The History of the Secretive and Elusive House Yomama -

"The origins of House Yomama are veiled in the secrets and mysteries of history itself. Specifically, in the tumultuous and turmoil-ridden history of that land of the gods - Japan. The history of House Yomama has never been told before, either in poetry or prose. What you see here may change your entire view of Japanese history. Prepare to be amused..."

" After the early governments of Japan started consolidating power in the country, House Yomama began. The first emperors of Japan were from the most powerful household of the time. It is a little known fact that the first emperor was actually placed on the throne by the consent of Yomama...

As time passed, rival factions grew to challenge the authority of House Yomama. By the time of written court records, clans such as the Fujiwara had managed to use their influence to suppress all mention of Yomama in the official records of Japan. Still, Yomama’s influence continued in Kyoto. Many emperors were very close with Yomama... As the Minamoto rose to power, all of this soon changed, however.

As the Minamoto’s gained prominence, Yomama lost the imperial favor. Minamoto "Hachiman", famous for using a bow to shoot an arrow through three suits of armor, achieved recognition for such a feat of martial prowess. What is seldom told however, is that within the same year Yomama Saburo no yumi put an arrow through four suits of armor, while blindfolded, from three miles away, using his weakest arm and throwing the arrow like a javelin.... :-)

So with such military skill so clearly demonstrated - the Minamoto knew exactly what to do. House Yomama was exiled from their hereditary holdings around Kyoto and forced to flee north to the province of Tanba. Later the Yamana were to rule this territorial domain . Incidentally, Yamana is simply a mis-spelling of Yomama by those in the clan, trying to distance themselves from their true familial roots. :-)

These sort of setbacks would not discourage Yomama, however. When war finally erupted between the Taira and Minamoto clans, (known in Chinese characters as the Heike and the Genji) House Yomama took advantage of this internal strife. Members of House Yomama were all set to invade China, when they were told that Genghis Khan in Mongolia already had dibs on the place. House Yomama then turned to matters within Japan, and sided secretly with the Minamoto against the Taira with hopes of being granted new lands.

After this point the Minamoto won a series of brilliant victories, nearly all of them in western Japan under the command of Minamoto Yoshitsune. Little known, however, is that the acting strategist, and engineer of Yoshitsune’s victories was none other than Yomama. Specifically, one of the prominent members of House Yomama at the time - Yomama Saburo no kabuto, who was unfortunately later killed in battle by a sword strike to the head...

Once the Minamoto victory was achieved, House Yomama only received moderate rewards for their massive contribution to the war effort. As time grew on, Yomama became less and less satisfied. When emperor Go-Daigo led his rebellion against the Minamoto in the 1320’s, House Yomama paid keen attention to which side was winning and the course of battles. In fact, the Taiheike, the chronicles of the battles, has always been thought to be written by an anonymous group of monks. In fact - Yomama was responsible. Yomama did more than just write however. The most famous samurai generals on Go-Daigo’s side were Nitta Yoshisada, Ashikaga Takauji, and of course perhaps the most admired samurai in history - Kusunoki Masashige. Kusunoki was actually a member of House Yomama, though he kept this fact hidden from his fellow samurai. The only record for this astounding historic revelation was quite safely preserved in the House Yomama Archives, which unfortunately was bombed daily during World War II (by the Japanese, it turns out...), and subsequently converted into a golf course during recent years. But back to the history itself - other members of House Yomama who fought in the war effort for Go-Daigo were not quite as successful as Kusunoki, however...

After Ashikaga Takauji rebelled, Yomama stayed loyal to Go-Daigo and fought against the Ashikaga. The leader of House Yomama, Yomama Saburo no ashigaru, lost a major battle when his peasant army deserted him as combat began. He managed to flee, but other commanders were not so lucky. Other members of House Yomama were killed by rebellion, betrayal, swords, spears, arrows, spontaneous combustion, and even a rumored alien abduction during a battle against the city of Kamakura.

Ashikaga Takuaji did finally defeat Go-Daigo and force him into exile. Similarly, and once again, the remaining members of House Yomama were forced into exile, this time into the mountains of Yamato. They spent the next hundred and fifty years or so separated from most military action in Japan, using their copious free time trying to organize an army of trained deer from Nara to invade Kyoto. Right as the deer seemed ready to march, again House Yomama found that they had been too slow to act. The Onin War had began and Kyoto was already besieged by two opposing armies. One was under the command of the Yamana. To punish them for having altered their name from Yomama, the members of House Yomama decided to act. This is what they were best at - picking a side in a fruitless war. No one really won this war, yet somehow, House Yomama still managed to lose...

After the war was over, House Yomama set up the majority of their remaining strength on the plains of Yamato. Soon the 16^th century dawned in Japan, and the age of Sengoku Jidai, or "the low overcoming the high" began as well. The Ashikaga Shogunate lost virtually all authority, as did the emperor. However, the imperial family still could grant honorary titles and edicts to those who did them favors - usually in the form of gold as a gift. The leader of House Yomama at this time, Yomama Saburo no no kami, planted some shrubbery around the imperial palace in Kyoto and was granted the title "Yomama no kami" as a sign of appreciation from the Imperial Court. The shrubbery soon died however, and the title was revoked. Additionally, the Hosokawa Family used this opportunity to gain an edict from the emperor to "chastise the rebels" for this offense against the emperor (as all Japanese imperial edicts were worded :-) ) and drive Yomama out of Yamato.

House Yomama quickly fled Yamato, as they soon found that they had about ten samurai to fight of an army of five thousand or so. House Yomama then fled into the province of Iga, another province located near the capital. Members of House Yomama were soon employed by the governing samurai family, and were used to act as magistrates over some of the smaller towns. House Yomama spent most of its time collecting insanely high taxes from the peasants as was customary at the time, and secretly attempting to form an army and overthrow the local ruling family - this being the other samurai "hobby" that was customary at the time. After recruiting about five more samurai, they made their move and openly rebelled. The Rokakku family of Iga, the ruling samurai, paid no attention to them, other than to remove most of them from their posts as magistrates. House Yomama soon were fed up by the lack of attention and moved to another province to attempt to rebel there...

Around 1570 the members of House Yomama were once again back in Yamato. During this time, members of House Yomama befriended such samurai as Matsunaga Hisahide and Akechi Mitsuhide. Earlier, in the 1550’s, House Yomama had been friends with Sue Harukata and a certain Lord Obu in the province of Kai. Later on House Yomama would go on to have friendly relations with samurai such as Sasa Narimasa and even eventually Ishida Mitsunari. With such honest and open friends, it seems amazing that House Yomama ended up in such a pitiful state. These men were the paragons of loyalty in 16^th Century Japan...

The leader of House Yomama at this time was Yomama Saburo no koku, who had a painfully obvious problem to overcome - the fact that House Yomama didn’t own an inch of farmland in all of Japan. Luckily the Akechi Family granted them a plot of land in an area between Kyoto and Osaka known as Yamazaki. This grant of land was made in the early spring of 1582... During this time House Yomama was joined by such young and valiant samurai as Akechi Hidenaga, Oshino Turemoto (Brian), Fukashima Sadayu (Seamus), and also by the curiously lethargic warrior Fukashima Takeyochika. (Kenny) Also, a ship captain with the name Phoenix, unsure of just exactly what country he was a privateer for, joined the illustrious House Yomama. Later on, some of these individuals would disavow their Japanese pedigrees and swear that they were Irish...

By the summer of 1590 the old members of House Yomama were gone, along with most of the Akechi Family. Akechi Mitsuhide’s betrayal of Oda Nobunaga in 1582 actually did not involve House Yomama. Neither did the battle between Akechi and Toyotomi Hideyoshi about 12 days later, other than the fact that House Yomama looked out at their fields at Yamazaki, and noticed 30,000 samurai fighting one another in the middle of their rice crop. They asked the combatants involved to please get off their land, but for some reason their words fell on deaf ears. Unfortunately, Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s defeat of Akechi was a major setback in Yomama’s plans to rule Japan. For two reasons - one being the fact that the only farmland they had left was currently on fire, and two - it might be remembered that a certain member of House Yomama named Hidenaga had the surname Akechi... One can imagine how this might displease Hideyoshi, who by 1590 virtually ruled all Japan. So this time the members of House Yomama took refuge in the strongest fortress in Japan, Odawara Castle in the province of Sagami, ruled by the Hojo Family. Toyotomi Hideyoshi captured the castle two months later in a surprisingly easy victory. Yomama fled into the hills of Yamato yet again...

When the Invasion of Korea by Japan in 1592 began, the three remaining members of House Yomama set off for Korea. Phoenix had vanished into the night, much like some modern comic book hero, and Fukashima Takeyochika was in a deep enough sleep to be considered comatose. By this time Akechi Hidenaga had taken the title "Yomama no kami" and felt entitled to rule over the Yomama domains. Unfortunately, no such domains existed in Japan, and hadn’t for quite some time. Hideyoshi’s land survey noticeably fails to mention the hundreds of thousands of koku of land that Akechi Hidenaga felt Yomama was hereditarily entitled to. So in order to overcome this slight, Hidenaga suggested that they attack Korea and take it before Hideyoshi could. Of course, Hideyoshi had already beat them to it - he had landed at least 150,000 soldiers already. It was at this point that Akechi decided to join the invasion and see if perhaps House Yomama finally could obtain land through their fighting ability. Fukashima and Oshino accompanied him to Korea, on the conditions that they would all share whatever land they conquered.

From this point on, the history is sketchy. Some historians believe that those three samurai died in the first invasion against Korea in 1592. Others believe that they all died in the second invasion of Korea in 1597. A few historians feel that they went on to return from Korea, only to die in the battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Others believe that evidence points to them dying in the siege of Osaka in 1615. Some even believe that they lived and raised families, so their descendants could be killed in the Rebellion to restore the emperor to power in the late 1800’s.

Others however, of which I am one, believe that the three members fought their way through Korea, endured bitter marches, battles, and sieges, and ended up in a strange kingdom known as Caid.

I postulate that Sadayu changed his name to Seamus. Oshino Turemoto - who after all this time finally realized that the syllables did not exist in Japanese to spell "Turemoto" - changed his name to Brian. Akechi Hidenaga kept his name, though he knew no one could pronounce it. They would soon be reunited with that enigmatic and confused captain named Phoenix, and also with Fukashima Takeyochika, who finally woke up - yet had amnesia and claimed to be known as Kenneth Desmond...

And here the history of House Yomama is still being made... "