The writer lived for one year in Echizen, which, in the fifteenth century, was the battle-ground for over fifty years, of warring monks. The abbot of the Monastery of the Original Vow, of the Shin sect, in Kiōto, had built before the main edifice a two-storied gate, which was expected to throw into the shade every other gateway in Japan, and especially to humble the pride of the monks of the Tendai sect, in Hiyéizan, The monks of the mountain, swarming down into the capital city, attacked the gate and monastery of the Shin sect and burned the former to ashes. The abbot thus driven off by fire, fled northward, and, joined by a powerful body of adherents, made himself possessor of the rich provinces of Kaga and Echizen, holding this region for half a century, until able to rebuild the mighty fortress-monasteries near Kiōto and at Osaka. These strongholds of the fighting Shin priests had become so powerful as arsenals and military headquarters, that in 1570, Nobunaga, skilful general as he was, and backed by sixty thousand men, was unsuccessful in his attempt to reduce them. For ten years, the war between Nobunaga and the Shin sectarians kept the country in disorder. It finally ended in the conflagration of the great religious fortress at Osaka, and the retreat of the monks to another part of the country. By their treachery and incendiarism, the shavelings prevented the soldiers from enjoying the prizes. To detail the whole history of the fighting monks would be tedious. They have had a foothold for many centuries and even to the present time, in every province except that of Satsuma. There, because they treacherously aided the great Hidéyoshi to subdue the province, the fiery clansmen, never during Tokugawa days, permitted a Buddhist priest to come.[40] Literature, and Education.