yoshitsune's

Updated: July 1, 2025

He seems from the first to have entertained doubts of Yoshitsune's loyalty to Yoritomo, and his own bitter experiences may well have helped to convert those doubts into certainties.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

The brothers had never previously seen each other's faces, and their meeting in such circumstances was a dramatic event. Among Yoshitsune's score of followers there were several who subsequently earned undying fame, but one deserves special mention here.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Hence, when, in the spring of 1188, Kamakura became aware of Yoshitsune's presence in Mutsu, two consecutive messages were sent thither, one from Yoritomo, the other from the Court, ordering Yoshitsune's execution. Yasuhira paid no attention, and Go-Shirakawa commissioned Yoritomo to punish the northern chief's contumacy. Yasuhira now became alarmed.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Deeds like the killing of Yoshitsune's son were the natural consequence of that doctrine. Meanwhile, Yoshitsune had been passing from one place of concealment to another in the three contiguous provinces of Izumi, Yamato, and Kii.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

There they were attacked at dawn on the 24th by Yoshitsune, to whom there had arrived on the previous evening a re-enforcement of thirty war-junks, sent, not by Kagetoki, but by a Minamoto supporter who had been driven from the province of Iyo some time previously by the Taira. As usual, the impetuosity of Yoshitsune's onset carried everything before it.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Sharing the vogue of the biwa-bozu, but differing from it in the nature of the story recited as well as in that of the instrument employed, was the joruri, which derived its name from the fact that it was originally founded on the tragedy of Yoshitsune's favourite mistress, Joruri. In this the performer was generally a woman, and the instrument on which she accompanied herself was the samisen.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Japanese annals offer no explanation of Yoshitsune's procedure on that occasion.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Yoritomo's keen insight discerned in his half-brother's attitude something more than mere rivalry. He discovered the possible establishment of special relations between the Imperial Court and a section of the Minamoto. Yoshitsune's failure to repair to Kamakura after the battle of Ichi-no-tani inspired Yoritomo's first doubts.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era