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It is necessary, therefore, to direct our eyes for a moment to the course of affairs on the side of the Ashikaga. Ashikaga Takauji's original idea was to follow the system of Yoritomo in everything. Kamakura was to be his capital and he assumed the title of shogun. This was in 1335. Three years later he received the shogunate in due form from the Northern sovereign, Komyo.
Yoritomo gave the cruel order that no male of that hated family should be left alive, and armed murderers sought them out over hill and vale, slaying remorselessly all that could be traced. In Kioto many boy children of the clan were found, all of whom were slain. A few of the Taira name escaped from the fleet and fled to Kiushiu, where they hid in the lurking-places of the mountains.
And when they also died, the care of the child fell to his mother's kinsmen, and he grew up to be a peasant. Now Kiyomori, the enemy of Yoritomo, had been gathered to his fathers; and Yoritomo had avenged the death of his father by slaying Munémori, the son of Kiyomori; and there was peace throughout the land.
"'How did you kill it, Papa?" "'I walked up to it, bashed it on the noggin, and it died. That is the way to kill tigers." Yoritomo smiled. "It is also a good way to kill Nipes. Eh?" He took the towel and wiped Stanton's brow again. "The error," he continued, "was made when Papa Nipe generalized from one tiger to all tigers.
At Kamakura, though it has well-nigh reverted to its original rank as a fishing hamlet, there exist to-day eloquent evidences of the Minamoto chief's reverent mood; among them being the temple of Hachiman; a colossal bronze image of Buddha which, in majesty of conception and execution, is not surpassed by any idol in the world;* a temple of Kwannon, and several other religious edifices, though the tomb of Yoritomo himself is "a modest little monument covered with creepers."
The first to hold this office in the form which it had at most times until the Restoration was Minamoto Yoritomo, on whom the title was conferred by the Mikado in 1192. But before long the Shogun became nearly as much of a figure-head as the Mikado. Custom confined the Shogunate to the Minamoto family, and the actual power was wielded by Regents in the name of the Shogun.
"Oh, the darling," cried Mary whose love of children overcame any shyness she might feel before strangers. The three Japanese were pleased at the attention the little person created. The girls gathered around him in a circle while he stood perfectly still regarding them curiously, as if they were some new strange birds which had dropped into his room from the skies. Yoritomo also was pleased.
CIVIL WAR: FEUDALISM. The final struggle of the two clans, the Hei or Taira, and the Gen or Minamoto, was in the naval battle of Dannoura, in 1185, which was followed by the extermination of the Taira. Yoritomo, the victor, was known as the Shogun after 1192. The supremacy of his clan gave way in 1219 to that of their adherents, the Hojo family, who ruled the Shogun and the emperor both.
The young exile sent out agents right and left to rouse the discontented. Many were won over, but one of them laughed the scheme to scorn, saying, "For an exile to plot against the Taira is like a mouse plotting against a cat." But a conspiracy cannot be killed by a laugh. Yoritomo was soon in the field at the head of a body of followers.
In this strait, Go-Shirakawa, whose record is one long series of undignified manoeuvres to keep his own head above water, applied himself to placate Yoshinaka while privately relying on Yoritomo.
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