CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

Battle of Mizushima

1183 naval battle of the Genpei War

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 21, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

The naval battle of Mizushima took place on 17 November 1183 during the Genpei War. One of the most important bases of the Taira was Yashima, a small island off the coast of Shikoku. In November 1183, Minamoto no Yoshinaka sent an army to cross the Inland Sea to Yashima, but they were caught by the Taira just offshore of Mizushima (水島), a small island of Bitchu Province, just off Honshū. The Taira tied their ships together and placed planks across them to form a flat fighting surface.

Editorial summary

“Battle of Mizushima” enters the record as 1183 naval battle of the Genpei War. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Battle, Mizushima and naval can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1183—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Battle, Mizushima and naval.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Battle of Mizushima” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Battle, Mizushima and naval provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1183.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Battle of Mizushima”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Battle of Mizushima primary sources, Battle of Mizushima archive and Battle research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Battle of Mizushima”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Mizushima” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.