Regarding the debate over whether tsuchi-ikki (土一揆) was part of the peasants' class struggle, Y. Inagaki criticized the researches regarded it as such a struggle, arguing that it was carried out by warriors, agents of landlords, or wealthy peasants and thus could not be looked upon as a political struggle. Inagaki's argument has been opposed by not a few scholars to date. At present, the balance of evidence seems to support the argument that tsuchi-ikki was part of the peasants' class struggle. Especially strong support has been provided by the researches on tokusei (徳政, annulling loan contracts) by K. Seta, H. Kasamatsu, and S. Katsumata, which has proved that tokusei demanded by tsuchi-ikki were based on the idea of the land possession common to the residents of villages at that time. On the other hand, it has come to be known that both the unity of peasants based on the village and the idea of the land possession common to villagers in the medieval Japan still prevailed in later premodern times. This brings the author to think that tsuchi-ikki cannot be completely explained only by the two elements in the previous debate, because the term disappears from the documentations by the end of the sixteenth century. The author, therfore, rexamines whether the unity of peasants based on the village is the definitive element of tsuchi-ikki, looking at the connection between daimyo, landlords, warriors and tsuchi-ikki, in order to throw some light upon the aspects that still remain unexplained.
