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Updated: May 10, 2025
Yoritomo did not confine himself to re-casting the system of provincial administration. He extended his reforms to the Court, also. Thrice within the short space of five years he had been proscribed as a rebel by Imperial decree once at the instance of the Taira; once at the instance of Yoshinaka, and once at the instance of Yoshitsune.
Almost simultaneously with the capture of Yukiiye, whose fate excites no pity, the fair girl, Shizuka, was apprehended and brought before Hojo Tokimasa, who governed Kyoto as Yoritomo's lieutenant. Little more than a year had elapsed since she first met Yoshitsune after his return from Dan-no-ura, and her separation from him now had been insisted on by him as the only means of saving her life.
Kagetoki objected that no vessel could live in such weather. Yoshitsune then called for volunteers. About one hundred and fifty daring spirits responded. They embarked in five war-junks, some of the sailors being ordered to choose between manning the vessels or dying by the sword.
But Yoshitsune himself had foreseen this and had determined that the best, if not the only, hope of victory lay in delivering an assault by descending the northern rampart of mountains at Hiyodori Pass. Access from that side being counted impracticable, no dispositions had been made by the Taira to guard the defile.
The fight at Dan-no-ura could not have made him famous, for its issue was determined by defection in the enemy's ranks, not by any strategical device or opportune coup on the side of the victors. Yet Japan accords to Yoshitsune the first place among her great captains. Undoubtedly this estimate is influenced by sympathy.
His life, as already stated, had been saved in the Heiji disturbance, first, by the intrepidity of his mother, Tokiwa, and, afterwards, by the impression her dazzling beauty produced upon the Taira leader. Placed in the monastery of Kurama, as stipulated by Kiyomori, Yoshitsune had no sooner learned to think than he became inspired with an absorbing desire to restore the fortunes of his family.
Thus, he publicly declared Yasuhira a traitor for having done to death his guest, Yoshitsune, though in so doing Yasuhira obeyed the orders of Yoritomo himself; he executed the disloyal retainer who took Yasuhira's head, though the latter was then a fugitive from the pursuit of the Kamakura armies, and he pardoned Yuri Hachiro, one of Yasuhira's officers, because he defended Yasuhira's reputation in defiance of Yoritomo's anger.
Yoshitsune selected for the venture seventy-five men, among them being Benkei, Hatakeyama Shigetada, and others of his most trusted comrades. They succeeded in riding down the steep declivity, and they rushed at the Taira position, setting fire to everything inflammable. What ensued is soon told.
Yoshitsune asked what that meant, and being informed that sakaro signified oars at the bow of a boat for use in the event of going astern, he said that such a provision could tend only to suggest a movement fatal to success. "Do you contemplate retiring?" he asked Kagetoki. "So far as I am concerned, I desire only to be equipped for advancing."
Kagetoki indignantly replied: "A skilful general advances at the right moment and retires at the right moment. You know only the tactics of a wild boar." Yoshitsune angrily retorted, "I know not whether I am a boar or whether I am a deer, but I do know that I take pleasure in crushing a foe by attacking him."
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