Episode 106: Game of Thrones - Asuka Style
An Edo era depiction of the Isshi Incident of 645. The participants are anachronistically painted in the court robes of the late Heian era rather than an earlier age. From the “Tōnomine Engi Emaki”. A copy of the first scroll can be found at the Nara Women’s University website: https://www.nara-wu.ac.jp/aic/gdb/mahoroba/y06/shahon/TounomineEngiEmaki.html, with depictions of various parts of this story. Image in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
This episode we look at the Isshi Incident of 645. This is perhaps one of the most famous events of ancient Japanese history. It is also one of the most well documented of the Chronicles, including a complete blow by blow of everything that went down.
And yet it should be noted we only have one side of the story, with obvious bias. Unlike later incidents that we can check against multiple contemporary diaries and get different takes from people in different sides of the conflict, in this case we only have the official record.
On the other hand, we are only about 75-80 years from the publication of the Nihon Shoki. The participants would have passed away, but it wasn't exactly ancient history for them.
References
McCallum, Donald F. (2009). The Four Great Temples: Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan. ISBN 978-0-8248-3114-1
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN0-80480984-4