THE CHRONICLE OF LORD NOBUNAGA [“INITIAL BOOK”] This is a book on what happened before Nobunaga’s march on Kyoto. Ōta Izumi composed this. 1 Owari is divided into eight districts.1 At the time, Oda Ise no Kami held the samurai of the upper four districts in hand, controlling them from his residential castle in a place called Iwakura.2 The other half of that province, that is, the lower four districts, was subject to the orders of Oda Yamato no Kami. A river separated the upper from the lower part of the province. Yamato no Kami had emplaced Lord Buei [the shogunal military governor of Owari] in Kiyosu Castle and propped up the governor’s position with his own presence there.3 Yamato no Kami had three superintendents (bugyō) in his ser- vice. These three men, whose names were Oda Inaba no Kami, Oda Tōzaemon, and Oda Danjō no Jō, took care of day-to-day business for him. The lineage bearing the name of Danjō no Jō had its residential castle at Shobata, near the provincial border. This house boasted gen- erations of accomplishment in the profession of Arms—from Saigan and Getsugan on down to the current family head Bingo no Kami 1 Haguri, Niwa, Nakashima, and Kasugai were the so-called upper four districts of Owari Province; Aichi, Kaitō, Kaisai, and Chita were the lower four. In the eastern part of Owari, the border between the upper and the lower districts, that is, between Kasugai and Aichi, roughly coincided with the line of the Yada River to its confluence with the Shōnai in what now is Kita Ward, Nagoya. 2 The site of Iwakura Castle is found in what now is Shimo Honmachi, Iwakura City, Aichi Prefecture; of Kiyosu Castle in Kojō, Ichiba, Kiyosu City, Aichi Prefecture. 3 Lord Buei: Shiba Yoshimune. The Buei family is synonymous with the Shiba family, a prominent branch of the Ashikaga. This house was one of three consid- ered capable of filling the office kanreiof (chief executive officer) under the Ashikaga shogunate. At one time or another during the Muromachi period, its members were appointed military governors (shugo) in eight provinces, holding that post in Echizen from 1336 to 1492 with a relatively brief interruption; in Tōtōmi from 1404 to 1501; and in Owari from 1400 into the 1550s. The Shiba family’s authority in those three provinces was usurped by the Asakura; the Imagawa; and, as described in this “Initial Book” of Shinchō-Kō ki, by their sometime subordinates, the Oda..