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This actual declaration did not come, however, until the arrival of an officer from Kamakura, carrying a requisition for a great quantity of provisions to victual an army which the Hojo were hastily equipping to recover Rokuhara. The officer was put to death, and Yoshisada with his brother, Yoshisuke, set their forces in motion for Kamakura. Menaced thus closely, the Hojo made a supreme effort.
These things happened at the close of June, 1333, and immediately after the fall of Rokuhara, Nitta Yoshisada raised the Imperial standard in the province of Kotsuke. Yoshisada represented the tenth generation of the great Yoshiiye's family. Like Ashikaga Takauji he was of pure Minamoto blood, though Takauji belonged to a junior branch.
Thus, when Hojo Yoshitoki died suddenly, in 1224, his son, Yasutoki, returned at once to Kamakura to succeed to the regency, transferring to his son, Tokiuji, the charge of northern Rokuhara, and a short time afterwards the control of southern Rokuhara was similarly transferred from Yoshitoki is brother, Tokifusa, to the latter's son, Tokimori.
An unlooked-for event turned the scale. It has been related above that, in the struggle which ended in the restoration of Go-Daigo, Akamatsu Norimura was chiefly instrumental in driving the Hojo from Rokuhara; and it has also been related that, in the subsequent distribution of rewards, his name was omitted for the slight reason that he had, at one period, entered religion.
The high courage of this answer would have been finer had Go-Daigo's statement been true; but in reality the three insignia were intact. It was then announced to his Majesty that he should be removed to Rokuhara where he would be entirely in the power of the Hojo. Nevertheless, he maintained his lofty bearing, and refused to make the journey unless all appropriate forms of etiquette were observed.
To remove him from Nishi-no-Shima was not difficult to contrive, but to traverse the provinces of Izumo or Hoki en route for a safe asylum seemed at first impossible, for in Izumo not only the governor but also the chief official of the great Shinto shrine were hostile, and in Hoki the strictest watchfulness had been enjoined from Rokuhara.
Rokuhara was then under the command of Hojo Nakatoki, and upon him devolved the duty of seizing the Emperor's person. He directed an army against Hiei-zan, where Go-Daigo was believed to have found asylum. Go-Daigo then sent to Kusunoki Masashige a mandate to raise troops and move against the "rebels," for to that category the Hojo now belonged in the absence of an Imperial commission.
During his flight from Kasagi, the Emperor was without food for three days, and had to sleep with a rock for pillow. Overtaken by the Rokuhara troops, his Majesty was placed in a bamboo palanquin and carried to the temple Byodoin, where, after the battle of the Uji Bridge, the aged statesman and general, Yorimasa, had fallen by his own hand, a century and a half previously.
Yasutoki received these gracious overtures with a silent obeisance, and taking up his quarters at Rokuhara, proceeded to arrest the leaders of the anti-Bakufu enterprise; to execute or exile the courtiers that had participated in it, and to confiscate all their estates. In thus acting, Yasutoki obeyed instructions from his implacable father in Kamakura.
It has been stated by some historians that Yoshisada's resolve was first taken on receipt of news that Rokuhara was lost to the Hojo.
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