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#142
   142. GRANT OF KORI-YAMA TO IRIKI-IN SHIGETOMO, 1537
                         (A copy in Iriki-in docs,; also KK, V.)
SHIMADZU KATSUHISA, driven out of Kagoshima by Sanehisa, had fled from one place to another,
when he wrote the following letter, perhaps from Yoshimatsu. Kori-yama, which he gave to Shige-
tomo, was south of the Tsusedo pass on the road toward Kagoshima, from which it was some
twelve miles north.
  Shigetomo's political power was not due purely to his territorial conquests, but also to the marital
relation which had been contracted between his and the Shimadzu families. Of his two younger
sisters, one was wife of Togo Shigesuke, and the other, who was of the same mother as Shigetomo,
had married the present Shimadzu shu-go, Takahisa, and given birth to the latter's successors, Yoshi-
hisa and Yoshihiro, and their younger brother Toshihisa. As a vassal of distinguished service and
brother-in-law of his lord, Shigetomo had run his career of conquest without obstruction. Both
the official history of the Shimadzu family and the Iriki-in's own genealogy accuse him of having
gradually waxed arrogant and refused to listen to Takahisa's admonitions. Rumors were soon afloat
that Shigetomo was contriving a rebellious scheme in collusion with his kinsmen the Togo and the
Keto-in; of this the Iriki-in genealogy is, in fact, more positive than the Shimadzu history. Whether
there was any foundation for the evil reports, Takahisa declined to accept his vassal's repeated ex-
planations, and finally in 1443 forbade him longer to pay him homage. As Shigetomo remained
obdurate, Takahisa sent forces to the fortress of Kori-yama, which his predecessor had granted to
him seven years before, and forcibly took it back. Shigetomo had died shortly before, and his sister,
the lady Shimadzu, in the preceding year.1
    "YOUR specially faithful service(ho-ko)2 in relation to my plans of return to the
kuni is most excellent. Therefore, as reward for this [evidence of] loyalty, the fortress
of Kori-yama, together with thirty cho, in Mitsue in, is vested(ade okonau) in you.
You shall at once, in accordance with this order, hold the same. Ordered thus.
  "Ten-mon 6 y. 3 m. 14 d. [23 April 1537].             Katsuhisa, monogram.
    "Iriki-in3 dono."




  1Shimadzu koku-shi, xvi, 19, and the Iriki-in genealogy.
  2Ho-ko, a word most properly translated as "service," appeared from this period with increasing
frequency. It consists of two Chinese characters: ho, to offer and to uphold, and ko, authorities and
public. The double meaning of the word ko is instructive as an index to a cardinal principle of the
political philosophy of China which profoundly influenced Japanese thought: authorities and the
public were nearly identical, for sovereignty was vested in the ruler, (see No. 155, n. 6). Ko would,
in its strict signification, apply only to the emperor and the state, but was, in Japanese history,
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used throughout the ages by the actual wielders of political powers regardlessly of their origin or
of the legal foundation of their authoriy; the emperor, the imperial house, the sho-gun, and the
feudal baron, have successively employed the word in regard to themselves and to affairs concern-
ing their political life. The term ku-zhi, for example, meaning obligations to the authorities (ku
being the same character as ko, and zhi, matters or affairs),-the word which is found throughout
this volume-referred, in the succeeding periods, to obligations owed to the state, to the kuni, to
the domanial lord, to the sho-gun, and to the feudal lord. It is with the last signification of ko
that the composite word ho-ko is used in this document.
  3One record cited in the Shimadzu koku-shi, xvi, 20, says that the recipient of the grant was 
Shigetoshi, father of Shigetoyo.