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Erin Menke (0:47)
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. In the year 1487 in southern Japan, the military governor of the Kaga Province returned home to a surprising but inevitable welcome. His people, the peasants of Kaga Province, were in open rebellion. The governor, whose name was Togashi Masachika, had spent much of the last 10 years suppressing these sorts of rebellions. The Ashikaga shogunate was weakening, and feudal Japan had been erupting in challenges to the shogun's authority, both from rival lords and from bands of peasants like the ones that Masachika faced in the Kaga province. These peasants formed themselves into grassroots militia known as iki, and were comprised of Buddhist warrior monks as well as peasants who were dissatisfied with their rulers. Masachika hoped that he'd be able to extinguish this rebellion once and for all, with the help of support from the shogun, but no such reinforcements arrived. The peasant rebellion lay siege to the castle of Kaga. In 1488, as his castle burned around him and with no prospect of rescue, Masachika committed seppuku. After that, he was replaced as governor by his uncle Yasutaka. But the real power the world knew lay in the hands of the iki. The Kaga region became known as Kaga Iki, or less formally, the province ruled by peasants, and this would hold true for decades, while in Greater Japan, the shogun struggled to remain in power. The Ashikaga shogunate was weakening, and in Kaga, the pretense of needing a military governor soon outlived its usefulness. The Kaga Iki would become a primary ruling force in the region by the early 1500s, doing away with the role of governor altogether. It was the first time in Japanese history that province was ruled by someone other than a lord or a samurai it's tempting to see this as a moment of utopia. Peasant rule in a feudal system. However, as the Kaga iki grew in power, so too did their disagreements among themselves. Without a common enemy, they began to fracture. Some of their members held differing loyalties among their neighboring provinces. And who should be the true power in Kaga Province was the big question. In 1531, a civil war broke out among the Iki, ending with a man named Ren Jun in power. They successfully fought back. Expansionist neighbors consolidated power even further and seemed on their way to securing their place in a new Japan. However, the peasants kingdom would remain unstable for the rest of its existence. It turned into a dynasty where the ruling class, rather than being samurai, were Buddhist priests. And it was in the 1570s, almost a century after the first iki rebellions, that Kaga ikki would begin to fall. Oda Nobunaga, a warlord seeking to unify Japan, sent armies into Kaga Province to secure it. After a first few waves were defeated by the iki, Nobunaga deployed a massive force led by his best generals. The siege lasted for 10 years. It ended not with absolute conquest, but with a truce. Nobunaga agreed not to execute the iki leadership, who in return ceded the province to him. Their main castle at Honganjai was torn down and replaced with Osaka Castle, which still stands to this day. Many in the Kaga iki were not pleased with how this ended, but and would continue a form of guerrilla warfare into the 1580s against the Greater Japanese forces. It's difficult to understand the peasant's kingdom by modern standards. Though it was not a democracy or a socialist government, The Iki were driven by a form of religious fanaticism that overpowered any fear or reverence they had for the shogunates. But in a time of instability known as the Warring States Period, any form of community felt more solid than the constantly shifting alliances that characterized their leaders. The Kaga ikki survived, in a sense, by inverting the power structure that governed their lives. And for almost 100 years, they had a kingdom of their own. It may only have been a brief cul de sac in the middle of Japanese history, but it's a useful reminder that the power of a king or a shogun is. Is not a law of the universe. It's an agreement like any other, one that only holds weight if the people agree.