In 1570, Nobunaga disgraced, and sentenced to death, a Nichiren priest, Nichijo Shonin, who had taken a prominent position in the opposition to his measures. (It was this Nichijo who, in a heated discussion with Froez about the nature of the human soul, had wanted to cut off the Jesuit's head in Nobunaga's presence, in order that the Dictator might see what the soul looked like as it escaped from the human body.) From that time the Buddhists showed unmistakable signs of hostility. Nobunaga gave them but short shrift. The Hieizan monks had sided with Matsunaga and the Miyoshi in their rebellion against him. With a strong army from Gifu, Nobunaga marched against the monks, stormed the Hieizan heights, and wiped out the monastery. "The final assault," says Murdoch, "delivered September 29th, 1571, ended in the extermination of every occupant of the three thousand monasteries that had studded the faces

of the mountain, and its thirteen valleys, a few days before."

Nobunaga next turned against the Monto priests, who, under Kennio Kosa, had established themselves in what is now Osaka, in a strategic position of prime importance, which they had fortified elaborately. It took him several years to reduce this priestly fortress, and it was not until 1580 that he made himself master of it. "The slaughter," says Murdoch, "had been immense, and the stench of burning flesh poisoned the air for miles around." A small remnant surrendered and were spared, but the fortress itself was burnt to the ground. Kennio, said Hideyoshi, in his later years, "had given Nobunaga morn trouble than all his other enemies combined."

In the meanwhile, a dispute had taken place between the priests of the Jodo and their bitter enemies of the Nichiren sect, and Nobunaga was invited to act as umpire, an office which he accepted on the condition that the defeated controversialists should agree to be decapitated. The Nichiren champions were obliged in the disputation to own themselves defeated. Nobunaga not only enforced the penalty agreed upon, but further laid on the whole sect a money fine so heavy that the Nichiren priests were unable to pay it, and withdrew to remote provinces where Nobunaga's hand had not as yet made itself felt.

Thus Nobunaga became the "scourge of God" to the worldly and carnal-minded priests of the various sects of Buddhism, and the Jesuit Fathers felt that the ground was being cleared for them by the drastic measures of the Dictator. But they were mistaken in their estimate of the situation. Stern measures, such as these were, could