Foxfire War

The Foxfire War was an internal Daidoji war in the 6th century. A Blood Feud among the Daidoji Daimyo Daidoji Kamei and his insane brother Daidoji Hira took two generations to come to an end and two daimyos had already died. The war was named from the luminous marsh gases seen in the place it was fought. Secrets of the Crane, p. 31
== Preambles ==
In 520, Daidoji Hira, youngest brother of daimyo Daidoji Kamei, began to act erratically. The daimyo ordered his brother to commit seppuku, but Hira fled along with forty-four bushi from the Shiro Daidoji guard, leaving a message behind: "You did not set a date for my death, brother. Seek me in the Uebe Marshes if you wish to hasten it." 
== War ==
=== Kamei and Hira ===
Incensed, Kamei sailed down the coast to the Uebe Marshes to chase his brother. In the unfamiliar terrain, his troops were slaughtered with trap-laying and ambush strategies developed by Hira. Kamei retired to Shiro Daidoji, and found Hira's body in his former quarters, dead by seppuku. Arranged around him was a model depicting the most treacherous ambush points in the Marshes in the same scale as those in the Daidoji Library, and the message: "Do not let the food and drink of peace make the belly of the Daidoji grow fat. Seek my son in the marshes." 
=== Kasako and Yasuhira ===
Kamei retired as a monk, and his daughter and heir, Daidoji Kasako, hunted Hira's son, Daidoji Yasuhira who had attracted Scorpion and Mantis ronin to his guerrilla band. Within three years she had brought her cousin to bay. Yasuhira was captured and executed, surrounded by new woodland models and maps and the instruction: "My brother Shigehira and my men spit at you from the Wall above the Ocean." 
=== Hanzo and Shigehira ===
Kasako's younger brother Daidoji Hanzo continued the conflict in the mountainous terrain at the southern extremity of Crane territory. He ended the war killing Daidoji Shigehira by a yari duel. 
== Aftermath ==
The current Daidoji Daimyo, Kasako's sister Daidoji Kasami, realized the value of the trained troops that had helped her defeat Hira's followers, proclaiming them the Hiramori family, vassals to the Daidoji. The family was named the "Forest Hira," an ironic joke at the traitorous Hira's expense. Hira's third son, Daidoji Michihira, was pardoned for his involvement in the uprising, and Kasami chartered him with his own family, the Hiramichi family. During the war he had begun to wonder if he was right to follow his father's mad path, and eventually began to use his underground connections to ferret information regarding his brothers' troop movements to the Daidoji Daimyo, which led in his brother's demise. Secrets of the Crane, pp. 31-32
Category:Battles