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Hikaru Omake Background
DieterVerhofstadt: I found this text on the web, where it was obviously copied from one of Andrew Grant?'s famous chapters on the history of Go. This story provides the background to the Omake in Hikaru (right after chapter 51). In manga, an omake is an "extra" (which is the literal translation) work inserted into a collection. It could be a self-parody, character art, or, as here, a short story unrelated to the main plot. At this time, Japan was beginning to emerge from a long period of civil war. The samurai warlord Oda Nobunaga, who began the process of reunifying the country, was a strong and enthusiastic go player, and he decided to seek out the strongest player in Japan in order to become his pupil. It happened that the strongest player of the time was a Buddhist monk of the Nichiren sect named Nikkai, who lived in a pagoda called Hon'inbo in the Jakkoji temple in Kyoto. Nobunaga must have been annoyed to discover this, for he despised the Nichiren sect, but there was no doubt that Nikkai was the strongest player in Japan, so in 1578, during a visit to Kyoto, Nobunaga sent for him and was very impressed despite himself. Nobunaga was by no means a weak player by the standards of the time, but Nikkai was still able to give him five stones handicap. (On the evidence of his surviving games, Nikkai was about as strong as a 5 dan amateur today.) It was Nobunaga who first referred to Nikkai as the Meijin, which means "expert" or "great man" and which later came to be applied to the strongest player of the day as a title. In 1582 Nikkai was summoned to the Honnoji temple in Kyoto to play a game against his main rival, Kashio Rigen, in Nobunaga's presence. A triple ko is said to have arisen in this game, requiring the game to be abandoned. A game record survives, but shows only 128 moves, by which time White was far ahead and it is hard to see how a triple ko could arise. (Early game records often end as soon as one player has opened up a significant lead - only if a game was close throughout will the whole game be recorded.) This game is one of the most famous in go history because of what happened next. The reunification of Japan was still far from complete, and heavy fighting was taking place in the western provinces, where Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of Nobunaga's subordinate generals, was making steady but slow progress. On the night of the triple ko game Nobunaga ordered another subordinate general, Akechi Mitsuhide, to march west to relieve Hideyoshi. Akechi seems to have harboured a secret grudge against Nobunaga, for upon reaching the Katsura River, just west of Kyoto, he turned his troops around, shouting "The enemy is in the Honnoji!", and marched them back, capturing the temple and forcing Nobunaga to commit suicide. Because of this, a triple ko was thereafter regarded as an unlucky omen - not unlucky for the players, just generally inauspicious. Nobunaga's work was continued by Hideyoshi, who, on hearing of Nobunaga's death, concluded a hasty peace treaty in the west, rushed back to Kyoto and promptly defeated and killed Akechi. Like Nobunaga, Hideyoshi was a strong go player, and Nikkai became his teacher. In 1588 Hideyoshi ordered all the top players of the day to take part in a tournament to determine their relative strengths. Nikkai won this tournament, as expected, and received an annual salary from Hideyoshi as his prize. Hideyoshi also decreed that all other players should henceforth take black (or a handicap) from Nikkai. At about this time Nikkai changed his name to Sansa, and adopted the surname Hon'inbo after the pagoda where he lived. It is as Honinbo Sansa that he is best known today. This is a copy of the living page "Hikaru Omake Background" at Sensei's Library. (C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0. |