Daidoji Hira

Daidoji Hira was the youngest brother of Daidoji Daimyo Daidoji Kamei.

Maddened Behaviour
In 520 Hira began to act erratically, as the dead mouse left before the Lion envoy's quarters, the scolding he gave a visiting Kakita for testing sword blades on live criminals, or the time he had to be removed from the village market in a wheelbarrow. Kamei ordered his brother to commit seppuku, but Hira fled along with forty-four bushi from the Shiro Daidoji guard, leaving a message behind: "You did not set a date for my death, brother. Seek me in the Uebe Marshes if you wish to hasten it."

Foxfire War
Incensed, Kamei sailed down the coast to the Uebe Marshes to chase his brother. In the unfamiliar terrain, his troops were slaughtered during the Foxfire War with trap-laying and ambush strategies developed by Hira. Kamei retired to Shiro Daidoji, and found Hira's body in his former quarters, dead by seppuku. Arranged around him was a model depicting the most treacherous ambush points in the Marshes in the same scale as those in the Daidoji Library, and the message: "Do not let the food and drink of peace make the belly of the Daidoji grow fat. Seek my son in the marshes."

Aftermath
Hira's two sons, Daidoji Yasuhira and Daidoji Shigehira, followed the Blood feud against Kamei and his followers, and eventually they were chased and killed. Those troops that had helped the current daimyo defeat Hira's followers, were proclaimed the Hiramori family, vassals to the Daidoji. The family was named the "Forest Hira," an ironic joke at the traitorous Hira's expense.