Uesugi Kenshin

His father was Nagao Tamekage. He succeeded as head of the house in 1548, with his base at Kasugayama Castle (present-day Jōetsu, Niigata Prefecture). He was a devout believer in Bishamonten, never failing to worship at the Bishamonten hall on Mount Kasuga before campaigns; the claim that he was an incarnation of Bishamonten is a later honorific and must not be treated as fact. He fought Takeda Shingen five times at Kawanakajima and defeated the Oda army (Shibata Katsuie) at Tedorigawa in 1577. The claim that he fought over seventy battles without a clear defeat is a later assessment, to be written as "later accounts say". Cause of death: illness (the Kenshin Gunki records stomach pain in the privy on the ninth day of the third month and death on the thirteenth; the scholarly consensus is worsening illness, with one account suggesting oesophageal cancer). The story of assassination by a ninja in the privy is a legend, marked as uncertain (even if an assassin was present, it could only have hastened the death of a man already gravely ill, and his death poem shows he already sensed his end, making the assassination account unlikely). After his death, his adopted sons Kagekatsu and Kagetora (of Hōjō birth) fought the Otate Rebellion.

• Birthplace: Echigo Province (present-day Niigata Prefecture).
• Places of activity: Kasugayama Castle (present-day Jōetsu, Niigata Prefecture), Kawanakajima, Tedorigawa (present-day Ishikawa Prefecture).
• Place of death: Kasugayama Castle, Echigo Province.
• Burial place: The Uesugi family cemetery at Yonezawa (the final resting place of his remains; after death he was placed in a ceramic coffin in armour, first enshrined within Kasugayama Castle, then moved with the Uesugi house to Aizu and on to Yonezawa; in 1876 a mausoleum for Kenshin was built between the graves of Kagekatsu and the third lord Sadakatsu in the Yonezawa domain lords' Uesugi cemetery, which is managed by Hōon-ji). Rinsen-ji in Jōetsu (the Uesugi family temple) also has a grave of Kenshin, listed as the Jōetsu grave/memorial site. The relationship between the two places must be explained clearly and they must not be confused.
• Further reading places: Kasugayama Castle ruins, Rinsen-ji, the Uesugi Museum in Yonezawa, the Bishamonten hall on Mount Kasuga.

Cultural significance

Kenshin is a dual symbol of the "righteous general" and the "god of war": his Bishamonten faith, the rival narrative of mutual respect with Shingen (the anecdote of "sending salt to the enemy" — supplying salt to the salt-starved Takeda house — is a later embellishment), and the strength of the Echigo army have made him a figure commemorated by both Jōetsu and Yonezawa, with the annual Kenshin Festival and the Uesugi Snow Lantern Festival.