finest waka poets of the fifteenth century, than he is for his own output, it nonetheless provides a glimpse into the mind of this medieval scholar and his travels.

Sadayo was active in the poetic disputes of that day,

, the demon-quelling style, or the one the Nijo championed to the exclusion of the other 9, ushin) were licit for poetic use and experimentation, and not merely the Nijō's ushin. With the aid Ryōshun afforded him, Fujiwara no Tanemasa's politicking eventually succeeded in converting the Shogun, ending the matter- until the rival Asukai poetic clan revived the dispute, that is.

Select poems

Japanese	English
Chiru hana o Semete tamoto ni Fukitomeyo So o dani kaze no Nasake to omowan.	The least it could do Is blow the scattering blossoms into my sleeves – Then I could at least believe The wind has some compassion. [1]

Japanese	English
Nami no ue ni Shio yaku ka to Mietsuru wa Ama no obune ni Taku hi narikeri.	What had looked like fires Tended by seaweed burners Out on the waves Turned out to be torches aflame On the boats of fishermen. [2]

Japanese	English
Uchikawasu Tomone nariseba Kusamakura Tabi no umibe mo Nani ka ukaran.	Oh, to share the night In talking with these fisher-poets- For then the miseries Pressing the pillow-grass of travel Would no longer wash my seaside path. [3]

References

Further reading

• ^ Waiting for the Wind: Thirty-Six Poets of Japan's Late Medieval Age, translated by Steven D. Carter, Columbia University Press, 1989.
• The Imagawa Letter: A Muromachi Warrior's Code of Conduct Which Became a Tokugawa Schoolbook, translated by Carl Steenstrup in Monumenta Nipponica 28:3, 1973.
• Unforgotten dreams: poems by the Zen monk
  ISBN 0-231-10576-2
• An Introduction to Japanese Court Poetry, by Earl Miner. 1968, Stanford University Press, LC 68-17138
  • ^ pg. 138; Miner references his translation's source as "Michiyukiburi, GSRJ, XVIII, 560", where Michiyukiburi is Sadayo's travel diary, and GSRJ refers to the 30 volumes of the Gunsho Ruijū published in Tokyo between 1928 and 1934.
• ^ "From Feudal Chieftain to Secular Monarch. The Development of Shogunal Power in Early Muromachi Japan", by Kenneth A. Grossberg. Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 31, No. 1. (Spring, 1976), pp. 29–49
• "The Imagawa Letter: A Muromachi Warrior's Code of Conduct Which Became a Tokugawa Schoolbook", by Carl Steenstrup. Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 28, No. 3. (Autumn, 1973), pp. 295–316.