Battle of Sekigahara

Battle of Sekigahara

The Battle of Sekigahara was fought between the forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu and those of his opponents. His decisive victory ensured his appointment as shogun of Japan and the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate that ruled Japan until 1868.

By mid-16th century, the Ashikaga Shogunate of Japan was in terminal decline and civil wars raged in the land as rival nobles or daimyo sought to replace it. The second of the powerful lords, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1535–98), almost accomplished the task.

As he neared death, and with his son Hideyori too young to exercise power, he appointed a council of five regents to rule on the boy’s behalf, hoping that they would checkmate one another. Tokugawa Ieyasu was one of the regents.


Ieyasu had helped Hideyoshi in his campaigns and had been rewarded with extensive landholdings in the agriculturally rich Kanto Plain area where he had built a formidable castle at the port of Edo (modern Tokyo). Ieyasu did not participate in Hideyoshi’s attempted conquest of Korea, remaining in Japan to consolidate his holdings.

The balance of power among the five regents soon dissolved with four of the five regents aligning against Ieyasu. An adroit politician, Ieyasu was able to crack the formidable coalition by securing the secret support of many of the lords ostensibly loyal to the other regents, who moreover were rivals of one another.

The showdown occurred on October 21, 1600, at the Battle of Sekigahara. Ieyasu won decisively, partly through to the defection of some of his opponents’ forces. The victory made him military master of Japan. Eighty-seven daimyo houses were extinguished, the remainder, including Toyotomi’s fief, dramatically reduced, allowing Ieyasu to expand the land he directly controlled and to reward his supporters.

In 1603, the emperor acknowledged the fait accompli by appointing Ieyasu shogun. He would consolidate his power during his remaining years with laws that secured obedience to the surviving daimyo and by retiring in 1605 in favor of his son, while remaining behind the scenes to ensure the stability of the shogunate.

In 1614, he launched a akibat massive campaign, mobilizing 180,000 troops against Hideyori at his stronghold, Osaka castle, defended by 90,000 men. The castle was taken and Hideyori was killed. These two campaigns ensured the supremacy of the house of Tokugawa.

47 Ronin

47 Ronin

A ronin was a masterless samurai who had lost his privileged status in society. The tale of the 47 Ronin has become one of the central myths in Japanese history. It concerns a supposedly real-life story from the beginning of the 18th century when 47 samurai were left without a master and therefore became ronin when their leader, feeling unjustly treated, drew his sword against his lord and was, as a result, forced to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide.

His domain was confiscated. The ronin plotted to take revenge on the lord who had wronged their master. Knowing that they would be watched by the authorities, they bided their time for two years, pretending to live a life of dissipation. Then on a snowy winter night they assembled in Edo, broke into the castle of the offending lord, and took his head.

The Tokugawa Bakuhan allowed the 47 Ronin to commit seppuku, thus ending their lives with honor. The story has been retold in print, theater, puppetry, and film many times in subsequent years. The notions of honorable sacrifice and justified vengeance-taking have become deeply embedded in the Japanese psyche.


This event is important in reinforcing the class-based structure of Japanese society at the time: Samurai were bound by the Bushido, the Way of the Warrior, to which lesser people could only aspire.

Even though the 47 spent the time between the original offense and the time of vengeance hiding, disguising themselves, and spying on their enemy in a variety of ways that may be considered underhanded, this is not considered to be in any way dishonorable, and the tamat result negates the means by which it is completed.

Tenchi (Tenji)

Tenchi (Tenji)

The man who later became Emperor Tenchi played a major role in the coup d’etat that ousted the Soga clan from power in Japan in 645. His reign was remarkable for the many steps taken to advance Japan by implementing reforms modeled on China.

Three men ruled as emperor after the coup d’etat until 661, when Emperor Tenchi ascended the throne. He was not formally enthroned until 668, probably because he was preoccupied with a great fear regarding China’s intentions toward his country.

The Tang (T’ang) dynasty in China that Japan so admired and wished to emulate was at its zenith. It had sent strong forces against the states in Korea, subduing Paekche and threatening Koguryo and Silla. Tenchi feared the resurgence of Chinese power in Korea and the impact that might have on Japan.

Even though the Soga clan had been ousted from power, the reforms that Prince Shotoku Taishi, the great Soga regent, had begun were continued after 645. The decades after 645 were called the masa of Taika or Great Reforms era, when intense attempts were made to move toward Chinese institutions of government and law.


In 645 the future emperor, Tenchi handed over 81 estates and 524 artisans to the emperor, signifying his support of the central government claim that all land belonged to the emperor, as was the practice in China.

Perhaps because of fear of a Chinese invasion Tenchi ordered his brother, the crown prince (later to become Emperor Temmu), to take measures to tighten the central government’s control over the administration and strengthen the army.

He also built Chinese-style palaces for his administration at Otsu, perhaps to be safe in case of a Chinese invasion because Naniwa, the previous administrative center, was near the coast. There are accounts of Tenchi and his courtiers holding Chinese poetry parties at his palace, but none of their works have survived.

Writing poetry in Chinese had become an honored cultural activity. In 668 he ordered his ally in the coup, Fujiwara Katamari, to head a board to compile a set of administrative laws and ceremonial regulations.

Later accounts say that the completed administrative code consisted of 22 volumes, but they have not survived. In 671 he also promulgated a system of ranking for bureaucrats called “cap ranks.”

Other measures Tenchi took to strengthen the authority of the central government included state control of Buddhist priests and temples. Emperor Tenchi’s reign is significant in Japanese history because it represented further advances in Japanese government and culture based on the Chinese model.

Taira-Minamoto Wars

Taira-Minamoto Wars

The Taira-Minamoto wars, which led to the firm establishment of the shogunate as Japan’s military government, began in the middle of the 12th century. At this time power in Japan was almost evenly divided between two families of feudal nobility, or the daimyo class, the Taira and the Minamoto.

Save for an allegiance to the emperor, more often acknowledged tacitly rather than in reality, both families began to see Japan as a prize to be fought over. The Fujiwara clan, whom both the Taira and Minamoto sought to replace, had been a power in Japan since the seventh century, serving as regents for the imperial dynasty.

Sensing a waning of the Fujiwara’s ability to rule, the Taira and Minamoto mustered their forces. The Taira and Minamotos had one qualitative edge: Whereas the Fujiwaras were largely cultivated court nobles, the Taira and Minamoto were daimyo from the rough samurai military class, the professional warriors of Japan, who followed “the Way of the Horse and the Bow.”


In 1156, the first skirmishes took place in the Taira-Minamoto struggle when the clans fought in both sides of an imperial succession dispute known as the Hogen incident, named for the year it took place.

The side led by Taira Kiymori won out. Ironically he owed his place of power to Minamoto Yoshitomo, who lost his father and brother on the opposing side against the Tairas. The grief-stricken Yoshitomo declared, “A man could not live under the same heaven as the murderer of his father.”

some of the most brutal warfare

In 1160 in the Heiji rebellion, named again for the year it took place, Minamoto Yoshitomo gathered his knights, his samurai, and his footsoldiers, or ashigaru. The fighting raged in the imperial capital of Kyoto and featured some of the most brutal warfare yet seen among the Japanese.

The entire capital became a battleground, in which the highlight was the Minamoto’s assault on the Sanjo Palace. In one such battle, “wild flames filled the heavens, and a tempestuous wind swept up clouds of smoke.

The nobles, courtiers, and even the ladies in waiting of the women’s quarters were shot down [by arrows] or slashed to death.” Taira Kiyomori gained the upper hand, and the bloodied Minamoto retreated east to the region around Edo, modern Tokyo.

Taira Kiyomori

Taira Kiyomori began a purge of the Minamoto, hoping to kill off the opposing clan. However he left, as Stephen R. Turnbull writes in The Book of the Samurai, “a few young boys and an aging courtier, Minamoto Yorimasa,” alive. These would prove the undoing of the Taira clan.

With the Heiji uprising thwarted, Taira Kiyomori took up residence in the capital at Kyoto. Soon the Taira lost their combative edge and evolved into effete courtiers like the Fujiwara. Kiyomori even married into the imperial family. However the Minamoto had only been biding their time.

In 1180 Emperor Takakura abdicated and Kitomori put his grandson Antonoku forward as the next emperor. However the rightful heir, Prince Mochito, issued a call to arms to support his claim to the throne. Minamoto Yorimasa rose in revolt against the Taira clan.

A large Taira force along the Uji River confronted Minamoto Yorimasa in the Gempei War. In an overwhelming charge, the Taira cavalry forded the river and Yorimasa faced defeat. Rather than surrender to the enemy, Yorimasa committed ritual suicide as his sons held off the enemy.

Yet the Minamoto, once up in arms against their old foes, would not back down. Although Yoritomo had as yet no army to support him, his plan of action offered great booty, always an inducement to the samurai class, to any who would join him in the eastern part of the country.

When Taira Kiyomori died in 1181, the hold of his clan on the country began to weaken. Two years later Yoritomo saw his chance. In 1183 he attacked. His cousin, Minamoto Yoshinaka, defeated the Taira forces at Kurikawa and again at Shinohara.

Minamoto knights

In August the Minamoto forces entered Kyoto and an agreement was reached with the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa. While the compact allowed the young Emperor Go-Toba to rule, it signaled an alliance between the imperial dynasty and the Minamoto clan.

With the Taira in full retreat under Taira Munemori, Yoritomo ordered a full pursuit: He intended a complete and decisive victory. Yoritomo’s brother Yoshitsune was given the orders to finish the Taira. The Taira sought refuge in a cliff fortress at Ichi-no-tani near Kobe.

However in a daring nighttime attack, Yoshitsune and 150 men climbed down the cliff to surprise and rout the Taira army. The Taira force was driven back to the safety of their fleet. There they sought refuge on the small island of Yashima, located off the island of Shikoku.

Minamoto Yoshitsune

On April 24, 1185, in one of the few decisive naval battles in Japanese history, the Minamoto and Taira fleets met off the Dan-no-Ura peninsula, where the Strait of Shimonoseki separates the islands of Honshu and Kyushu.

The battle began auspiciously for the Taira as, using the tide as a weapon, they attempted to surround the Minamoto ships. But during the battle, some of the Taira captains switched sides as Miura Yoshizumi attacked the Taira ships from the rear, and the Taira navy was defeated.

Taira Kiyomori’s widow grabbed her grandson, the young Emperor Antoku, and plunged into the water. Both were drowned. Taira daimyo followed their example, choosing death by drowning to surrender.

Antoku’s mother, who also attempted seppuku by drowning, was rescued. She was permitted to live out her life as a nun and died in 1191 at the age of 36. With the decisive defeat of the Taira, Emperor Go-Shirakawa appointed Yoritomo as shogun, the military dictator of Japan.

Taika Reforms

Taika Reforms

Taika means “great change.” It was adopted as the name of a “year period” in Japanese history (after the Chinese custom of designating the entire period or a portion of a monarch’s reign with a name to signify the intentions of the ruler) starting in 645.

The reforms that were made in the years following 645 were thus called the Taika Reforms. They continued and accelerated the adoption of Chinese institutions begun by Prince Shotoku Taishi.

Prince Shotoku died in 622, followed by Empress Suiko, who died in 628. A succession dispute followed because of resentment of the Soga clan by rival clans.

It culminated in a coup d’etat in 645 led by a prince who became Emperor Tenchi (Tenji) (r. 668–671) and a nobleman, who was given a new family name as reward for his services to Tenchi. That family name was Fujiwara and the nobleman, Fujiwara Kamatari, became the progenitor of the Fujiwara clan that would dominate Japanese politics for many centuries.

Tenchi and Kamatari began a new wave of reforms based on the Chinese model. They had the advantage of many students sent to study in China earlier who had returned with newly gained knowledge.


Five more embassies were sent to China between 653 and 669. The China specialists were appointed as state scholars. The first reforms were aimed at strengthening the government’s control over the provinces and instituting ing a Chinese-style centralized taxation system.

A census was taken. Adopting the Chinese concept that all land belonged to the throne, a land survey was made by imperial messengers to facilitate the collection of taxes. It started with areas around the capital city, later fanning out to outlying areas.

A first attempt was made to establish a Chinese style capital city at Naniwa (near present-day Osaka) where central government ministries were set up. The ministries and officials all had names and ranks fashioned after those of China. A law code copied from the Chinese code of the Tang (T’ang) dynasty was promulgated.

Fujiwara Kamatari

The Taika Reforms were a very ambitious attempt to introduce the highly advanced system of government in China to Japan, where conditions were more primitive. Many of the new concepts could not be realized and compromises had to be struck.

For example, the emperor did not have the power to deprive the clan chiefs of their land, nor to appoint all local officials. In reality the clan chiefs and local magnates were given official posts and ranks that confirmed them in control of their traditional landholdings.

Shotoku had begun a wave of reforms patterned after Chinese concepts and institutions. Tenchi followed in his footsteps and expanded upon them and his successors continued, making pragmatic compromises as Japanese conditions demanded.

All the reforms were synthesized into law as the Taiho Code, which went into effect in 702. Thus the Taika Reforms were an important step in Japan’s absorption of Chinese culture.

Taiho Code

map of provinces

The Taiho Code went into effect in 702. It symbolized the advances Japan had made since the sixth century in the establishing of a state in the Chinese style.

Prince Shotoku Taishi had begun the practice of sending Japanese students to China in the early seventh century, a practice that continued long after his death.

The returned students understood that laws, especially administrative laws, were a crucial component of the strength of the Chinese empire, because they defined the forms and function of the bureaucracy, the collection of taxes, and performance of services and justified the secular and ritual role of the emperor. Emperor Tenchi (Tenji) (r. 661–672) had ordered the compilation of an administrative code, reputedly 22 volumes long, but it has not survived.

His brother and successor Temmu had ordered a reform of the laws promulgated under Tenchi, which supposedly was based on the Tang (T’ang) code of 651. Temmu’s code also no longer exists.


Then came the Taiho (meaning “great precious”) penal and administrative code of 702. Fragments of this code survive and more can be extrapolated from commentaries and the Yoro Code derived from it that followed in 718.

It consists of several important component parts. First, it provided for a system of household registration used for assessing taxes for land and labor services from the people.

A complex system of land allocation based on Tang China’s equal field system was put into effect. Second, it stipulated the collection of taxes, based on individuals and not households. Third, it defined the administration of local areas: Japan was divided into 60 provinces, each containing districts and villages.

They had been administered under local chieftains, which were switched to Crown appointees. Fourth, it covered the administration of the central government, which the code put under councils and ministries in the Chinese model. Fifth, it involved administration of military affairs.

Another entire section stipulated state control of Buddhist monks and nuns, their training, ordination, residence, activities, and responsibilities under canon and civil law. This too was taken from the Chinese model under the Tang (T’ang) dynasty.

The promulgation of the Taiho Code was shortly followed by the building of a permanent capital called Nara on a reduced scale of the great Tang capital Chang’an (Ch’ang-an). Until now there had been no permanent capital in Japan. Each reigning emperor or empress had used his/her residence as the administrative center of the state, which changed as each reign came to an end.

This impermanence was due to the simple structure of early Japanese government and the belief of ritual pollution associated with a place where the sovereign had died under indigenous Shinto belief. The change to permanent capitals was predicated on new ideals from China and the increasing complexity of Japan’s government.

The Taiho Code was an ambitious attempt by Japanese leaders to implement a complex legal system on the Chinese model where the state had much greater resources and history of administration.

It was well enforced during the first half of the eighth century. But it became less effective as changing social and economic conditions weakened the imperial court’s control over the land and people.

Shotoku Taishi

Prince Shotoku Taishi

Prince Shotoku Taishi was crown prince and regent of Japan between 592 and 622. His rule opened an masa of great reforms that advanced Buddhism and Chinese political and cultural influence in Japan. For his role he is called the Great Civilizer.

Up to the sixth century Chinese cultural influence had grown gradually in Japan. After the mid-sixth century the process quickened. One reason was the gradual strength and reach of the Yamato state, which required more complex institutions than the clan government of Japan had provided.

Second, China became unified in 589 under the Sui dynasty after three and half centuries of division. The great Tang (T’ang) dynasty followed, one of the greatest in China’s imperial history and worthy of emulation. The third factor was the introduction of Buddhism to Japan from China via Korea (the southern Korean state Paekche had a very close relationship with Japan) in 552.


Buddhism was attractive to many Japanese but was also resented because it was foreign and not associated with Japanese mythology and the shamanistic practices of its native Shintoism.

In 587 the Soga clan won ascendancy at the Yamato court; the chief’s niece, Suiko, became empress, and her nephew Shotoku, descended from both the imperial and Soga clans, became her regent. Shotoku began a great masa of reforms that would advance Japanese civilization in the pattern of China.

Shotoku court

He was a devout Buddhist; in fact a legend has him clutching a statuette of the Buddha at his birth. He proclaimed Buddhism the preferred state religion, promoted the building of temples, welcomed monks and missionaries from China and Korea, lectured on Buddhist teachings, and wrote commentaries on three Buddhist sutras.

Thus Buddhism became the most important vehicle for the advancement of Chinese culture. However Buddhism did not provide a structure for the organization of government and society, and for those he turned to the imperial structure of China of the Sui-Tang dynasties.

In 604 Prince Shotoku promulgated the Seventeen Article Constitution (or Injunctions). Article II promoted Buddhism stating: “Sincerely revere the three treasures, viz. Buddha, the Law and the Priesthood, are the simpulan refuge of the four generated beings, and are the supreme object of faith in all countries.

Any person of any age should revere Buddhist law. Few persons are really bad. If they are taught well, they will be obedient. But if they are not converted [to the truth of] the Three Treasures, how can their wrongs be corrected?”

The other 16 articles promoted Confucian precepts such as the supremacy of the ruler, a centralized government, a bureaucracy based on merit and correct principles, and social relationships that promoted harmony. In the same year Prince Shotoku also adopted the Chinese calendar, thereby accepting the Chinese view of world order.

China required its tributary states to adopt the Chinese calendar as sign of vassalage. Japan adopted it voluntarily and did not become a Chinese vassal state. He also adopted major features of a Chinese style bureaucratic rule and system of court ranks for officials.

Shotoku wood statue

In 607 Shotoku broke new ground by sending an official embassy to the Chinese court. He would send a total of three, the two subsequent ones in 608 and 614, but the embassies would continue until the mid-ninth century, long after Shotoku’s reign had ended.

Each of the later ones had a contingent of four ships with between 500 and 600 students, some staying in China for up to 10 years. After returning to Japan the students, including government officials, monks, musicians, painters, and scholars, became transmitters of what they had learned to the wider society.

His initiative resulted in one of the greatest technology transfers in premodern times. In addition to government-sponsored students, private individuals also began to travel to China to study, and trade also increased between the two countries. Educated Japanese read Chinese books and wrote in Chinese.

The common written script came to unite Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese in a common literary heritage and a shared tabiat and historical tradition. Many Chinese and Koreans immigrated to Japan during this period, which accelerated the spread of Chinese culture.

The Soga clan continued to dominate the Japanese court after Shotoku’s death. His opponents had feared that he sought the throne. But his son Prince Yamashiro refused to press his candidacy for the throne when Empress Suiko died in 628.

In 645 the Soga clan was defeated and lost its influence at court. However Prince Shotoku’s legacy continued, and even accelerated, during the next century as Japan continued to catapult forward in adopting Chinese culture and institutions.

Shinran - Buddhist Philospher

Shinran - Buddhist Philospher

Shinran was a Japanese Buddhist philosopher who was primarily concerned with the fate of the mass of the people who would be unable to achieve enlightenment through their own efforts.

He emphasized the role of faith as a means of salvation and placed it in the context of action and attainment of enlightenment. His school of Buddhism was called the Jodo Shinsu (the True Pure Land), and it has become one of the largest such schools in modern Japan.

Shinran became a monk at childhood after the deaths of his parents and he studied at the Tendai school on Mount Hiei. He underwent a process of asceticism in the search for enlightenment but failed to achieve his goal in this way.


Granted a short sabbatical in the Rokkaku-do (Hexagonal Temple in Kyoto), he encountered Honen and was inspired to follow his Pure Land Buddhist form of belief, which held that calling out the name of the Buddha in true faith would be sufficient for people to achieve enlightenment in the practice known as nembutsu. Shinran abandoned his previous asceticism and became an advocate of nembutsu. When this was outlawed in 1209, he was exiled.

He subsequently married, despite the requirement for monks to remain celibate. His son, Zenran, followed him into the religious life but this led to conflict later when Shinran felt compelled to disown Zenran on the basis of the young man’s different (and hence heretical) religious beliefs.

Shinran spent around 20 years in Kanto after his exile, where he continued his studies, wrote extensive tracts, and attempted to convert the local people.

Shinran statue

After the Kanto years, Shinran returned to Kyoto, where he then had a confrontation with his son, who had been leading followers in the absence of his father. Shinran died in Kyoto at the age of 90. His followers commemorated his life, in part with the creation of an organized form of his religious beliefs.

True Pure Land Buddhism focuses on the worship of Amitabha Buddha and anticipation of paradise lands to the west, where those saved by their worship will make their perpetual home.

Worshipping the Buddha as an individual is contrary to the Buddha’s own intention, since he considered that he had successfully eradicated his own ego and, therefore, there was nothing left to worship. Further the Buddha stressed the need for all people to search for and evaluate all stages on the road to enlightenment individually and systematically.

True Pure Land Buddhism, therefore, was far more democratic than the Buddhism of the Buddha himself and offered happiness in the next world to a much larger group of people. It could be used, therefore, as a powerful force for modernization and social reform.

Gempei War

Gempei War

Part of the Taira-Minamoto wars the Gempei War in Japan lasted from 1180 until 1185. It was fought between the Taira clan, which was losing influence, and the Minamoto clan, which hoped to replace the Taira clan. It resulted in a victory for the Minamoto clan, and the emergence of Minamoto Yoritomo as the shogun (“general who subdues barbarians”) in 1192. The name Gempei came from a contraction of the names Genji and Heike, which were the kanji characters for “Minamoto” and “Taira.”

The Minamoto clan previously tried to topple the Taira, in the Hogen War of 1156 and the Heiji War of 1159–1160. In the first the Minamoto had supported a rival claimant to the throne and lost. In the second, they staged a surprise coup but were decisively defeated by the Taira.

In the Gempei War in 1180, as the Minamoto were gaining strength, the Taira attacked first. Taira supporters surprised Prince Mochihito, the claimant to the imperial throne and favored by the Minamotos, at a temple near Kyoto. Deciding that it was impossible to defend the temple, they fled across the Uji River, removing the planks on the bridge across the river.


However the Taira forces were able to ford the river and cornered their opponents. Yorimasa, injured by an arrow, commited ritual suicide by seppuku, disemboweling himself—the first known time this had taken place. Soon afterward Prince Mochihito was killed.

The Taira then capitalized on their victory at Uji by attacking Nara, the base of warrior monks opposed to them. Although the monks were in strong defensive positions, the Taira used their cavalry to great advantage, capturing and then destroying all the temples in Nara except Enryakuji. It is reported that 3,500 people were killed during the sacking of Nara.

Following this, Minamoto Yoritomo, assisted by men from the Miura clan, tried to regroup, but the Taira launched a quick attack and routed them at the Battle of Ishibashiyama. Soon afterward Minamoto Yoritomo rallied his troops and turned on the Taira. At the Battle of Fujigawa, it was said that when a flock of birds surprised the Taira, they fled in panic.

In 1181 Minamoto Yukiie attempted to attack Taira Tomomori, whose army was encamped along the Sunomata River. The Minamoto were driven back with heavy losses and retreated across the Yahagigawa River, pursued by the Taira. When Tomomori fell ill, the Taira pulled back. After a lull in fighting, in 1183 Taira Koremori launched an attack on a Minamoto castle at Hiuchiyama.

The fortifications were capable of withstanding a siege, but a traitor from within the castle tied a message to an arrow and shot it into the Taira camp, showing how they could breach a dam around the castle. The Taira attacked and the Minamoto forces fled. Although the Taira won the first part of the war, their leadership had grown arrogant and annoyed smaller clans, who were won over by the Minamoto.

Making the most of this victory Taira Koremori pursued the Minamoto to Kurihara (also known as the Battle of Tonamiyama). Minamoto Yoshinaka cunningly split his forces and ambushed the Taira as they went through a mountain pass. By disguising the strengths of the three wings of the army, Minamoto Yoshinaka surrounded the Taira. It was the turning point in the war, as many of the Taira forces were killed, and they were forced to withdraw their garrison from Kyoto and fled along with their ally Emperor Antoku to Shikoku.

On November 17, 1183, Minamoto Yoshinaka sent his ships against the Taira in the Battle of Mizushima— the first naval battle of the Gempei War. The Taira were victorious, but soon afterward a Minamoto army captured the castle of Fukuryuji, which had been held by a supporter of the Taira. The Minamoto then tried to press their military advantages by engaging the Taira in another battle at Muroyama but were defeated.

A struggle suddenly broke out with Minamoto Yoshinaka trying to wrest power from his cousins Minamoto Yoritomo and Minamoto Yoshitsune. Yoshinaka captured the Hojoji Palace in Kyoto, took Emperor Go-Shirakawa prisoner, and named himself shogun. Soon after the rest of the clan surrounded him, forcing him to choose between inevitable defeat in battle or flight. He chose the latter and his men fled across the Uji River, but Yoshitsune’s cavalry forded the river and in the second Battle of Uji, Yoshinaka was defeated. He made a simpulan stand at Awazu and was killed by an arrow.

With Yoshinaka dead the Minamoto concentrated on the simpulan defeat of the Taira. At Ichi-no-Tani, the Minamoto attacked a Taira fortress near modern-day Kobe. The battle became legend in Japanese folklore, with many famous warriors engaging in combat. Eventually the 16-year-old Taira leader, Atsumori, was killed, later dramatized in plays and works of fiction. The Minamoto then followed up their victory by attacking and defeating Taira allies at the Battle of Kojima.

The last two battles of the war were both at sea. At Yashima on March 22, 1185, Minamoto Yoshitsune launched a surprise attack on the Taira. Bluffing that he had far more men, Yoshitsune sent the Taira into premature retreat, abandoning their fortifications at Shikoku. Most of the Taira fleet escaped, but at the Battle of Dannoura, off the southern tip of Honshu island, on April 25, 1185, the Minamoto attacked their outnumbered opponents—it was estimated that the Minamoto used 850 ships against their opponents’ 500.

At a crucial time a Taira ally switched sides and told the Minamoto which ship the six-year-old Emperor Antoku was hiding on. The Minamoto attacked it, killing the emperor along with his grandmother, a member of the Taira clan.

With the Taira totally defeated, Minamoto Yoritomo, the older half brother of Yoshitsune, became the first shogun in Japanese history and established what became the Kamakura Shogunate. It was not long before Yoshitsune, Yoshiie, and Yoshinaka were killed by orders of Yoritomo or were forced to commit suicide. The system of rule by the shogun continued, in several different forms, until the Meiji Restoration of 1868.