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Updated: May 23, 2025
Yoshinaka's desire to avoid conflict with Yoritomo had been partly due to the fact that the Taira leaders were known to be just then straining every nerve to beat back the westward-rolling tide of Minamoto conquest. They had massed all their available forces in Echizen, and at that supreme moment Yoritomo's active hostility would have completely marred Yoshinaka's great opportunity.
Among these obstacles were the lady Masa and the new shogun, Sanetomo. So long as these two lived, the Yoritomo family could count on the allegiance of the Kwanto, and so long as that allegiance remained intact, the elevation of the Hojo to the seats of supreme authority could not be compassed. Further, the substitution of Hojo for Minamoto must be gradual. Nothing abrupt would be tolerable.
The Otomo family was a branch of the Fujiwara. One of its members, Nakahara Chikayoshi, received from Minamoto Yoritomo the office of high constable of the Dazai-fu, and to his son, Yoshinao, was given the uji of Otomo, which, as the reader knows, belonged originally to Michi no Omi, a general of the Emperor Jimmu.
To all his Majesty's sons, except the Crown Prince, the uji of Minamoto was given. The best known among these early Minamoto was Tsunemoto, commonly called Prince Rokuson. He was a grandson of the Emperor Seiwa, celebrated for two very dissimilar attainments, which, nevertheless, were often combined in Japan the art of composing couplets and the science of commanding troops.
As luck would have it, the famous hero, Minamoto no Yorimitsu, with his retainers, Watanabé Isuna, Usui Sadamitsu, and several others, had come to the mountain to hunt, and seeing the feat which "Little Wonder" had performed, came to the conclusion that he could be no ordinary child. Minamoto no Yorimitsu ordered Watanabé Isuna to find out the child's name and parentage.
In that light the shogunate was regarded while it remained in the hands of Yoritomo and his two sons, Yoriie and Sanetomo. But with the death of Sanetomo, in 1219, and the political extinction of the Minamoto family, the shogunate assumed a different character in the eyes of the Minamoto's successors, the Hojo.
These trays and cups, and the bowls and plates ranged on them, showed great refinement, rich lacquer, silver, and gold being freely used in aristocratic dwellings. Agriculture was, of course, greatly interrupted by the long continuance of military campaigns; but, on the other hand, it received every encouragement from the Minamoto and the Hojo.
Running inland from the circumference of the fan are Shinano and Kotsuke, in which two provinces, also, a powerful Minamoto resurrection synchronized with, but was independent of, the Yoritomo movement. The hero of the Shinano-Kotsuke drama was Minamoto no Yoshinaka, commonly called Kiso Yoshinaka, because his youth was passed among the mountains where the Kiso River has its source.
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.
Among this group of notables the most memorable in a historical sense are Minamoto Tametomo and Taira Kiyomori. Of the latter there will presently be occasion to speak again. The former was one of those born warriors illustrated by Yamato-dake, Saka-no-ye no Tamura-maro, and Minamoto no Yoshiiye.
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