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Updated: June 17, 2025
Now this is how the Etas came to be under the jurisdiction of Danzayémon: When Minamoto no Yoritomo was yet a child, his father, Minamoto no Yoshitomo, fought with Taira no Kiyomori, and was killed by treachery: so his family was ruined; and Yoshitomo's concubine, whose name was Tokiwa, took her children and fled from the house, to save her own and their lives.
Kiyomori quickly gathered a large army, which he sent to put down the rebellion, and the hostile forces came face to face on opposite sides of the Fuji River, the swiftest stream in Japan. Between them rolled the impetuous flood, which neither party dared to cross in the face of the foe, the most they could do being to glare at one another across the stream.
Sutoku's party occupied the Shirakawa palace. Unfortunately for the ex-Emperor the conduct of the struggle was entrusted to Fujiwara Yorinaga, and he, in defiance of Tametomo's advice, decided to remain on the defensive; an evil choice, since it entailed the tenure of wooden buildings highly inflammable. Yoshitomo and Kiyomori took full advantage of this strategical error.
He never hesitated to check his father's extravagances, and it has to be recorded in Kiyomori's favour that, however, intolerant of advice or opposition he habitually showed himself, his eldest son's remonstrances were seldom ignored. Yet, though many untoward issues were thus averted, there was no sign that growing responsibility brought to Kiyomori any access of circumspection.
It was much to the credit of Kiyomori's heart but little to that of his head that he listened to such a plea, and historians have further censured his want of sagacity in choosing Izu for Yoritomo's place of exile, seeing that the eastern regions were infested by Minamoto kinsmen and partisans. But Kiyomori did not act blindly.
It is true that similar fiefs existed in the north and in the south, but their number was so greatly increased in the days of Taira ascendancy as almost to constitute a new departure. Kiyomori was, in truth, one of the most despotic rulers that ever held sway in Japan. He organized a band of three hundred youths whose business was to go about Kyoto and listen to the citizens' talk.
On learning of this incident, Kiyomori ordered three hundred men to lie in wait for the regent, drag him from his car and cut off his cue. All these arbitrary acts provoked indignation among every class of the people.
Yoshitsuné emptied his quiver with similar skill, each arrow finding a victim, and soon the tide of battle turned. Treason aided the Minamoto in their victory. In the vessel containing the son, widow, and daughter of Kiyomori, and the young mikado, was a friend of Yoshitsuné, who had agreed upon a signal by which this junk could be known. In the height of the struggle the signal appeared.
Kusunoki Masashigé, the white flower of Japanese chivalry, is but one, typical not only of a thousand but of thousands of thousands of soldiers, who hated parents, wife, child, friend in order to be disciple to the supreme loyalty. He sealed his creed by emptying his own veins. Kiyomori, like King David of Israel, on his dying bed ordered the assassination of his personal enemy.
But Kiyomori took care that a copy of the bonze Saiko's confession, extracted under torture and fully incriminating his Majesty, should come into the Imperial hands. *It is recorded that, on this occasion, Kiyomori, learning of his son's approach, attempted unsuccessfully to conceal under priestly robes the armour he had donned to go to the arrest of Go-Shirakawa.
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