February Entry: the Gempei War

[Gamerprinter]

Next up... I started to place provincial borders, after removing the first set of mountains, then the provincial names. I placed castles at the most important locations - Heian-kyo, Fukuwara-kyo, and Akishima. I place temples in Hiroshima and Nara.

Of the kamon or family crests - the major ones of course are Clan Taira (swallow tail butterfly icon, with colors black on red), Clan Minamoto (Woodland Sorrel, with colors black on white) and the Clan Fujiwara who controlled the emperor with a Swamp Sorrel. I also placed a few more kamon for families in differing provincial areas, only creating the Shimizu clan in Izumo, and the Matsu clan in Hoki.

As I discover which clans were in which province, I will start to populate with other Kamon for those houses.

Whereever you see a pair of war banners, there was a battle at the location of the Gempei War. One battle site, I'm not sure of, and will move to correct location when I find it. The battle banners at Bingo is just a guess right now.

I am thinking of placing a large square grid, though I'm not sure what scale and whether I should do miles or not. Still deciding. I placed much smaller version of the previos mountains back in, with more space between. I still think I need 20% more mountains.

Remember, Japan is a chain of volcanic mountains. 80% of the land surface is mountainous. Sure some villages, and towns now exist, but most of millions of Japanese dwell in the remaining 20% arable lands. Japan is noticeably mountainous - so the map needs to show this better.

I plan to place all the major characters involved in the battle across the top of the map, even beyond the current borders - retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, Yoritomo Minamoto, Yoshi-tsune Minamoto, Kiyomori Taira, and Prince Antoku.

WIP so far... getting there, about 3/4 done I'd say.

GP

### Latest WIP ###

[Gamerprinter]

I chose to tell this next story, as its one of the two I am aware of that has something to do with art, not maps unfortunately, but should still be interesting.

The Boy who Drew Cats
by Koizumi Yagumo, as retold by GP...

There once was a farmer who lived in the highlands south of Osaka, who had three sons. The eldest son was hired by the local daimyo to serve as an ashigaru or foot soldier under the command of his samurai. The second son was to inherit the family farm. To the third son, no inheritance would come, as the farmer was quite poor.

The worst problem, the boy, name Hiroshi, spent much of his days drawing cats. There was some hope that if the boy learned portraiture, who could serve the local lord as a fine artist. Unfortunately, the boy only desired to draw cats.

Finally, with no other opportunities available, the farmer contacted the priests of Nara, and asked if his youngest son could join the priesthood and have some future. They agreed.

Much to the dismay of the high priest, Hiroshi spent the time he should have been studying, drawing dozens of cat images with the tsukue brush, everyday. Though he finally "graduated" from the seminary. Unsure how best the use the useless boy. The priests sent Hiroshi to Osaka to restore an old Buddhist temple that had been abandoned twenty years ago.

Hiroshi arrived at the temple site, in old Osaka late on a rainy night. He tried to busy himself cleaning the temple as many years of neglect made it in poor condition. The roof leaked in many places and the rain poured in. After some cleaning, Hiroshi was bored and began to draw cats on the sliding Shogi screens around the temple.

It got very late and the rains would not stop. Hiroshi found a cabinet off the main temple room that looked water tight enough to keep him dry. He crawled within and tried to get comfortable for a nights rest.

Only after an hour, as he was beginning to sleep, a loud noise came from the front of the temple and several voices began to argue in a hissing way. By the smell and coarse noises, peeking out the crack in the door of cabinet, Hiroshi discovered that a gang of Hengeyokai - goblin rats the size of men used the abandoned temple as their secret nest. They would waylay travelers on the street late at night, kill them, eat them and take their valuables for their own.

Hiroshi began to pray silently, hoping he wouldn't be discovered.

Suddenly, Hiroshi heard a hiss and yowl, as if from an angry cat. The single cat turned into a dozen and the screeching of goblin rats mixed in the fray. Hiroshi shook with fear, but remained hidden in his cabinet. The ensuing fight continued for some time, but all was quiet by morning.

When Hiroshi crawled from the cabinet in the morning light. He saw the grisly sight of a dozen goblin rats dead throughout the temple, their throats ripped open. Throughout the temple on the shoji screens were the cats he drew the night before.

All the drawn cats had blood dripping from their mouths.

The End...

GP

[Gamerprinter]

OK, I'd say I'm 95% done with the map. A few more kamon crests, a scale label saying "each square is 50 miles", a compass rose, and a "by line". Then the basic map will be done. I want to place ukiyo-e illustrations of the major players above the map, a legend below it, and a reed mat as the frame. Almost complete!

For the historical sticklers, the kamon placement except for very few is completely random, I have no real idea which families control which province. I just wanted it to look authentic and complete.

GP

PS: more stories tomorrow, now I'm off to bed!

### Latest WIP ###

[joão paulo]

Definitely, your map is already my favorite.

[Bohunk]

I'd have to say that is one of the prettiest maps I have ever seen on this site. If this does not get one of those "map-of-the-month" awards, I will write a stern letter to the admin.

[Steel General]

This is a stunning piece of work GP - and may be one of my absolute favorites of yours.

One thing I noticed - on the red 'battle banners' the symbol is very blurred (or at least appears to be), not sure if you can/want to do anything about it, but I thought I'd point it out anyway.

[Ascension]

Add me in as well, very nice. I like this new font better too.

[bartmoss]

It's a nice map. One bit of feedback: The coastline seems very slightly too blurry for me. The text and logos are very crisp, and so are the mountains etc, and then the coast just doesn't contrast with the sea all that much. Anyway I am hardly suitable as an art critic, ymmv, but there you go anyway.

[Gamerprinter]

Thank you for the praise, it is always a great motivating factor in my work!

@ SG - you'll notice on the Taira kamon, which is a swallow tailed butterfly, the lines within the graphic are very fine, and the battle banners they are placed on are very tiny, as well as having a red background (Taira colors were black on red). All those factors work against it for keeping it clean and crisp. The final map may be 200 ppi, to better show these fine details.

@ Bartmoss - I really want to keep the coastal areas as subtle as possible, though I might try a light colored outline just to enhance a bit, we'll have to see.

@ Ascension - yeah, that first font I chose for an oriental brush look, just looked cheap and tacky. So I replaced them with more easier to read fonts, that still had a classy, calligraphic like quality. I agree the news ones are much better. I also prefer the larger type used for my main island names in a semi-transparent white - much better than the previous map.

OK, next story - this one is not a Koizumi Yagumo story, rather its one of the historical accounts taken from the poem of Heike (another name for Taira).

The Challenge at Yashima...

By the start of 1185, the Taira were on the run, the great battle of Ichi no tane the year before, when Yoshi-tsune Minamoto made his hair raising charge from the top of a mountain down a steep incline onto the fortress at Ichi no tane with 50,000 troops caused a complete rout of the Taira forces there. The Taira greatly feared the warrior chief, Yoshi-tsune.

Yashima was a secondary castle for the Taira forces on the Island of Shikoku. The lack of ships for the Minamoto forces gave some relief to the Taira, though they knew that peace would not last long. On March 22nd 1185, the men on the walls saw smoke in the harbor and raised the alarm, Yoshi-tsune is attack us!

With fears of another 50,000 man army coming to their weakened defenses, Lord Kiyomori no Taira declared an evacuation was required. So the forces pulled themselves from their stronghold and headed for the west bay, where their ships could bear them away, along with the infant emperor, Prince Antoku. As they boarded the ships, Kiyomori realized that indeed it was Yoshi-tsune making the attack, but this time, he only had 5000 men doing so. Kiyomori considered returning to the castle and successfully holding off this smaller force - yet at that very moment the castle on the mountain began to burn. No choice, they must leave the island for their own safety then.

As the boats began to pull from shore the Minamoto army reached the harbor and began filling the sky with daikyu arrows felling the men and sailors aboard the 50 or so Taira ships.

Both as a means of redirecting the enemy arrows along with a challenge of honor, Kiyomori opened a fan, tied it to a rope and hoisted it up the mainsail of the Taira flagship.

In training and tournaments Japanese archers traditionally use a folding fan as a target tied to a rope or tree. Being about the size of a man's face, it was deemed a suitable target for practice.

Kiyomori sought to direct the Minamoto arrows at the fan, instead of his escaping people. Already far from shore, they were almost beyond the distance of arrow fire.

One young Minamoto samurai, determined to hit the fan or kill himself trying, rode is horse into the surf, pulled an arrow placed in his daikyu bow, aimed and loosed the arrow in a high arc. All were silent on the shore and sea. Finally the arrow struck and shattered the fan.

All historical accounts agree that both the Minamoto and the Taira cheered in awestruck pride at the miraculous shot.

Then the fleet headed west, aiming to place a new stronghold in Kyushu with plans to meet their Honshu forces at the Straits of Shimonoseki - the place known as Dan no ura, a place that would be remembered for all time...

GP

[ravells]

Lovely work, GP and it looks like a departure from your usual style. Lots of character to the map - wonderful work!