Akechi now aspired to succeed the master he had betrayed and overthrown; but he was defeated by Ukondono [Kōyama Ukon], another general, a nephew of the Wada, who had played so conspicuous a part in previous revolutions, and a convert to the Catholic faith, who united with Hashiba to revenge their master’s death, the latter marching upon Miyako in the name of the late emperor’s third son, whom he proclaimed as Kubō-Sama, reserving, however, to himself all real authority; and thus again was Japan, as during part of Nobunaga’s reign, furnished with two “idle kings,”—a Dairi and a titular Kubō-Sama,—while the real power was in the hands of a third party. Hashiba’s own very humble birth made him the more willing to begin, at first, with ruling in the name of another. Originally he was but a mere private soldier, who, having attracted the attention of Nobunaga, as well by his wit and drollery as by his courage and sagacity, had been gradually raised by him to the highest commands. This founder of the Japanese imperial authority, as it now exists, is described as having been short, but quite fat, and exceedingly strong, with six fingers on each hand, and something frightful in his face, his eyes protruding in a strange manner. It was he who completed what Nobunaga had begun, and who first gave to Japan, at least in modern times, a real and effective emperor, ruling supreme over the whole territory. The son of Nobunaga, being restless under the humiliation to which he was reduced, was deprived of his place as Kubō-Sama, and obliged to be satisfied with the island of Shikoku, the smaller of the three larger Japanese islands which his father had assigned him as an appanage, while Hashiba declared himself the guardian of an infant child of Nobunaga’s eldest son, whom he set up as titular Kubō-Sama. He showed at first the same favor to the Catholics as his predecessor had done, and the more so as Ukondono, his confederate against the rebel Akechi, was himself a convert, as were others of his great vassals and principal officers of his court and army. As the son of Nobunaga could not keep quiet, he was presently stripped of all authority, though his life was spared, and Hashiba, assuming to himself the high title of Kwambakudono, strengthened himself still further by marrying a daughter of the Dairi.