Gokanosho 五家荘

A very beautiful and peaceful place surrounded by over 1,600 meters high mountains with trees and beautiful leaves, people living at altitude 500 - 1,000 meters high. Its history is said to have been started since 10th century, the Heian period. Two persons born in the purple in the 10th century came down to the two of five villages of current Gokanosho areas. 260 years later, in the 13th century,

huge battles occurred between two clans with "Heike" and "Genji", both are also descendants to Tenno (the Emperor of Japan). Heike became a powerful clan for the first time as Samurai class (not noble class), but Genji strikes back to Heike and finally Heike was completely defeated after some battles. Some of those defeated Samurai fled here and became rulers of the villages. Since then, Gokanosho has been the villages of fugitives and not known to others for a few hundred years.