楠木正行

Kusunoki Masatsura (c.1326–1348), known as the 'Young楠公' (Shō-Nankō), was the son of the great Southern Court loyalist Kusunoki Masashige and inherited his father's absolute fidelity to Emperor Go-Daigo's line. Before departing for his final battle, he carved a death poem on the door of Nyoirin-dō temple at Yoshino: 'I shall not return — knowing this, I draw the catalpa bow; even as I join the dead, let my name live on.' At the Battle of Shijōnawate in 1348 he led the Southern Court army in a frontal assault against Kō Moronao's vastly superior forces. Surrounded and mortally wounded, he died with his brother at age twenty-two or twenty-three. His story became the supreme model of samurai loyalty in Edo-period bushido literature and inspired countless loyalist patriots through the Meiji Restoration and beyond.