Yoshiki

Yoshiki is the district of Suō around the Yamaguchi basin, where the Ōuchi clan made its seat. The Ōuchi first lived at Mihori in Yoshiki, and in 1360, after Ōuchi Hiroyo had won control of Suō, he moved the family centre to the site of today's Yamaguchi and laid the town out on the model of Kyoto. From here the clan ruled much of western Japan and grew rich on trade with Korea and Ming China. After the Ōnin War, scholars and artists fleeing the capital found refuge at Yamaguchi, and the painter Sesshū kept his studio there under Ōuchi patronage.

The five-storey pagoda now at Rurikōji recalls Ōuchi Yoshihiro, who died fighting the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu in 1399. His brother Moriharu ordered the pagoda for his memory, but was himself killed in Kyushu in 1431, and it was finished only in 1442. In 1550 Francis Xavier came to Yamaguchi and preached there, and missionaries were given a house in the town. The Ōuchi line ended in the 1550s when Sue Harukata rose against Ōuchi Yoshitaka, and in 1555 Mōri Motonari beat Sue at Miyajima and took over their lands.