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Updated: June 5, 2025
They were the four sons of Nakahara Kaneto, by whom Yoshinaka had been reared, and their constant attendance on his person, their splendid devotion to him, and their military prowess caused people to speak of them as Yoshinaka's Shi-tenno the four guardian deities of Buddhist temples. Their sister, Tomoe, is even more famous.
Yet no other plan of operations suggested itself to the Kamakura strategists. Yoshitsune was not consulted. He remained in Kyoto instead of repairing to Kamakura, and he thereby roused the suspicion of Yoritomo, who began to see in him a second Yoshinaka.
Yoshinaka compelled her to leave him at the supreme moment, being unwilling that she should fall into the enemy's hands; and after his death she became a nun, devoting the rest of her days to prayers for his spirit. But it is not to be supposed that Yoshinaka repaid this noble devotion with equal sincerity.
He seems to have been an unscrupulous schemer. Serving originally under Yoritomo, who quickly took his measure, he concluded that nothing substantial was to be gained in that quarter. Therefore, he passed over to Yoshinaka, who welcomed him, not as an enemy of Yoritomo, but as a Minamoto.
This union was declined by Yoshinaka, whereupon Nobumitsu suggested to Yoritomo that Yoshinaka's real purpose was to ally his house with the Taira by marriage. Whether Nobumitsu believed this, or whether his idea had its origin in pique, history does not indicate.
The malcontents in Yoritomo's camp or his discomfited opponents began to transfer their allegiance to Yoshinaka; a tendency which culminated when Yoritomo's uncle, Yukiiye, taking umbrage because a provincial governorship was not given to him, rode off at the head of a thousand cavalry to join Yoshinaka.
Yoshinaka gained a signal victory over the Taira forces marshalled against him by the governor of Shinano, and pushing thence eastward into Kotsuke, obtained the allegiance of the Ashikaga of Shimotsuke and of the Takeda of Kai. Thus, the year 1180 closed upon a disastrous state of affairs for the Taira, no less than ten provinces in the east having fallen practically under Minamoto sway.
Though it was but to drag out a useless life, we wandered round the capital suffering hardship, hid in all manner of rustic spots, dwelt in remote and distant provinces, whose rough inhabitants did treat us with contumely. But at last I was summoned to assist in overthrowing the Taira house, and in this conflict I first laid Kiso Yoshinaka low.
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.
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.
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