Letter By Nobunaga Discovered
Letter by Oda Nobunaga to Hosokawa Fujitaka Discovered: "Your work is important!"
According to the Mainichi Shinbun Newspaper, a letter by Oda Nobunaga to Hosokawa Fujitaka written a year before the fall of the shogunate, in which Nobunaga recognises the importance of the Hosokawa, stating "Your work is what is important" has been discovered.
The Hosokawa clan’s Tokyo based historical artifacts repository, the Eisei Bunko and Kumamoto University announced on Friday September 6th that a letter written by Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) in 1572, the year before the fall of the Muromachi Shogunate, to Hosokawa Fujitaka (1534-1610), then a close aide to Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki has been re-discovered.
With relations between Nobunaga and Yoshiaki's close aides deteriorating, the letter asks Fujitaka to bring the feudal lords of the Kinai region to his side in an effort to maintain peace and order. Experts have described the letter as "a valuable document providing an insight into Nobunaga’s situation at the time."
The 13.7 cm x 84.4 cm long letter letter on washi paper was discovered in August 2022 in the Eisei Bunko as part of a joint investigation by the Eisei Bunko, which preserves documents handed down through the Hosokawa family, and the Eisei Bunko Research Center at Kumamoto University.
The letter was written at a time when the Ashikaga Shogunate was in turmoil, despite support from the most powerful warlord, Oda Nobunaga, the Shogun’s staff were interfering in political matters. Nobunaga realised the end of the shogunate was inevitable, and that chaos would come from the collapse. It appears that to prevent this chaos, he contacted the trusted Hosokawa Fujitaka and wrote, "Please win over the lords of the southern area (Yamashiro, Settsu, and Kawachi areas), whoever they are, as long as they are loyal to Nobunaga. Your work is what is important."
Based on the shape of the signature, it is believed to have been written on August 15, 1572, the year before Yoshiaki raised an army against Nobunaga, but was defeated, exiled from Kyoto, and the Muromachi shogunate was effectively destroyed.
According to Inaba Tsuguharu, professor of Japanese medieval history at the Kumamoto University Eisei Bunko Research Center, relations between Nobunaga and Yoshiaki's close aides had deteriorated considerably by the year 1570, but Hosokawa Fujitaka was the only one in contact with Nobunaga and was asked to secretly appeal to the various warlords. "We can see that Hosokawa Fujitaka was behind the failure of Yoshiaki's uprising. This is a valuable primary historical document that brings Fujitaka's historical role into focus once again," he says.
It is said that just under 800 letters written by Nobunaga remain, and this discovery is the 60th such letter in the Eisei Bunko collection. The other 59 letters are all designated as National Important Cultural Properties. The letters will be on display at the Eisei Bunko’s autumn exhibition, "Nobunaga's Letters - 60 Precious Letters on Display - Commemorating the 15th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Kumamoto University Eisei Bunko Research Center," which begins on October 5.
Primary Source: https://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/27134701/