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Updated: June 21, 2025
In August of 1180, their white flag was hoisted, and though it looked very insignificant on the wide horizon of Taira power, Kiyomori did not underrate its meaning. At the close of the year, he decided to abandon the Fukuhara scheme and carry the Court back to Kyoto. On the eve of his return he found an opportunity of dealing a heavy blow to the monasteries of Miidera and Nara.
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 , he sent Oye no Hiromoto to the Imperial capital with authority and ample competence to repair the palaces there.
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.
As a last refuge the Taira leaders made their way to the Straits of Shimonoseki, where they had a large fleet of junks. The final struggle in this war took place in the fourth month of the year 1185. Yoshitsuné had with all haste got together a fleet, and the two armies, now afloat, met on the waters of the strait for the greatest naval battle that Japan had ever known.
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.
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.
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.
The waters of the sea, that morning clear and sparkling, were now the color of blood, and the pride of the Taira clan lay buried beneath the waves or were cast up by the unquiet waters upon the strand. With that fatal day the Taira vanished from the sight of men.
Thus, Yoshitsune survived, and in after ages people were wont to say of Kiyomori's passion and its result that his blissful dream of one night had brought ruin on his house. *One of these sons, Tomonaga, fell by his father's hand. Accompanying Yoshitomo's retreat, he had been severely wounded, and he asked his father to kill him rather than leave him at Awobake to fall into the hands of the Taira.
Feeling sure that she must be Japanese, I hailed her, got a reply, and five minutes later was following my crew up the side of Number 65, being warmly welcomed by my friend, Lieutenant Taira, who was in command.
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