Honnouji Incident - after reading of Rob Roy

Honnouji Incident is one of significant historical event in Japan which had a big impact.  It is an incident that Oda Nobunaga was attacked by one of his vassal, Akechi Mitsuhide at Honnouji temple in 1582.  Oda Nobunaga committed suicide and died.

Nobunaga was lived in the era called “the age of provincial wars”.  There was no centralized government in Japan and were a lot of lords all over Japan who governed their own territories.  His goal was to unify Japan.

Nobunaga changed the old system and rules.  Here is one of example.  There was a merchant association which privileged old merchants and didn’t accept new merchants.  The merchants had to pay tax when they sold goods in the market.  There was another tax system.  People had to pay tax when they went through checkpoints.  He scrapped the merchant association as well as those tax systems.  As a result, it brought a positive impact an economic development.

Mitsuhide knew Nobunaga took rest in Honnouji with his thirty servants and didn’t prepare for an attack.  Mitsuhide led his army to Honnouji and pushed Nobunaga to commit suicide.

After Nobunaga’s death, Ieyasu Tokugawa unified Japan in 1600. Honnouji Incident became one of triggers to make the centralized government known as Edo Bakufu.