The Honno-ji Temple Incident: A Turning Point in Japanese History

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, it has been accompanied by a hot war. Whenever the situation changes, it will always affect the sensitive nerves of all countries.

Under such a tense moment, a few weeks ago, the Russian mercenary organization “Wagner Group” launched an armed mutiny on the order of its leader Prigezin, and then marched towards Moscow.

This action came suddenly, and ended suddenly. It lasted only 36 hours, and then it exited dramatically. Afterwards, Prigozin said that the operation was a “just march” and not intended to overthrow the regime. These remarks made the outside world even more confused.

However, during the incident, in addition to the high attention of the world’s political leaders, it also sparked heated discussions on the Internet. Some netizens compared Prigejin to “Li Zicheng, the king of the late Ming Dynasty.” Moscow!”

If you interpret this tweet from history , it may really be somewhat similar in terms of the situation at the time.

The stories behind the popular attractions
“When traveling to Kyoto , many people like to go to the Nishiki Market for shopping. But I think you may not know that there was a major event that changed Japanese history nearby, and that was the change of Honnoji Temple.”

Yang Zhao shared that Honno-ji Temple has been rebuilt many times. The Honno-ji Temple on Teramachi-dori today was relocated in the era of Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the future. Before that, the Honno-ji Temple that was originally located near the Nishiki Market had the “Honno-ji Temple Change”. It was the biggest turning point in the fate of Japan during the Sengoku period.

At the end of the Muromachi shogunate, the Ashikaga family, as the shogun, almost lost his status as the co-lord. As a result, warlords everywhere, and warlords from all over the world wanted to take the opportunity to compete for the world. Among them, a great warlord rose up, and his name was “Oda Nobunaga”.

Oda Nobunaga used the slogan of “Tianxia Buwu” and brought with him a powerful military force. He not only controlled the Ashikaga family in essence, but even planned to control the emperor.

Looking at the history of Japan, even if he is regarded as a political leader, the emperor still maintains the line of ten thousand generations. He is the ruler of Japan in name. Among the several events that were faltering and may be interrupted, the rise of Oda Nobunaga is one of them.

However, this powerful aura turned into dust like a dream in the burning Honnōji Temple.

Ruthless Betrayal From Someone You Trusted
In 1582, Oda Nobunaga sent his confidant “Hashiba Hideyoshi” to attack the Mori clan, but worried that Hideyoshi alone would not be enough, so he decided to call another confidant “Akechi Mitsuhide” to send troops for reinforcements.

“The enemy is at the Honnoji Temple!” Unexpectedly, after Mitsuhide’s abrupt order, the army not only did not advance, but turned back to attack the Honnoji Temple where Nobunaga stayed overnight, and surrounded Nobunaga with only a hundred guards with tens of thousands of troops.

All of a sudden, the flames illuminated the night sky of Kyoto. It turned out that a fire broke out in the middle of the war, and the flames engulfed the Honnoji Temple. In the end, no one could find Nobunaga’s body, and Nobunaga’s eldest son was also killed under the pursuit of the wise army, and he was only a few steps away. Japan’s Oda forces collapsed overnight.

But did Akechi Mitsuhide benefit from his betrayal? the answer is negative.

Because Hideyoshi, who was dispatched abroad, heard the news not long ago, he quickly negotiated peace with the Mori family, and then only took a few days to return to Kyoto from hundreds of kilometers away to attack Mitsuhide.

Afterwards, Hideyoshi succeeded in reunifying the Oda forces again and became the man of the world who aspired to the top of Japan. In order to consolidate his position, he even threatened the emperor to give him a surname and changed his name to “Toyotomi Hideyoshi”.

However, the brilliance of Toyotomi only lasted for two generations, and after the defeat in the Battle of Sekigahara, he officially declared his demise. The victor “Tokugawa Ieyasu” took power and opened the “Edo Shogunate” that lasted for more than two hundred years.

A most ruthless rebellion from the most trusted. The change of Honnoji Temple is like Nobunaga’s favorite song, expressing the life of “fifty years of life, like a dream and an illusion”. At the same time, it has greatly rewritten Japanese history and has become a mystery that historians cannot solve. Subject matter for inspiration.