EIGHTY-SECOND SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR GO-TOBA (A.D. 1184-1198)

The Taira leaders having carried off the Emperor Antoku, there was no actually reigning sovereign in Kyoto, whither the cloistered Emperor now returned, an imposing guard of honour being furnished by Yoshinaka. Go-Shirakawa therefore resumed the administration of State affairs, Yoshinaka being given the privilege of access to the Presence and entrusted with the duty of guarding the capital. The distribution of rewards occupied attention in the first place. Out of the five hundred manors of the Taira, one hundred and fifty were given to Yoshinaka and Yukiiye, and over two hundred prominent Taira officials were stripped of their posts and their Court ranks. Yoritomo received more gracious treatment than Yoshinaka, although the Kamakura chief could not yet venture to absent himself from the Kwanto for the purpose of paying his respects at Court. For the rest, in spite of Yoshinaka's brilliant success, he was granted only the fifth official rank and the governorship of the province of Iyo.

These things could not fail to engender some discontent, and presently a much graver cause for dissatisfaction presented itself. Fujiwara Kanezane, minister of the Right, memorialized the Court in the sense that, as Antoku had left the capital, another occupant to the throne should be appointed, in spite of the absence of the regalia. He pointed out that a precedent for dispensing with these tokens of Imperialism had been furnished in the case of the Emperor Keitai (507-531). No valid reason existed for such a precipitate step. Antoku had not abdicated. His will had not been consulted at all by the Taira when they carried him off; nor would the will of a child of six have possessed any validity in such a matter. It is plain that the proposal made by the minister of the Right had for motive the convenience of the Minamoto, whose cause lacked legitimacy so long as the sovereign and the regalia were in the camp of the Taira.

But the minister's advice had a disastrous sequel. Yoshinaka was resolutely bent on securing the succession for the son of Prince Mochihito, who had been killed in the Yorimasa emeute. It was practically to Mochihito that the Court owed its rescue from the Taira tyranny, and his son—now a youth of seventeen, known as Prince Hokuriku, because he had founded an asylum at a monastery in Hokuriku-do after his father's death—had been conducted to Kyoto by Yoshinaka, under a promise to secure the succession for him. But Go-Shirakawa would not pay any attention to these representations. He held that Prince Hokuriku was ineligible, since his father had been born out of wedlock, and since the prince himself had taken the tonsure; the truth being that the ex-Emperor had determined to obtain the crown for one of his own grandsons, younger brothers of Antoku. It is said that his Majesty's manner of choosing between the two lads was most capricious. He had them brought into his presence, whereupon the elder began to cry, the younger to laugh, and Go-Shirakawa at once selected the latter, who thenceforth became the Emperor Go-Toba.

FALL OF YOSHINAKA

Yoshinaka's fortunes began to ebb from the time of his failure to obtain the nomination of Prince Hokuriku. A force despatched to Bitchu with the object of arresting the abduction of Antoku and recovering possession of the regalia, had the misfortune to be confronted by Taira no Noritsune, one of the stoutest warriors on the side of the Heike. Ashikaga Yoshikiyo, who commanded the pursuers, was killed, and his men were driven back pele-mele. This event impaired the prestige of Yoshinaka's troops, while he himself and his officers found that their rustic ways and illiterate education exposed them constantly to the thinly veiled sneers of the dilettanti and pundits who gave the tone to metropolitan society. The soldiers resented these insults with increasing roughness and recourse to violence, so that the coming of Yoritomo began to be much desired. Go-Shirakawa sent two messages at a brief interval to invite the Kamakura chief's presence in the capital. Yoritomo replied with a memorial which won for him golden opinions, but he showed no sign of visiting Kyoto. His absorbing purpose was to consolidate his base in the east, and he had already begun to appreciate that the military and the Imperial capitals should be distinct.

Naturally, when the fact of these pressing invitations to Yoritomo reached Yoshinaka's ears, he felt some resentment, and this was reflected in the demeanour of his soldiers, outrages against the lives and properties of the citizens becoming more and more frequent. Even the private domains of the cloistered Emperor himself, to say nothing of the manors of the courtiers, were freely entered and plundered, so that public indignation reached a high pitch. The umbrage thus engendered was accentuated by treachery. Driven from Kyushu, the Taira chiefs had obtained a footing in Shikoku and had built fortifications at Yashima in Sanuki, which became thenceforth their headquarters. They had also collected on the opposite coast of the Inland Sea a following which seemed likely to grow in dimensions, and, with the idea of checking that result, it was proposed to send troops to the Sanyo-do under Minamoto Yukiiye, who had been named governor of Bizen. Taught, however, by experience that disaster was likely to be the outcome of Yukiiye's generalship, Yoshinaka interfered to prevent his appointment, and Yukiiye, resenting this slight, became thenceforth a secret foe of Yoshinaka.

In analyzing the factors that go to the making of this complicated chapter of Japanese history, a place must be given to Yukiiye. He seems to have been an unscrupulous schemer. Serving originally under Yoritomo, who quickly took his measure, he concluded that nothing substantial was to be gained in that quarter. Therefore, he passed over to Yoshinaka, who welcomed him, not as an enemy of Yoritomo, but as a Minamoto. Thenceforth Yukiiye's aim was to cause a collision between the two cousins and to raise his own house on the ruins of both. He contributed materially to the former result, but as to the latter, the sixth year of his appearance upon the stage as Prince Mochihito's mandate-bearer saw his own head pilloried in Kyoto.

Yoshinaka, however, had too frank a disposition to be suspicious. He believed until the end that Yukiiye's heart was in the Minamoto cause. Then, when it became necessary to choose, between taking stupendous risks in the west or making a timely withdrawal to the east, he took Yukiiye into his confidence. That was the traitor's opportunity. He secretly informed the ex-Emperor that Yoshinaka had planned a retreat to the east, carrying his Majesty with him, and this information, at a time when the excesses committed by Yoshinaka's troops had provoked much indignation, induced Go-Shirakawa to obtain from Hiei-zan and Miidera armed monks to form a palace-guard under the command of the kebiishi, Taira Tomoyasu, a declared enemy of Yoshinaka. At once Yoshinaka took a decisive step. He despatched a force to the palace; seized the persons of Go-Shirakawa and Go-Toba; removed Motomichi from the regency, appointing Moroie, a boy of twelve, in his place, and dismissed a number of Court officials.

In this strait, Go-Shirakawa, whose record is one long series of undignified manoeuvres to keep his own head above water, applied himself to placate Yoshinaka while privately relying on Yoritomo. His Majesty granted to the former the control of all the domains previously held by the Taira; appointed him to the high office of sei-i tai-shogun (barbarian-subduing generalissimo), and commissioned him to attack Yoritomo while, at the same time, the latter was secretly encouraged to destroy his cousin. At that moment (February, 1184), Yoritomo's two younger brothers, Yoshitsune and Noriyori, were en route for Kyoto, where they had been ordered to convey the Kwanto taxes. They had a force of five hundred men only, but these were quickly transformed into the van of an army of fifty or sixty thousand, which Yoritomo, with extraordinary expedition, sent from Kamakura to attack Yoshinaka.

The "Morning Sun shogun" (Asahi-shogun), as Yoshinaka was commonly called with reference to his brilliant career, now at last saw himself confronted by the peril which had long disturbed his thoughts. At a distance of three hundred miles from his own base, with powerful foes on either flank and in a city whose population was hostile to him, his situation seemed almost desperate. He took a step dictated by dire necessity—made overtures to the Taira, asking that a daughter of the house of Kiyomori be given him for wife. Munemori refused. The fortunes of the Taira at that moment appeared to be again in the ascendant. They were once more supreme in Kyushu; the west of the main island from coast to coast was in their hands; they had re-established themselves in Fukuhara, and at any moment they might move against Kyoto. They could afford, therefore, to await the issue of the conflict pending between the Minamoto cousins, sure that it must end in disaster for one side and temporary weakness for the other.

In fact, the situation was almost hopeless for Yoshinaka. There had not been time to recall the main body of his troops which were confronting the Taira. All that he could do was to arrest momentarily the tide of onset by planting handfuls of men to guard the chief avenues at Uji and Seta where, four years previously, Yorimasa had died for the Minamoto cause, and Seta, where a long bridge spans the waters of Lake Biwa as they narrow to form the Setagawa. To the Uji bridge, Nenoi Yukichika was sent with three hundred men; to the Seta bridge, Imai Kanehira with five hundred. The names of these men and of their brothers, Higuchi Kanemitsu and Tate Chikatada, are immortal in Japanese history. They were the four sons of Nakahara Kaneto, by whom Yoshinaka had been reared, and their constant attendance on his person, their splendid devotion to him, and their military prowess caused people to speak of them as Yoshinaka's Shi-tenno—the four guardian deities of Buddhist temples. Their sister, Tomoe, is even more famous. Strong and brave as she was beautiful, she became the consort of Yoshinaka, with whom she had been brought up, and she accompanied him in all his campaigns, fighting by his side and leading a body of troops in all his battles. She was with him when he made his final retreat and she killed a gigantic warrior, Uchida Ieyoshi, who attempted to seize her on that occasion. Yoshinaka compelled her to leave him at the supreme moment, being unwilling that she should fall into the enemy's hands; and after his death she became a nun, devoting the rest of her days to prayers for his spirit.

But it is not to be supposed that Yoshinaka repaid this noble devotion with equal sincerity. On the contrary, the closing scene of his career was disfigured by passion for another woman, daughter of the kwampaku, Fujiwara Motofusa. Attracted by rumours of her beauty after his arrival in Kyoto, he compelled her to enter his household, and when news came that the armies of Yoshitsune and Noriyori were approaching the capital, this great captain, for such he certainly was, instead of marshalling his forces and making dispositions for defence, went to bid farewell to the beautiful girl who resided in his Gojo mansion. Hours of invaluable time passed, and still Asahi shogun remained by the lady's side. Finally, two of his faithful comrades, Echigo Chuta and Tsuwata Saburo, seated themselves in front of the mansion and committed suicide to recall their leader to his senses. Yoshinaka emerged, but it was too late. He could not muster more than three hundred men, and in a short time Yoshitsune rode into the city at the head of a large body of cavalry.

Yoshitsune had approached by way of Uji. He was not at all deterred by the fact that the enemy had destroyed the bridge. His mounted bowmen dashed into the river* and crossed it with little loss. A few hours brought them to Kyoto, where they made small account of the feeble resistance that Yoshinaka was able to offer. Wounded and with little more than half a score of followers, Yoshinaka rode off, and reaching the plain Of Awazu, met Imai Kanehira with the remnant of his five hundred men who had gallantly resisted Noriyori's army of thirty thousand. Imai counselled instant flight eastward. In Shinano, Yoshinaka would find safety and a dominion, while to cover his retreat, Imai would sacrifice his own life. Such noble deeds were the normal duty of every true bushi. Yoshinaka galloped away, but, riding into a marsh, disabled his horse and was shot down. Meanwhile Imai, in whose quiver there remained only eight arrows, had killed as many of the pursuing horsemen, and then placing the point of his sword in his mouth, had thrown himself headlong from his horse. One incident, shocking but not inconsistent with the canons of the time, remains to be included in this chapter of Japanese history. It has been related that Yoshinaka's son, Yoshitaka, was sent by his father to Kamakura as a hostage, and was married to Yoritomo's daughter. After the events above related Yoshitaka was put to death at Kamakura, apparently without Yoritomo's orders, and his widow, when pressed by her brother to marry again, committed suicide.

*Japanese tradition loves to tell of a contest between Sasaki Takatsuna and Kajiwara Kagesue as to which should cross the river first. Kagesue was the son of that Kajiwara who had saved. Yoritomo's life in the episode of the hollow tree.

BATTLE OF ICHI-NO-TANI

The victory of the armies led by Noriyori and Yoshitsune brought Kamakura and Fukuhara into direct conflict, and it was speedily decided that these armies should at once move westward to attack the Taira. A notable feature of the military operations of that era was celerity. Less than a month sufficed to mobilize an army of fifty thousand men and to march it from Kamakura to Kyoto, a distance of three hundred miles, and within ten days of the death of Yoshinaka this same army, augmented to seventy-six thousand, began to move westward from Kyoto (March 19, 1184). The explanation of this rapidity is furnished, in part, by simplicity of commisariat, and by the fact that neither artillery nor heavy munitions of war had to be transported. Every man carried with him a supply of cooked rice, specially prepared so as to occupy little space while sufficing for several days' food, and this supply was constantly replenished by requisitions levied upon the districts traversed. Moreover, every man carried his own implements of war—bow and arrows, sword, spear, or halberd—and the footgear consisted of straw sandals which never hurt the feet, and in which a man could easily march twenty miles a day continuously.

These remarks apply to all the fighting men of whatever part of Japan, but as to the Kwanto bushi, their special characteristics are thus described by a writer of the twelfth century: "Their ponderous bows require three men or five to bend them. Their quivers, which match these bows, hold fourteen or fifteen bundles of arrows. They are very quick in releasing their shafts, and each arrow kills or wounds two or three foemen, the impact being powerful enough to pierce two or three thicknesses of armour at a time, and they never fail to hit the mark. Every daimyo (owner of a great estate) has at least twenty or thirty of such mounted archers, and even the owner of a small barren estate has two or three. Their horses are very excellent, for they are carefully selected, while as yet in pasture, and then trained after their own peculiar fashion. With five or ten such excellent mounts each, they go out hunting deer or foxes and gallop up and down mountains and forests. Trained in these wild methods, they are all splendid horsemen who know how to ride but never how to fall. It is the habit of the Kwanto bushi that if in the field of battle a father be killed, the son will not retreat, or if a son be slain the father will not yield, but stepping over the dead, they will fight to the death."*

*Murdoch's History of Japan.

The Taira, as noted above, had by this time largely recovered from the disasters suffered in their first encounters with Yoshinaka's forces. In the western provinces of the main island, in Shikoku, and in Kyushu, scions of the clan had served as governors in former times, so that ties of close intimacy had been established with the inhabitants. Since the first flight to Kyushu in August, 1183, their generals, Shigehira, Michimori, Noritsune, and others had defeated the forces of Yoshinaka at Mizushima and those of Yukiiye at Muroyama, so that no less than fourteen provinces of the Sanyo-do and the Nankai-do owned Taira sway, and by the beginning of 1184 they had re-occupied the Fukuhara district, establishing themselves at a position of great natural strength called Ichi-no-tani in the province of Harima. Their lines extended several miles, over which space one hundred thousand men were distributed. They lay within a semi-circle of mountains supposed to be inaccessible from the north; their camp was washed on the south by the sea where a thousand war-vessels were assembled; the east flank rested on a forest, and the west was strongly fortified.

On March 21, 1184, the Kamakura armies delivered their assault on this position; Noriyori with fifty-six thousand men against the east flank at Ikuta; Yoshitsune's lieutenants with twenty thousand men against the west at Suma. Little progress was made. Defence and attack were equally obstinate, and the advantage of position as well as of numbers was with the former. But Yoshitsune himself had foreseen this and had determined that the best, if not the only, hope of victory lay in delivering an assault by descending the northern rampart of mountains at Hiyodori Pass. Access from that side being counted impracticable, no dispositions had been made by the Taira to guard the defile. Yoshitsune selected for the venture seventy-five men, among them being Benkei, Hatakeyama Shigetada, and others of his most trusted comrades. They succeeded in riding down the steep declivity, and they rushed at the Taira position, setting fire to everything inflammable.

What ensued is soon told. Taken completely by surprise, the Taira weakened, and the Minamoto, pouring in at either flank, completed the rout which had already commenced. Munemori was among the first of the fugitives. He embarked with the Emperor Antoku and the regalia, and steered for Yashima, whither he was quickly followed by the remnants of his force. Shigehira, Kiyomori's fifth son, was taken prisoner. Michimori, Tadanori, and Atsumori were killed. Several illustrative incidents marked this great fight. Michimori's wife threw herself into the sea when she heard of her husband's death. Tomoakira, the seventeen-year-old son of Tomomori, deliberately sacrificed himself to save his father, and the latter, describing the incident subsequently to his brother, Munemori, said with tears: "A son died to save his father; a father fled, leaving his son to die. Were it done by another man, I should spit in his face. But I have done it myself. What will the world call me?" This same Tomomori afterwards proved himself the greatest general on the Taira side. Okabe Tadazumi, a Minamoto captain, took the head of Tadanori but could not identify it. In the lining of the helmet, however, was found a roll of poems and among them one signed "Tadanori:"

Twilight upon my path, And for mine inn to-night The shadow of a tree, And for mine host, a flower.

This little gem of thought has gleamed on Tadanori's memory through all the centuries and has brought vicarious fame even to his slayer, Tadazumi. Still more profoundly is Japanese sympathy moved by the episode of Taira no Atsumori and Kumagaye Naozane. Atsumori, a stripling of fifteen, was seized by Naozane, a stalwart warrior on the Minamoto side. When Naozane tore off the boy's helmet, preparatory to beheading him, and saw a young face vividly recalling his own son who had perished early in the fight, he was moved with compassion and would fain have stayed his hand. To have done so, however, would merely have been to reserve Atsumori for a crueller death. He explained his scruples and his sorrows to the boy, who submitted to his fate with calm courage. But Naozane vowed never to wield weapon again. He sent Atsumori's head and a flute found on his person to the youth's father, Tsunemori, and he himself entered the priesthood, devoting the remaining years of his life to prayers for the soul of the ill-fated lad. Such incidents do not find a usual place in the pages of history, but they contribute to the interpretation of a nation's character.

BATTLE OF YASHIMA

The battle of Ichi-no-tani was not by any means conclusive. It drove the Taira out of Harima and the four provinces on the immediate west of the latter, but it did not disturb them in Shikoku or Kyushu, nor did it in any way cripple the great fleet which gave them a signal advantage. In these newly won provinces Yoritomo placed military governors and nominated to these posts Doi Sanehira and Kajiwara Kagetoki, heroes, respectively, of the cryptomeria forest and the hollow tree. But this contributed little to the solution of the vital problem, how to get at the Taira in Shikoku and in Kyushu. Noriyori returned to Kamakura to consult Yoritomo, but the latter and his military advisers could not plan anything except the obvious course of marching an army from Harima westward to the Strait of Shimonoseki, and thereafter collecting boats to carry it across to Kyushu. That, however, was plainly defective strategy. It left the flank of the westward-marching troops constantly exposed to attack from the coast where the Taira fleet had full command of the sea; it invited enterprises against the rear of the troops from the enemy's position at Yashima in Shikoku, and it assumed the possibility of crossing the Strait of Shimonoseki in the presence of a greatly superior naval force.

Yet no other plan of operations suggested itself to the Kamakura strategists. Yoshitsune was not consulted. He remained in Kyoto instead of repairing to Kamakura, and he thereby roused the suspicion of Yoritomo, who began to see in him a second Yoshinaka. Hence, in presenting a list of names for reward in connexion with the campaign against the "Morning Sun shogun," Yoritomo made no mention of Yoshitsune, and the brilliant soldier would have remained entirely without recognition had not the cloistered Emperor specially appointed him to the post of kebiishi. Thus, when the largely augmented Minamoto force began to move westward from Harima in October, 1184, under the command of Noriyori, no part was assigned to Yoshitsune. He remained unemployed in Kyoto.

Noriyori pushed westward steadily, but not without difficulty. He halted for a time in the province of Suwo, and finally, in March, 1185, five months after moving out of Harima, he contrived to transfer the main part of his force across Shimonoseki Strait and to marshall them in Bungo in the north of Kyushu. The position then was this: first, a Taira army strongly posted at Yashima in Sanuki (Shikoku), due east of Noriyori's van in Bungo, and threatening his line of communications throughout its entire length from Harima to the Strait of Shimonoseki; secondly, another Taira army strongly posted on Hikoshima, an island west of Shimonoseki Strait, which army menaced the communications between Noriyori's van across the water in Bungo and his advanced base in Suwo, and thirdly, the command of the whole Inland Sea in the hands of the Taira.

Evidently, in such conditions, no advance into Kyushu could be made by Noriyori without inviting capital risks. The key of the situation for the Minamoto was to wrest the command of the sea from the Taira and to drive them from Shikoku preparatory to the final assault upon Kyushu. This was recognized after a time, and Kajiwara Kagetoki received orders to collect or construct a fleet with all possible expedition, which orders he applied himself to carry out at Watanabe, in Settsu, near the eastern entrance to the Inland Sea. In justice to Yoritomo's strategy it must be noted that these orders were given almost simultaneously with the departure of the Minamoto army westward from Harima, so that by the time of Noriyori's arrival in Bungo, the military governor, Kagetoki, had got together some four hundred vessels at Watanabe.

Meanwhile, Yoshitsune had been chafing in Kyoto. To a man of his temperament enforced passivity on the eve of such epoch-making events must have been intolerable. He saw plainly that to drive the Taira from Shikoku was an essential preliminary to their ultimate defeat, and he saw, too, that for such an enterprise a larger measure of resolution and daring was needed than Kajiwara Kagetoki seemed disposed to employ. He therefore obtained from the cloistered Emperor the commission of tai-shogun (great general) and hastened to Settsu to take command. Complications ensued at once. Kagetoki objected to be relegated to a secondary place, and Go-Shirakawa was induced to recall Yoshitsune. But the latter refused to return to Kyoto, and, of course, his relations with Kagetoki were not cordial. The situation was complicated by an unpleasant incident. Kagetoki wished to equip the war-junks with sakaro. Yoshitsune asked what that meant, and being informed that sakaro signified oars at the bow of a boat for use in the event of going astern, he said that such a provision could tend only to suggest a movement fatal to success.

"Do you contemplate retiring?" he asked Kagetoki. "So far as I am concerned, I desire only to be equipped for advancing." Kagetoki indignantly replied: "A skilful general advances at the right moment and retires at the right moment. You know only the tactics of a wild boar." Yoshitsune angrily retorted, "I know not whether I am a boar or whether I am a deer, but I do know that I take pleasure in crushing a foe by attacking him." From that moment the relations between the two generals were distinctly strained, and it will presently be seen that the consequences of their estrangement became historical.

The 21st of March, 1185, was a day of tempest. Yoshitsune saw his opportunity. He proposed to run over to the opposite coast and attack Yashima under cover of the storm. Kagetoki objected that no vessel could live in such weather. Yoshitsune then called for volunteers. About one hundred and fifty daring spirits responded. They embarked in five war-junks, some of the sailors being ordered to choose between manning the vessels or dying by the sword. Sweeping over the Harima Nada with the storm astern, Yoshitsune and his little band of heroic men landed safely on the Awa coast, and dashed at once to the assault of the Taira, who were taken wholly by surprise, never imagining that any forces could have essayed such an enterprise in such a tempest. Some fought resolutely, but ultimately all that had not perished under the swords of the Minamoto obeyed Munemori's orders to embark, and the evening of the 23rd of March saw the Taira fleet congregated in Shido Bay and crowded with fugitives. There they were attacked at dawn on the 24th by Yoshitsune, to whom there had arrived on the previous evening a re-enforcement of thirty war-junks, sent, not by Kagetoki, but by a Minamoto supporter who had been driven from the province of Iyo some time previously by the Taira.

As usual, the impetuosity of Yoshitsune's onset carried everything before it. Soon the Taira fleet was flying down the Inland Sea, and when Kajiwara Kagetoki, having at length completed his preparations, arrived off Yashima on the 25th of March with some four hundred war-vessels, he found only the ashes of the Taira palaces and palisades. Munemori, with the boy Emperor and all the survivors of the Taira, had fled by sea to join Tomomori at Hikoshima. This enterprise was even more brilliant and much more conclusive than that of Ichi-no-tani. During three consecutive days, with a mere handful of one hundred and fifty followers, Yoshitsune had engaged a powerful Taira army on shore, and on the fourth day he had attacked and routed them at sea, where the disparity of force must have been evident and where no adventitious natural aids were available.

When every allowance is made for the incompetence of the Taira commander, Munemori, and for the crippling necessity of securing the safety of the child-sovereign, Antoku, the battle of Yashima still remains one of the most extraordinary military feats on record. Among the incidents of the battle, it is recorded that Yoshitsune himself was in imminent peril at one time, and the details illustrate the manner of fighting in that era. He dropped his bow into the sea during the naval engagement, and when he essayed to pick it up, some Taira soldiers hooked his armour with a grapnel. Yoshitsune severed the haft of the grapnel with his sword and deliberately picked up the bow. Asked why he had imperilled his person for a mere bow, he replied, "Had it been a bow such as my uncle Tametomo bent, its falling into the enemy's possession would not matter; but a weak bow like mine would give them something to laugh at." Observing this incident, Noritsune, one of the best fighters and most skilled archers among the Taira, made Yoshitsune the target of his shafts. But Sato Tsuginobu, member of the band of trusted comrades who had accompanied the Minamoto hero from Mutsu, interposed his body and received the arrow destined for Yoshitsune. Kikuo, Noritsune's squire, leaped from his boat to decapitate the wounded Tsuginobu, but was shot down by the latter's younger brother. Yoshitsune pillowed Tsuginobu's head on his knees and asked the dying man whether he had any last message. The answer was: "To die for my lord is not death. I have longed for such an end ever since we took the field. My only regret is that I cannot live to see the annihilation of the Taira." Yoshitsune, weeping, said, "To annihilate the Taira is a mere matter of days, but all time would not suffice to repay your devotion."

BATTLE OF DAN-NO-URA

The fight at Yashima was followed by a month's interval of comparatively minor operations, undertaken for the purpose of bringing Shikoku completely under Minamoto sway. During that time the two clans prepared for final action. The Taira would have withdrawn altogether into Kyushu, but such a course must have been preceded by the dislodging of Noriyori, with his army of thirty thousand men, from Bungo province, which they had occupied since the beginning of March. It is true that Noriyori himself was unable to make any further incursion into Kyushu so long as his maritime communications with his advanced base in Suwo remained at the mercy of the Taira fleet. But it is equally true that the Taira generals dared not enter Kyushu so long as a strong Minamoto force was planted on the left flank of their route.

Thus, a peculiar situation existed at the beginning of April, 1185. Of the two provinces at the extreme south of the main island, one, the eastern (Suwo), was in Minamoto occupation; the other, the western (Nagato), was mainly held by the Taira; and of the three provinces forming the northern littoral of Kyushu, two, the western (Chikuzen and Buzen), were in Taira hands, and the third, the eastern (Bungo), was the camp of Noriyori with his thirty thousand men. Finally, the Strait of Shimonoseki between Chikuzen and Buzen was in Taira possession. Evidently the aim of the Taira must be to eliminate Noriyori from the battle now pending, and to that end they selected for arena Dan-no-ura, that is to say, the littoral of Nagato province immediately east of the Shimonoseki Strait.

We have seen that ever since the Ichi-no-tani fight, the Minamoto generals, especially Kajiwara Kagetoki, had been actively engaged in building, or otherwise acquiring, war-junks. By April, 1185, they had brought together a squadron of seven to eight hundred; whereas, in the sequel of Yashima and minor engagements, the Taira fleet had been reduced to some five hundred. The war-junk of those days was not a complicated machine. Propelled by oars, it had no fighting capacities of its own, its main purpose being to carry its occupants within bow-range or sword-reach of their adversaries. Naval tactics consisted solely in getting the wind-gage for archery purposes.

By the 22nd of April, 1185, the whole of the Minamoto fleet had assembled at Oshima, an island lying off the southeast of Suwo, the Taira vessels, with the exception of the Hikoshima contingent, being anchored at Dan-no-ura. On that day, a strong squadron, sent out by Yoshitsune for reconnoitring purposes, marshalled itself at a distance of about two miles from the Taira array, and this fact having been signalled to the Taira general, Tomomori, at Hikoshima, he at once passed the strait and joined forces with the main fleet at Dan-no-ura. Yoshitsune's design had been to deliver a general attack immediately after the despatch of the reconnoitring squadron, but this was prevented by a deluge of blinding rain which lasted until the night of the 24th.

Thus, it was not until the 25th that the battle took place. It commenced with an inconclusive archery duel at long range, whereafter the two fleets closed up and a desperate hand-to-hand struggle ensued. Neither side could claim any decisive advantage until Taguchi Shigeyoshi deserted from the Taira and passed over with all his ships to the Minamoto. This Taguchi had been originally an influential magnate of Iyo in Shikoku, whence he had accompanied the Taira retreat to Nagato, leaving his son with three thousand men to defend the family manors in Iyo. The son was so generously treated by the Minamoto that he threw in his lot with them and sent letters urging his father to adopt the same cause. Taguchi not only followed his son's advice but also chose the moment most disastrous for the Taira.

His defection was followed quickly by the complete rout of the Heike. A resolute attempt was made to defend the ship containing the young Emperor, his mother, his grandmother, and several other Taira ladies; but the vessel finally passed into Minamoto possession. Not before she had been the scene of a terrible tragedy, however. Kiyomori's widow, the Ni-i-no-ama, grandmother of Antoku, took the six-year old child in her arms and jumped into the sea, followed by Antoku's mother, the Empress Dowager (Kenrei-mon-in), carrying the regalia, and by other court ladies. The Empress Dowager was rescued, as were also the sacred mirror and the gem, but the sword was irrevocably lost.

The Taira leader, Munemori, and his son, Kiyomune, were taken prisoner, but Tomomori, Noritsune, and seven other Taira generals were drowned. Noritsune distinguished himself conspicuously. He singled out Yoshitsune for the object of his attack, but being unable to reach him, he seized two Minamoto bushi and sprang into the sea with them. Tomomori, Munemori's brother, who had proved himself a most able general, leaped overboard carrying an anchor. Yoshitsune spoke in strongly laudatory terms of Noritsune and ascribed to him much of the power hitherto wielded by the Taira. Munemori and his son were executed finally at Omi. Shigehira, in response to a petition from the Nara priests whose fanes he had destroyed by Kiyomori's orders, was handed over to the monks and put to death by them at Narasaka. But Kiyomori's brother, who had interceded for the life of Yoritomo after the Heiji emeule, was pardoned, his rank and property being restored to him; and Taira no Munekiyo, who also had acted an important part in saving Yoritomo at that time, was invited to visit Kamakura where he would have been received with honour; but he declined the invitation, declaring that a change of allegiance at such a moment would be unworthy of a bushi.

It may here be noted that, although several of the Taira leaders who took the field against the Minamoto were killed in the campaign or executed or exiled after it, the punitory measures adopted by Yoritomo were not by any means wholesale. To be a Taira did not necessarily involve Kamakura's enmity. On the contrary, not only was clemency extended to several prominent members of Kiyomori's kith and kin, but also many local magnates of Taira origin whose estates lay in the Kwanto were from first to last staunch supporters and friends of the Minamoto. After Dan-no-ura, the Heike's sun permanently ceased to dominate the political firmament, but not a few Heike stars rose subsequently from time to time above the horizon.

MUNEMORI AND ANTOKU

The record of Munemori, whose leadership proved fatal to the Taira cause, stamps him as something very rare among Japanese bushi—a coward. He was the first to fly from every battle-field, and at Dan-no-ura he preferred surrender to death. Tradition alleges that in this final fight Munemori's reputed mother, Ni-i-no-ama, before throwing herself into the sea with the Emperor in her arms, confessed that Munemori was not her son. After she had borne Shigemori she became enceinte and her husband, Kiyomori, looked eagerly for the birth of another boy. But a girl was born. Just at that time the wife of a man who combined the occupations of bonze and umbrella-maker, bore a son, and the two children were surreptitiously exchanged. This story does not rest upon infallible testimony. Nor does another narrative, with regard to the motives which induced Kiyomori's widow to drown the young Emperor. Those motives are said to have been two. One was to fix upon the Minamoto the heinous crime of having done a sovereign to death, so that some avenger might rise in future years; the other was to hide the fact that Antoku was in reality a girl whose sex had been concealed in the interest of the child's maternal grandfather, Kiyomori.

YOSHITSUNE'S FATE

Yoshitsune's signal victories were at Ichi-no-tani and at Yashima. The fight at Dan-no-ura could not have made him famous, for its issue was determined by defection in the enemy's ranks, not by any strategical device or opportune coup on the side of the victors. Yet Japan accords to Yoshitsune the first place among her great captains. Undoubtedly this estimate is influenced by sympathy. Pursued by the relentless anger of his own brother, whose cause he had so splendidly championed, he was forced to fly for refuge to the north, and was ultimately done to death. This most cruel return for glorious deeds has invested his memory with a mist of tears tending to obscure the true outlines of events, so that while Yoritomo is execrated as an inhuman, selfish tyrant, Yoshitsune is worshipped as a faultless hero. Yet, when examined closely, the situation undergoes some modifications. Yoritomo's keen insight discerned in his half-brother's attitude something more than mere rivalry. He discovered the possible establishment of special relations between the Imperial Court and a section of the Minamoto.

Yoshitsune's failure to repair to Kamakura after the battle of Ichi-no-tani inspired Yoritomo's first doubts. Japanese annals offer no explanation of Yoshitsune's procedure on that occasion. It would have been in the reasonable sequence of events that the military genius which planned and carried out the great coup at Ichi-no-tani should have been available at the subsequent council of strategists in Kamakura, and it would have been natural that the younger brother should have repaired, as did his elder brother, Noriyori, to the headquarters of the clan's chief. Yet Yoshitsune remained at Kyoto, and that by so doing he should have suggested some suspicions to Yoritomo was unavoidable. The secret of the Court nobles' ability to exclude the military magnates from any share in State administration was no secret in Yoritomo's eyes. He saw clearly that this differentiation had been effected by playing off one military party against the other, or by dividing the same party against itself; and he saw clearly that opportunities for such measures had been furnished by subjecting the military leaders to constant contact with the Court nobility.

Therefore, he determined to keep two aims always in view. One was to establish a military and executive capital entirely apart from, and independent of, the Imperial and administrative metropolis; the other, to preserve the unity of the Minamoto clan in all circumstances. Both of these aims seemed to be threatened with failure when Yoshitsune preferred the Court in Kyoto to the camp in Kamakura; still more so when he accepted from Go-Shirakawa rank and office for which Yoritomo had not recommended him, and yet further when he obtained from the ex-Emperor a commission to lead the Minamoto armies westward without any reference to, and in despite of, the obvious intention of the Minamoto chief at Kamakura.

All these acts could scarcely fail to be interpreted by Yoritomo as preluding the very results which he particularly desired to avert, namely, a house of Minamoto divided against itself and the re-establishment of Court influence over a strong military party in Kyoto. His apprehensions received confirmation from reports furnished by Kajiwara Kagetoki. Yoritomo trusted this man implicitly. Never forgetting that Kajiwara had saved his life in the affair of the hollow tree, he appointed him to the post of military governor and to the command of the army destined to drive the Taira from Shikoku after the battle of Ichi-no-tani. In that command Kajiwara had been superseded by Yoshitsune, and had moreover been brought into ridicule in connexion not only with the shipbuilding incident but also, and in a far more flagrant manner, with the great fight at Yashima. He seems from the first to have entertained doubts of Yoshitsune's loyalty to Yoritomo, and his own bitter experiences may well have helped to convert those doubts into certainties. He warned Kamakura in very strong terms against the brilliant young general who was then the idol of Kyoto, and thus, when Yoshitsune, in June, 1185, repaired to Kamakura to hand over the prisoners taken in the battle of Dan-no-ura and to pay his respects to Yoritomo, he was met at Koshigoe, a village in the vicinity, by Hojo Tokimasa, who conveyed to him Yoritomo's veto against his entry to Kamakura. A letter addressed by Yoshitsune to his brother on that occasion ran, in part, as follows:

Here am I, weeping crimson tears in vain at thy displeasure. Well was it said that good medicine tastes bitter in the mouth, and true words ring harsh in the ear. This is why the slanders that men speak of me remain unproved, why I am kept out of Kamakura unable to lay bare my heart. These many days 1 have lain here and could not gaze upon my brother's face. The bond of our blood-brotherhood is sundered.

But a short season after I was born, my honoured sire passed to another world, and I was left fatherless. Clasped in my mother's bosom, I was carried down to Yamato, and since that day I have not known a moment free from care and danger. Though it was but to drag out a useless life, we wandered round the capital suffering hardship, hid in all manner of rustic spots, dwelt in remote and distant provinces, whose rough inhabitants did treat us with contumely. But at last I was summoned to assist in overthrowing the Taira house, and in this conflict I first laid Kiso Yoshinaka low. Then, so that I might demolish the Taira men, I spurred my steed on frowning precipices. Careless of death in the face of the foe, I braved the dangers of wind and wave, not recking that my body might sink to the bottom of the sea, and be devoured by monsters of the deep. My pillow was my harness, arms my trade. [Translated by W. G. Aston.]

This letter breathes the spirit of sincerity. But its perusal did not soften Yoritomo, if it ever reached his eyes. He steadily refused to cancel his veto, and after an abortive sojourn of twenty days at Koshigoe, Yoshitsune returned to Kyoto where his conduct won for him increasing popularity. Three months later, Yoritomo appointed him governor of Iyo. It is possible that had not the situation been complicated by a new factor, the feud between the brothers might have ended there. But Minamoto Yukiiye, learning of these strained relations, emerged from hiding and applied himself to win the friendship of Yoshitsune, who received his advances graciously. Yoritomo, much incensed at this development, sent the son of Kajiwara Kagetoki to Yoshitsune with a mandate for Yukiiye's execution. Such a choice of messenger was ill calculated to promote concord. Yoshitsune, pleading illness, declined to receive the envoy, and it was determined at Kamakura that extreme measures must be employed. Volunteers were called for to make away with Yoshitsune, and, in response, a Nara bonze, Tosabo Shoshun, whose physical endowments had brought him into prominence at Kamakura, undertook the task on condition that a substantial reward be given him beforehand.

Shoshun did not waste any time. On the eighth night after his departure from Kamakura, he, with sixty followers, attacked Yoshitsune's mansion at Horikawa in Kyoto. By wholesale oaths, sworn in the most solemn manner, he had endeavoured to disarm the suspicions of his intended victim, and he so far succeeded that, when the attack was delivered, Yoshitsune had only seven men to hold the mansion against sixty. But these seven were the trusty and stalwart comrades who had accompanied Yoshitsune from Mutsu and had shared all the vicissitudes of his career. They held their assailants at bay until Yukiiye, roused by the tumult, came to the rescue, and the issue of Shoshun's essay was that his own head appeared on the pillory in Kyoto. Yoshitsune was awakened and hastily armed on this occasion by his beautiful mistress, Shizuka, who, originally a danseuse of Kyoto, followed him for love's sake in weal and in woe. Tokiwa, Tomoe, Kesa, and Shizuka—these four heroines will always occupy a prominent place in Japanese history of the twelfth century.

After this event there could be no concealments between the two brothers. With difficulty and not without some menaces, Yoshitsune obtained from Go-Shirakawa a formal commission to proceed against Yoritomo by force of arms. Matters now moved with great rapidity. Yoritomo, always prescient, had fully foreseen the course of events. Shoshun's abortive attack on the Horikawa mansion took place on November 10, 1185, and before the close of the month three strong columns of Kamakura troops were converging on Kyoto. In that interval, Yoshitsune, failing to muster any considerable force in the capital or its environs, had decided to turn his back on Kyoto and proceed westward; he himself to Kyushu, and Yukiiye to Shikoku. They embarked on November 29th, but scarcely had they put to sea when they encountered a gale which shattered their squadron. Yoshitsune and Yukiiye both landed on the Izumi coast, each ignorant of the other's fate. The latter was captured and beheaded a few months later, but the former made his way to Yamato and found hiding-places among the valleys and mountains of Yoshino. The hero of Ichi-no-tani and Yashima was now a proscribed fugitive. Go-Shirakawa, whose fate was always to obey circumstances rather than to control them, had issued a new mandate on the arrival of Yoritomo's forces at Kyoto, and Kamakura was now authorized to exterminate Yoshitsune with all his partisans, wherever they could be found.

Almost simultaneously with the capture of Yukiiye, whose fate excites no pity, the fair girl, Shizuka, was apprehended and brought before Hojo Tokimasa, who governed Kyoto as Yoritomo's lieutenant. Little more than a year had elapsed since she first met Yoshitsune after his return from Dan-no-ura, and her separation from him now had been insisted on by him as the only means of saving her life. Indifferent to her own fate, she quickly fell into the hands of Tokimasa's emissaries and was by them subjected to a fruitless examination, repeated with equally abortive results on her arrival at Kamakura. There, in spite of her vehement resistance, she was constrained to dance before Yoritomo and his wife, Masa, but instead of confining herself to stereotyped formulae, she utilized the occasion to chant to the accompaniment of her dance a stanza of sorrow for separation from her lover. It is related that Yoritomo's wrath would have involved serious consequences for Shizuka had not the lady Masa intervened. The beautiful danseuse, being enceinte at the time, was kept in prison until her confinement. She had the misfortune to give birth to a son, and the child was killed by Yoritomo's order, the mother being released. The slaughter of an innocent baby sounds very shocking in modern ears, but it is just to remember that the Kamakura chief and his three younger brothers would all have been executed by Kiyomori had not their escape been contrived by special agencies. The Confucian doctrine, which had passed into the bushi's code, forbade a man to live under the same sky with his father's slayer. Deeds like the killing of Yoshitsune's son were the natural consequence of that doctrine.

Meanwhile, Yoshitsune had been passing from one place of concealment to another in the three contiguous provinces of Izumi, Yamato, and Kii. He escaped deadly peril in the Yoshino region through the devotion of Sato Tadanobu, whose brother, Tsuginobu, had died to save Yoshitsune's life in the battle of Yashima. Attacked by the monks of Zo-o-do in overwhelming force, Yoshitsune had prepared to meet death when Tadanobu offered to personify him and hold the position while Yoshitsune escaped. With much difficulty Yoshitsune was induced to consent. Tadanobu not only succeeded in covering the retreat of his chief, but also managed himself to escape to Kyoto where, being discovered, he died by his own hand. Finally, in the spring of 1187, Yoshitsune and his followers, disguised as mendicant friars, made their way up the west coast, and, after hairbreadth escapes, found asylum in the domain of Fujiwara Hidehira, who had protected Yoshitsune in his youth. Hidehira owned and administered the whole of the two provinces of Mutsu and Dewa, which in those days covered some thirty thousand square miles and could easily furnish an army of a hundred thousand men.

The attitude of this great fief had always been an object of keen solicitude to Yoritomo. At one time there were rumours that Hidehira intended to throw in his lot with Yoshinaka; at another, that he was about to join hands with the Taira. Yoritomo could never be certain that if the Kwanto were denuded of troops for some westward expedition, an overwhelming attack might not be delivered against Kamakura from the north. Thus, when he learned that Yoshitsune had escaped to Mutsu, all his apprehensions were roused. By that time Hidehira had died, in his ninety-first year, but he had committed to his son, Yasuhira, the duty of guarding Yoshitsune. Hence, when, in the spring of 1188, Kamakura became aware of Yoshitsune's presence in Mutsu, two consecutive messages were sent thither, one from Yoritomo, the other from the Court, ordering Yoshitsune's execution. Yasuhira paid no attention, and Go-Shirakawa commissioned Yoritomo to punish the northern chief's contumacy. Yasuhira now became alarmed. He sent a large force to attack Yoshitsune at Koromo-gawa. Benkei and the little band of comrades who had followed Yoshitsune's fortunes continuously during eight years, died to a man fighting for him, and Yoshitsune, having killed his wife and children, committed suicide. His head was sent to Kamakura.

But this did not satisfy Yoritomo. He wanted something more than Yoshitsune's head; he wanted the great northern fief, and he had no idea of losing his opportunity. Three armies soon marched northward. They are said to have aggregated 284,000 of all arms. One moved up the western littoral; another up the eastern, and the third, under Yoritomo himself, marched by the inland route. The men of Mutsu fought stoutly, but after a campaign of some two months, Yasuhira, finding himself in a hopeless position, opened negotiations for surrender. His overtures being incontinently rejected, he appreciated the truth, namely, that Yoritomo was bent upon exterminating the Fujiwara of the north and taking possession of their vast estates. Then Yasuhira fled to Ezo, where, shortly afterwards, one of his own soldiers assassinated him and carried his head to Yoritomo, who, instead of rewarding the man, beheaded him for treachery. Thus, from 1189, Yoritomo's sway may be said to have extended throughout the length and breadth of Japan. In the storehouses of the Fujiwara, who, since the days of Kiyohira had ruled for a hundred years in the north, there were found piles of gold, silver, and precious stuffs with which Yoritomo recompensed his troops.

YORITOMO'S SYSTEM

The system of government established by Yeritomo towards the close of the twelfth century and kept in continuous operation thereafter until the middle of the nineteenth, was known as the Bakufu, a word literally signifying "camp office," and intended to convey the fact that the affairs of the empire were in the hands of the military. None of the great Japanese captains prior to Yoritomo recognized that if their authority was to be permanent, it must be exercised independently of the Court and must be derived from some source outside the Court. The Taira chief, in the zenith of his career, had sufficient strength to do as Yoritomo did, and at one moment, that is to say, when he established his headquarters at Fukuhara, he appears to have had a partial inspiration. But he never recognized that whatever share he obtained in the administration of State affairs was derived solely from the nature of the office conferred on him by the Court, and could never exceed the functions of that office or survive its loss. The Fujiwara were astuter politicians. By their plan of hereditary offices and by their device of supplying maidens of their own blood to be Imperial consorts, they created a system having some elements of permanency and some measure of independence.

ENGRAVING: HACHIMAN SHRINE AT KAMAKURA

But it was reserved for Yoritomo to appreciate the problem in all its bearings and to solve it radically. The selection of Kamakura for capital was the first step towards solution. Kamakura certainly has topographical advantages. It is surrounded by mountains except on one face, which is washed by the sea. But this feature does not seem to have counted so much in Yoritomo's eyes as the fact that his father, Yoshitomo, had chosen Kamakura as a place of residence when he exercised military sway in the Kwanto, and Yoritomo wished to preserve the tradition of Minamoto power. He wished, also, to select a site so far from Kyoto that the debilitating and demoralizing influence of the Imperial metropolitan society might be powerless to reach the military capital. Kamakura was then only a fishing hamlet, but at the zenith of its prosperity it had grown to be a city of at least a quarter of a million of inhabitants. During a period of one hundred and fifty years it remained the centre of military society and the focus of a civilization radically different from that of Kyoto. The Taira had invited their own ruin by assimilating the ways of the Fujiwara and of the courtiers; the Minamoto aimed at preserving and developing at Kamakura the special characteristics of the buke.

POLICY TOWARDS RELIGION

Yoritomo seems to have believed that the Taira had owed their downfall largely to divine wrath, in that they had warred against the monasteries and confiscated manors belonging to shrines and temples. He himself adopted the policy of extending the utmost consideration to religion, whether Shinto or Buddhism, and to its devotees and their possessions. At Kamakura, though it has well-nigh reverted to its original rank as a fishing hamlet, there exist to-day eloquent evidences of the Minamoto chief's reverent mood; among them being the temple of Hachiman; a colossal bronze image of Buddha which, in majesty of conception and execution, is not surpassed by any idol in the world;* a temple of Kwannon, and several other religious edifices, though the tomb of Yoritomo himself is "a modest little monument covered with creepers."

*This image was not actually erected by Yoritomo, but the project is attributed to him.

YORITOMO'S MEMORIAL

It has been stated above that, after the retreat of the Taira from Fukuhara, in 1183, Go-Shirakawa sent an envoy to Kamakura inviting Yoritomo's presence in Kyoto. Restrained, however, by a sense of insecurity,* the Minamoto chief declined to leave Kamakura, and sent in his stead a memorial to the Throne. This document commenced with a statement that the ruin of the Taira had been due not to human prowess but to divine anger against the plunderers of sacred lands. Therefore, all manors thus improperly acquired should be at once restored to their original owners. Passing on to the case of estates taken by the Taira from princes, Court nobles, officials, and private individuals, Yoritomo urged that only by full restitution of this property could a sense of security be imparted to the people. "If any of these manors be now granted to us, the indignation roused by the Taira's doings will be transferred simultaneously with the estates. To change men's misery to happiness is to remove their resentment and repining. Finally," the memorial continued, "if there be any Taira partisans who desire to submit, they should be liberally treated even though their offences deserve capital punishment. I myself was formerly an offender,** but having had the good fortune to be pardoned, I have been enabled to subdue the insurgents. Thus, even men who have been disloyal on the present occasion may serve a loyal purpose at some future time."

*Kamakura was always exposed to pressure from the north. It had long been proverbial that white the eight provinces of the Kwanto could defy the whole empire, 0-U (Oshu and Ushu-Mutsu and Dewa) could defy the eight provinces.

**In allusion to the fact that owing to the Emperor's presence in the camp of the Taira during the emeule, the Minamoto occupied the position of rebels.

On receipt of this memorial, Go-Shirakawa ordered that the manors held by the Taira in the Tokai-do and Tosan-do should all be restored to their original owners, the duty of adjudicating in each case being delegated to Yoritomo. How much of this admirably conceived document was inspired by political acumen we may not venture to judge, but it is proper to note that the principles enunciated in the memorial found expression in the practice of Yoritomo himself. He always extended clemency to a defeated enemy if he deemed the latter's submission to be sincere, and throughout his whole career he showed a strong respect for justice. The men of his time ultimately gave him credit for sincerity, and his memorial won universal approval and popularity.

POLITY OF THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU

Under the Dadka (A.D. 645) system, various administrative organs were created in accordance with Tang models, and a polity at once imposing and elaborate came into existence. But when the capital was overtaken by an era of literary effeminacy and luxurious abandonment, the Imperial exchequer fell into such a state of exhaustion that administrative posts began to be treated as State assets and bought and sold like commercial chattels, the discharge of the functions connected with them becoming illusory, and the constant tendency being in the direction of multiplication of offices with a corresponding increase of red tape. Yoritomo and his councillors appreciated the evils of such a system and were careful not to imitate it at Kamakura. They took brevity and simplicity for guiding principles, and constructed a polity in marked contrast with that of Kyoto.

At the head of the whole stood the shogun, or commander-in-chief of the entire body of bushi, and then followed three sections. They were, first, the Samurai-dokoro, which term, according to its literal rendering, signified "samurai place" and may be appropriately designated "Central Staff Office." Established in 1180, its functions were to promote or degrade military men; to form a council of war; to direct police duties so far as they concerned bushi', to punish crime, and to select men for guards and escorts. The president (betto) obviously occupied a post of prime importance, as he practically controlled all the retainers (keniri) of the Minamoto clan and its allied houses. Its first occupant was Wada Yoshimori, representative of a famous family in the Kwanto, who had greatly distinguished himself in the Gen-Hei War. He held the post until the year 1213, when, taking up arms against Hojo Yoshitoki, he was defeated and killed. Thereafter, it being deemed inadvisable that the functions of such an important office should be delegated independently, they were made supplementary to those of the military regent (shikken), to be presently spoken of.

MAN-DOKORO

The second of the three great sections of the Bakufu polity was the Mandokoro (literally, "place of administration"), which, at the time of its establishment in 1184, was designated Kumon-jo, the change of name to Man-dokoro being made after Yoritomo's first visit to Kyoto (1190), when he was nominated gon-dainagon as well as general of the Right division of the guards (u-kon-e taisho). In fact, the office Man-dokoro had long existed in the establishment of the civil regent (kwampaku) at the Imperial capital, and a concession to Kyoto usages in the matter of nomenclature appealed to Yoritomo's taste for simplicity. The Man-dokoro had to discharge the duties and general business of the Bakufu. Its president was called betto; its vice-president, rei; there were secretaries, a manager (shitsuji), whose functions were mainly financial, and certain minor officials. Oye no Hiromoto was the first president, and the office of shitsuji became hereditary in the Nikaido family.

It will be seen that the betto of the Man-dokoro corresponded to the regent in the Kyoto polity, the only difference being that the former officiated in military government, the latter in civil. The betto of the Man-dokoro was, in fact, designated by the alternative name of shikken (literally, "holder of authority") Thus there were two regents, one in Kyoto, one in Kamakura. In succession to Oye no Hiromoto, the military regency fell to Hojo Tokimasa, and subsequently to his son Yoshitoki, who, as shown above, held the post of betto of the Samurai-dokoro. In short, both offices became hereditary in the Hojo family, who thus acquired virtually all the power of the Bakufu. The shikken, standing at the head of the Samurai-dokoro and the Man-dokoro simultaneously, came to wield such authority that even the appointment of the shogun depended upon his will, and though a subject of the Emperor, he administered functions far exceeding those of the Imperial Court. In the year 1225, a reorganization of the Man-dokoro was effected. An administrative council was added (Hyojoshu), the councillors, fifteen or sixteen in number, being composed, in about equal parts, of men of science and members of the great clans. The regent (shikken) presided ex-officio.

MONJU-DOKORO

The third of the Bakufu offices was the Monju-dokoro, or "place for recording judicial inquiries;" in other words, a high court of justice and State legislature. Suits at law were heard there and were either decided finally or transferred to other offices for approval. This office was established in 1184. Its president was called shitsuji (manager), indicating that he ranked equally with the Man-dokoro official having the same appellation. The first occupant of the post was Miyoshi Yasunobu. He not only presided over the Monju-dokoro in a judicial capacity but also attended the meetings of the Man-dokoro council (Hyojoshu) ex-officio.

This Miyoshi Yasunobu,* as well as the representative of the Nikaido who occupied the post of shitsuji in the Man-dokoro; the Oye family, who furnished the president of the latter, and the Nakahara, who served as the secretaries, were all men of erudition whom Yoritomo invited from Kyoto to fill posts in his administrative system at Kamakura. In these unquiet and aristocratically exclusive times, official promotion in the Imperial capital had largely ceased to be within reach of scholastic attainments, and Yoritomo saw an opportunity to attract to Kamakura men of learning and of competence. He offered to them careers which were not open in Kyoto, and their ready response to his invitations was a principal cause of the success and efficacy that attended the operation of the Bakufu system in the early days.

*Miyoshi Yasunobu held the office of chugu no sakan in Kyoto. He was personally known to Yoritomo, and he was instrumental in securing the services of the astute Oye no Hiromoto, whose younger brother, Chikayoshi, was governor of Aki at the time of receiving Yoritomo's invitation. His descendants received the uji of Nagai and Mori; those of Yasunobu, the uji of Ota and Machine, and those of Chikayoshi, the uji of Settsu and Otomo.

HIGH CONSTABLES AND LAND-STEWARDS

The most far-reaching change effected by Yoritomo was prompted by Oye no Hiromoto, at the close of 1185, when, Yoshitsune and Yukiiye having gone westward from Kyoto, the Kamakura chief entertained an apprehension that they might succeed in raising a revolt in the Sanyo-do, in Shikoku, and in Kyushu. He sought advice from the high officials of the Bakufu as to the best preventive measures, and Oye no Hiromoto presented a memorial urging that the Emperor's sanction be obtained for appointing in each province a high constable (shugo) and a land-steward (jito), these officials being nominated from Kamakura, while Yoritomo himself became chief land-steward (so-jito) and subsequently lord high constable (so-tsuihoshi) for the sixty-six provinces. The object of these appointments was to insure that the control of local affairs should be everywhere in the hands of the Bakufu, whose nominees would thus be in a position to check all hostile movements or preparations.

Yoritomo recognized the important bearings of this project. He at once sent Hojo Tokimasa to guard Kyoto and to submit to the Court a statement that it would be far more effective and economical to prevent acts of insurrection than to deal with them after their full development, and that, to the former end, trustworthy local officials should be appointed, the necessary funds being obtained by levying from the twenty-six provinces of the Go-Kinai, Sanin, Sanyo, Nankai, and Saikai a tax of five sho of rice per tan (two bushels per acre). Go-Shirakawa seems to have perceived the radical character of the proposed measure. He evinced much reluctance to sanction it. But Yoritomo was too strong to be defied. The Court agreed, and from that moment military feudalism may be said to have been established in Japan.

It has been shown that the land system fixed by the Daiho-ryo had fallen into confusion. Private manors existed everywhere, yielding incomes to all classes from princes to soldiers. In the days of the Fujiwara and the Taira more than one-half of the arable land throughout the empire was absorbed into such estates, which paid no taxes to anyone except their direct owners. The provincial governor appointed by the Court gradually ceased to exercise control over the shoen in his district, unless he happened to be a military man with a sufficient force of armed retainers (kenin) to assert his authority. Hence it became customary for provincial governors not to proceed in person to the place of their function. They appointed deputies (mokudai), and these limited their duties to the collection of taxes from manors. Lands constituting the domains of great families were under the complete control of their holders, and there being no one responsible for the preservation of general peace and order, bandits and other lawbreakers abounded.

This state of affairs was remedied by the appointment of high constables and land-stewards. The high constable had to arrest insurgents, assassins, and robbers wherever he found them, and to muster the soldiers for service in the Kyoto guards. The land-steward was to collect taxes from all private manors. Soon, however, these functions were extended, so that the high constables exercised judicial and administrative powers, and the land-stewards not only collected taxes, and, after deducting their own salaries, handed the remainder to those entitled to receive it, but also were responsible for the maintenance of peace and order within the manors entrusted to their charge. High constables and land-stewards alike were responsible to Kamakura alone; they were beyond the jurisdiction of the Imperial Court. Thus, the sway of the Minamoto extended throughout the whole country. It may be stated at once here that the landsteward system did not work altogether satisfactorily. The acts of these officials created friction in several quarters, and they were soon withdrawn from all manors other than those owned or administered by Taira. The high constables remained, however, and were in full control of local military affairs, the Kamakura chief controlling the whole in his capacity of lord high constable.

EXEMPTION OF SHRINES AND TEMPLES FROM THE SHUGO SYSTEM

In pursuance of his policy of special benevolence towards religious institutions, Yoritomo exempted the manors of temples and shrines from the jurisdiction of high constables. Thus military men were not permitted to make an arrest within the enclosure of a fane, or to trespass in any way on its domains, these being tax-free.

REFORM OF THE COURT

Yoritomo did not confine himself to re-casting the system of provincial administration. He extended his reforms to the Court, also. Thrice within the short space of five years he had been proscribed as a rebel by Imperial decree once at the instance of the Taira; once at the instance of Yoshinaka, and once at the instance of Yoshitsune. In short, the Court, being entirely without military power of its own, was constrained to bow to any display of force from without. As a means of correcting this state of affairs, Hojo Tokimasa was despatched to the Imperial capital at the close of 1185, to officiate there as high constable and representative of the Bakufu. A strong force of troops was placed at his disposal, and efficient means of speedy communications between the east and the west were organized. Moreover, a new office, that of scrutator (nairari), was instituted, and to him were transferred some of the powers hitherto wielded by the regent (kwampaku). Fujiwara Kanezane was the first occupant of this post. Further, a body of twelve councillors (giso), headed by Kanezane, were organized in the cloistered Emperor's Court (Inchu), and to this council was entrusted the duty of discussing and deciding all State affairs. These important steps were taken early in 1186.

Simultaneously, a number of Court officials, including all that had been connected with Yoshitsune and Yukiie, lost their posts, and, shortly afterwards, Kanezane, becoming regent (kwampaku) in place of Fujiwara Motomichi, co-operated with Oye no Hiromoto in effecting many important changes, the latter operating at Kamakura, the former at Kyoto. It may be noted here that Kanezane's descendants received the name of Kujo, those of Motomichi being called Konoe, and the custom of appointing the kwampaku alternately from these two families came into vogue from that time. All the above reforms having been effected during the year 1186, the Bakufu recalled Hojo Tokimasa and appointed Nakahara Chikayoshi to succeed him. But, as the latter was not a scion of a military family, the Court desired to have a Hojo appointed, and Yoritomo acceded by sending Hojo Tokisada.

PALACES AND FANES

Yoritomo maintained from first to last a reverential attitude towards the Throne and towards religion. It has already been shown how generously he legislated in the matter of estates belonging to temples and shrines, and we may add that his munificence in that respect was stimulated by a terrible earthquake which visited Kyoto in the autumn of 1185. While the city trembled under repeated shocks, the citizens told each other that this was the work of vengeful spirits of the Taira who, having fallen in the great sea-fight, were still without full rites of sepulture. The Kamakura chief seems to have accepted that view, for he not only gave substantial encouragement to the burning of incense and intoning of memorial Sutras, but he also desisted largely from his pursuit of the Taira survivors. Two years later (1187), he sent Oye no Hiromoto to the Imperial capital with authority and ample competence to repair the palaces there. The city was then infested with bandits, a not unnatural product of the warlike era. Chiba Tsunetane, specially despatched from Kamakura, dealt drastically with this nuisance, and good order was finally restored.

YORITOMO VISITS KYOTO

During the early years of his signal triumphs Yoritomo was invited to Kyoto on several occasions. Various considerations deterred him. He wished, in the first place, to dispel the popular illusion that the Imperial capital was the centre of all dignity and power. People must be taught to recognize that, although Kyoto might be the ultimate source of authority, Kamakura was its place of practical exercise. He wished, in the second place, not to absent himself from Kamakura until he could be absolutely assured that his absence would not afford an opportunity to his enemies; which sense of security was not fully reached until the death of Yoshitsune and Fujiwara no Yasuhira, and the complete subjugation of the great northern fief of Oshti in the year 1189. Finally, he wished to appear in Kyoto, not merely as the representative of military power, but also as a benefactor who had rebuilt the fanes and restored the palaces.

On the 2nd of November, in the year 1190, he set out from Kamakura and reached Kyoto on December 5th. His armies had shown that, for the purpose of a campaign, the distance would be traversed in little more than half of that time. But Yoritomo's journey was a kind of Imperial progress. Attended by a retinue designed to surprise even the citizens of the Imperial metropolis, he travelled at a leisurely pace and made a pause of some duration in Owari to worship at his father's tomb. The Court received him with all consideration. He had already been honoured with the first grade of the second rank, so that he enjoyed the right of access to the Presence, and the cloistered Emperor held with him long conversations, sometimes lasting a whole day. But Yoritomo did not achieve his purpose. It is true that he received the appointments of gon-dainagon and general of the Right division of the guards. These posts, however, were more objectionable on account of their limitations than acceptable as marks of honour. Their bestowal was a mere formality, and Yoritomo resigned them in a few days, preferring to be nominated so-tsuihoshi.

What he really desired, however, was the office of sei-i tai-shogun (barbarian-subduing great general). This high title had been conferred more than once previously, but only for the purpose of some finite and clearly indicated purpose, on the attainment of which the office had to be surrendered. The Kamakura chief's plan was to remove these limitations, and to make the appointment not only for life but also general in the scope of its functions and hereditary in his own family, reserving to the sovereign the formal right of investiture alone. Go-Shirakawa, however, appreciated the far-reaching effects of such an arrangement and refused to sanction it. Thus, Yoritomo had to content himself with the post of lord high constable of the empire (so-tsuihoshi), an office of immense importance, but differing radically from that of sei-i tai-shogun in that, whereas the latter had competence to adopt every measure he pleased without reference to any superior authority, the former was required to consult the Imperial Court before taking any step of a serious nature. The Minamoto chief returned quietly to Kamakura, but he left many powerful friends to promote his interests in Kyoto, and when Go-Shirakawa died, in 1192, his grandson and successor, Go-Toba, a boy of thirteen, had not occupied the throne more than three months before the commission of sei-i tai-shogun was conveyed to Yoritomo by special envoys. Thereafter it became the unwritten law of the empire that the holder of this high post must be either the head of the principal Minamoto family or an Imperial prince.

Never before had there been such encroachment upon the prerogatives of the Crown. We have seen that, in the centuries antecedent to the Daika (A.D. 645) reforms, the sovereign's contact with his subjects had been solely through the medium of the o-omi or the o-muraji. By these, the Imperial commands were transmitted and enforced, with such modifications as circumstances might suggest, nor did the prerogative of nominating the o-omi or the o-muraji belong practically to the Throne. The Daika reforms, copying the Tang polity called into existence a cabinet and a body of officials appointable or removable by the sovereign at will, each entrusted with definite functions. But almost before that centralized system had time to take root, the Fujiwara grafted on it a modification which, in effect, substituted their own family for the o-omi and the o-muraji of previous times. And now, finally, came the Minamoto with their separate capital and their sei-i tai-shogun, who exercised the military and administrative powers of the empire with practically no reference to the Emperor. Yoritomo himself was always willing and even careful to envelop his own personality in a shadow of profound reverence towards the occupant of the throne, but he was equally careful to preserve for Kamakura the substance of power.

DEATH OF YORITOMO

Yoritomo lived only seven years after he had reached the summit of his ambition. He received the commission of sei-i tai-shogun in the spring of 1192, and, early in 1199, he was thrown from his horse and killed, at the age of fifty-three. He had proceeded to the pageant of opening a new bridge over the Sagami River, and it was popularly rumoured that he had fallen from his horse in a swoon caused by the apparition of Yoshitsune and Yukiiye on the Yamato plain and that of the Emperor Antoku at Inamura promontory. Just twenty years had elapsed since he raised the Minamoto standard in Sagami. His career was short but meteoric, and he ranks among the three greatest statesmen Japan has ever produced, his compeers being Hideyoshi and Ieyasu.

YORITOMO's CHARACTER

Japanese historians have written much about this illustrious man. Their views may be condensed into the following: Yoritomo was short in stature with a disproportionately large head. He had a ringing voice, gentle manners, an intrepid and magnanimous heart, profound insight, and extraordinary caution. The power of imposing his will upon others was one of his notable characteristics, as was also munificence to those that served him. Retainers of the Taira or of the Minamoto—he made no distinction. All that swore fealty to him were frankly regarded as go-kenin of the Bakufu. Estates were given to them, whether restored or newly bestowed, and they were treated much as were the hatamoto of the Yedo shogunate in later times. He spared no pains to preserve Kamakura against the taint of Kyoto's demoralizing influences. The bushi of the Kwanto were made the centre of society; were encouraged to observe the canons of their caste—frugality, loyalty, truth, valour, and generosity—canons daily becoming crystallized into inflexible laws. When Toshikane, lord of Chikugo, appeared at the Kamakura Court in a magnificent costume, Yoritomo evinced his displeasure by slashing the sleeves of the nobleman's surcoat. Skill in archery or equestrianism was so much valued that it brought quick preferment and even secured pardon for a criminal.

On the other hand, neglect of these arts, or conduct unbecoming a samurai, was mercilessly punished. When Hayama Muneyori retired to his province without accompanying the army sent to attack O-U, he was severely censured and deprived of his estates. Cognate instances might be multiplied. In the year 1193, the first case of the vendetta occurred in Japan. Yoritomo organized a grand hunting party on the moors at the southern base of Fuji-yama. Among those that accompanied him was Kudo Suketsune, who had done to death Soga no Sukeyasu. The latter's sons, Sukenari (commonly called Juro) and Tokimune (Goro), having sworn to avenge their father, broke into Yoritomo's camp and took the head of their enemy. The elder was killed in the enterprise; the younger, captured and beheaded. Yoritomo would fain have saved Goro's life, though the youth declared his resolve not to survive his brother. But the Kamakura chief was constrained to yield to the demands of Suketsune's son. He, however, marked his appreciation of Juro and Goro's filial piety by carefully observing their last testament, and by exonerating the Soga estate from the duty of paying taxes in order that funds might be available for religious rites on account of the spirits of the brothers.

This encouragement of fidelity may well have been dictated by selfish policy rather than by moral conviction. Yet that Yoritomo took every conspicuous opportunity of asserting the principle must be recorded. Thus, he publicly declared Yasuhira a traitor for having done to death his guest, Yoshitsune, though in so doing Yasuhira obeyed the orders of Yoritomo himself; he executed the disloyal retainer who took Yasuhira's head, though the latter was then a fugitive from the pursuit of the Kamakura armies, and he pardoned Yuri Hachiro, one of Yasuhira's officers, because he defended Yasuhira's reputation in defiance of Yoritomo's anger.

Gratitude Yoritomo never failed to practise within the limit of policy. Rumour said that he had fallen in his first battle at Ishibashi-yama. Thereupon, Miura Yoshiaki, a man of eighty-nine, sent out all his sons to search for Yoritomo's body, and closing his castle in the face of the Taira forces, fell fighting. Yoritomo repaid this loyal service by appointing Yoshiaki's son, Wada Yoshimori, to be betto of the Samurai-dokoro, one of the very highest posts in the gift of the Kamakura Government. Again, it will be remembered that when, as a boy of fourteen, Yoritomo had been condemned to death by Kiyomori, the lad's life was saved through the intercession of Kiyomori's step-mother, Ike, who had been prompted by Taira no Munekiyo. After the fall of the Taira, Yoritomo prayed the Court to release Ike's son, Yorimori, and to restore his rank and estates, while in Munekiyo's case he made similar offers but they were rejected.

Towards his own kith and kin, however, he showed himself implacable. In Yoshitsune's case it has been indicated that there was much to awaken Yoritomo's suspicions. But his brother Noriyori had no qualities at all likely to be dangerously exercised. A commonplace, simple-hearted man, he was living quietly on his estate in Izu when false news came that Yoritomo had perished under the sword of the Soga brothers. Yoritomo's wife being prostrated by the intelligence, Noriyori bade her be reassured since he, Noriyori, survived. When this came to Yoritomo's ears, doubtless in a very exaggerated form, he sent a band of assassins who killed Noriyori. Assassination was a device from which the Kamakura chief did not shrink at all. It has been shown how he sent Tosabo Shoshun to make away with Yoshitsune in Kyoto, and we now see him employing a similar instrument against Noriyori, as he did also against his half-brother, Zensei. It would seem to have been his deliberate policy to remove every potential obstacle to the accession of his own sons. Many historians agree in ascribing these cruelties to jealousy. But though Yoritomo might have been jealous of Yoshitsune, he could not possibly have experienced any access of such a sentiment with regard to Noriyori or Zensei.

Towards religion, it would seem that his attitude was sincere. Not in Kyoto and Kamakura alone did he adopt drastic measures for the restoration or erection of temples and shrines, but also throughout the provinces he exerted his all-powerful influence in the same cause. He himself contributed large sums for the purpose, and at his instance the Courts of the Emperor and of the Bakufu granted special rights and privileges to bonzes who went about the country collecting subscriptions. Thus encouraged, the priests worked with conspicuous zeal, and by men like Mongaku, Jugen, Eisai, and their comrades not only were many imposing fanes erected and many images cast, but also roads were opened, harbours constructed, and bridges built. Yoritomo knew what an important part religion had contributed in past ages to the country's national development, and he did not neglect to utilize its services in the interests, first, of the nation's prosperity and, secondly, of the Bakufu's popularity. Incidentally all this building of fanes and restoration of palaces promoted in no small degree the development of art, pure and applied. Experts in every line made their appearance, and many masterpieces of architecture and sculpture enriched the era. These reflected the change which the spirit of the nation was undergoing in its passage from the delicacy and weakness of the Fujiwara type to the strength, directness, and dignity of the bushi's code.

ENGRAVING: CANDLE-STICKS

ENGRAVING: SAMURAI'S RESIDENCE IN THE KAMAKURA PERIOD



CHAPTER XXVI

THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU

ABDICATION OF GO-TOBA

IN the year 1198, the Emperor Go-Toba abdicated the throne in favour of his son, who reigned during twelve years (1199-1210) under the name of Tsuchi-mikado, eighty-third sovereign. Of Go-Toba much will be said by and by. It will suffice to note here, however, that his abdication was altogether voluntary. Ascending the throne in 1184, at the age of four, he had passed the next eight years as a mere puppet manipulated by his grandfather, Go-Shirakawa, the cloistered Emperor, and on the latter's death in 1192, Go-Toba fell into many of the faults of youth. But at eighteen he became ambitious of governing in fact as well as in name, and as he judged that this could be accomplished better from the Inchu (retired palace) than from the throne, he abdicated without consulting the Kamakura Bakufu. It is more than probable that Yoritomo would have made his influence felt on this occasion had any irregularity furnished a pretext. But the advisers of the Kyoto Court were careful that everything should be in order, and the Kamakura chief saw no reason to depart from his habitually reverent attitude towards the Throne.

YORIIYE, THE LADY MASA, AND HOJO TOKIMASA

On the demise of Yoritomo (1199), his eldest son, Yoriiye, succeeded to the compound office of lord high constable and chief land-steward (so-shugo-jito), his investiture as shogun being deferred until Kyoto's sanction could be obtained. Yoriiye was then in his eighteenth year, and he had for chief adviser Hatakeyama Shigetada, appointed to the post by Yoritomo's will. He inherited nothing of his father's sagacity. On the contrary, he did not possess even average ability, and his thoughts were occupied almost uniquely with physical pleasures. His mother, Masa, astute, crafty, resourceful, and heroic, well understood the deficiency of his moral endowments, but as her second son, Sanetomo, was only seven years old, Yoriiye's accession presented itself in the light of a necessity. She therefore determined to give him every possible aid. Even during her husband's life she had wielded immense influence, and this was now greatly augmented by the situation. She shaved her head—after the manner of the cloistered Emperors—and taking the name of Ni-i-no-ama, virtually assumed charge of the Bakufu administration in association with her father, Hojo Tokimasa.

Exactly what part this remarkable man acted in the episodes of Yoritomo's career, can never be known. He exerted his influence so secretly that contemporary historians took little note of him; and while, in view of his final record, some see in him the spirit that prompted Yoritomo's merciless extirpation of his own relatives, others decline to credit him with such far-seeing cruelty, and hold that his ultimately attempted usurpations were inspired solely by fortuitous opportunity which owed nothing to his contrivance. Wherever the truth may lie as between these views, it is certain that after Yoritomo's death, Hojo Tokimasa conspired to remove the Minamoto from the scene and to replace them with the Hojo.

THE DELIBERATIVE COUNCIL

The whole coterie of illustrious men—legislators, administrators, and generals—whom Yoritomo had assembled at Kamakura, was formed into a council of thirteen members to discuss the affairs of the Bakufu after his death. This body of councillors included Tokimasa and his son, Yoshitoki; Oye no Hiromoto, Miyoshi Yasunobu; Nakahara Chikayoshi, Miura Yoshizumi, Wada Yoshimori, Hiki Yoshikazu, and five others. But though they deliberated, they did not decide. All final decision required the endorsement of the lady Masa and her father, Hojo Tokimasa.

DEATH OF YORIIYE

Yoriiye had been at the head of the Bakufu for three years before his commission of shogun came from Kyoto, and in the following year (1203), he was attacked by a malady which threatened to end fatally. The question of the succession thus acquired immediate importance. Yoriiye's eldest son, Ichiman, the natural heir, was only three years old, and Yoritomo's second son, Sanetomo, was in his eleventh year. In this balance of claims, Hojo Tokimasa saw his opportunity. He would divide the Minamoto power by way of preliminary to supplanting it. Marshalling arguments based chiefly on the advisability of averting an armed struggle, he persuaded the lady Masa to endorse a compromise, namely, that to Sanetomo should be given the office of land-steward in thirty-eight provinces of the Kwansai; while to Ichiman should be secured the title of shogun and the offices of lord high constable and land-steward in twenty-eight provinces of the Kwanto.

Now the maternal grandfather of Ichiman was Hiki Yoshikazu, a captain who had won high renown in the days of Yoritomo. Learning of the projected partition and appreciating the grave effect it must produce on the fortunes of his grandson, Hiki commissioned his daughter to relate the whole story to Yoriiye, and applied himself to organize a plot for the destruction of the Hojo. But the facts came to the lady Masa's ears, and she lost no time in communicating them to Tokimasa, who, with characteristic promptitude, invited Hiki to a conference and had him assassinated. Thereupon, Hiki's son, Munetomo, assembled all his retainers and entrenched himself in Ichiman's mansion, where, being presently besieged by an overwhelming force of Tokimasa's partisans, he set fire to the house and perished with the child, Ichiman, and with many brave soldiers. The death of his son, of his father-in-law, and of his brother-in-law profoundly affected Yoriiye. He attempted to take vengeance upon his grandfather, Tokimasa, but his emissaries suffered a signal defeat, and he himself, being now completely discredited, was constrained to follow his mother, Masa's, advice, namely, to take the tonsure and retire to the monastery Shuzen-ji in Izu. There he was followed and murdered by Tokimasa's agents. It is apparent that throughout these intrigues the lady Masa made no resolute attempt to support her first-born. She recognized in him a source of weakness rather than of strength to the Minamoto.

SANETOMO

After Yoriiye's retirement, in 1204, to the monastery in Izu, Masa, with the concurrence of her father, Tokimasa, decided on the accession of her second son, Sanetomo, then in his twelfth year, and application for his appointment to the office of shogun having been duly made, a favourable and speedy reply was received from Kyoto. The most important feature of the arrangement was that Hojo Tokimasa became shikken, or military regent, and thus wielded greater powers than ever—powers which he quickly proceeded to abuse for revolutionary purposes. His policy was to remove from his path, by any and every measure, all potential obstacles to the consummation of his ambition.