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The Minamoto made a gallant and skilful resistance, and finally Yorimasa rode off with a handful of followers, hoping to carry Mochihito to a place of safety. Before they passed out of range an arrow struck the old warrior. Struggling back to Byodo-in, where the fight was still in progress, he seated himself on his iron war-fan and, having calmly composed his death-song, committed suicide.
Yorimasa determined to strike a blow for the Minamoto cause, and looking round for a figure-head, he fixed upon Prince Mochihito, elder brother of Takakura. This prince, being the son of a concubine, had never reached Imperial rank, though he was thirty years of age, but he possessed some capacity, and a noted physiognomist had recognized in him a future Emperor.
In 1170, at Yorimasa's instance, Prince Mochihito secretly sent to all the Minamoto families throughout the empire, especially to Yoritomo at his place of exile in Izu, a document impeaching the conduct of the Taira and exhorting the Minamoto to muster and attack them. Yorimasa's story shows that he would not have embarked upon this enterprise had he not seen solid hope of success.
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.
Thus, while removing Go-Shirakawa to Rokuhara and despatching a force to seize Mochihito, he entrusted the direction of the latter measure to Yorimasa's son, Kanetsuna, who, it need scarcely be said, failed to apprehend the prince or to elicit any information from his followers.
Nothing now remained for Yorimasa and Mochihito except to make a desperate rush on Kyoto or to ride away south to Nara, where temporary refuge offered. The latter course was chosen, in spite of Yorimasa's advice. On the banks of the Uji River in a dense fog they were overtaken by the Taira force, the latter numbering twenty thousand, the fugitives three or four hundred.
In May, or June, 1180, the mandate of Prince Mochihito reached Yoritomo, carried by his uncle, Minamoto Yukiiye, whose figure thenceforth appears frequently upon the scene. Yoritomo showed the mandate to Tokimasa, and the two men were taking measures to obey when they received intelligence of the deaths of Mochihito and Yorimasa and of the fatal battle on the banks of the Uji.
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.
Yoshinaka attained an immense stature as well as signal skill in archery and horsemanship. Like Yoritomo and Yoshitsune, he brooded much on the evil fortunes of the Minamoto, and paid frequent visits to Kyoto to observe the course of events. In the year 1180, the mandate of Prince Mochihito reached him, and learning that Yoritomo had taken the field, he gathered a force in Shinano.
At an early stage, some vague news of the plot reached Kiyomori's ears and he hastened from his Fukuhara villa to Kyoto. But it soon became evident that his information was incomplete. He knew, indeed, that Prince Mochihito was involved, but he suspected Go-Shirakawa also, and he entertained no conception of Yorimasa's complicity.
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