On the 12th of the 9th month in the 8th year of the Bun’ei Era (1271), when I was arrested, I declared to Hei no Saemon and hundreds of his soldiers, “I, Nichiren, am the pillar of Japan. When you kill me, you cut down the pillar of Japan.”

Now, it is said in those sūtras that if the wise man is punished by the rulers of the land because of calumnies of evil priests or slandering words of the people, immediately there will be a civil war, gale and foreign invasion. A civil war broke out within the Hōjō clan in the second month in the 9th year of the Bun’ei Era (1272). A terrible wind blew in the 4th month in the 11th year of the Bun’ei Era. The Mongols invaded Japan in the tenth month of the same year. Aren’t these solely due to Nichiren being persecuted? As I predicted these in my “Treatise on Spreading Peace Throughout the Country by Establishing the True Dharma,” how can anyone have doubts about it?

Hōon-jō, Essay on Gratitude, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 32-33.