Minamoto Yoritomo

Japanese shogun (1192-1199)

• Born: 1147
• Birthplace: Kyoto, Japan
• Died: February 9, 1199
• Place of death: Kamakura, Japan

Yoritomo led the Minamoto (Genji) clan when it defeated the Taira (Heike) and established the Kamakura shogunate, beginning seven centuries of feudal rule in Japan.

Early Life

Minamoto Yoritomo (mee-nah-moh-toh yoh-ree-toh-moh) rose to prominence as a leader of provincial warriors in eastern Japan. The circumstances of his birth were central to his career. He was the son of Minamoto Yoshitomo (1123-1160) and a court lady, the daughter of Fujiwara Sukenori, and had eight brothers or half brothers. Little is known of Yoritomo’s first twelve years except that he lived in Kyoto (he would later demonstrate that he was comfortable with courtiers in his regime).

Yoshitomo was a ninth generation descendent of Emperor Seiwa (r. 858-876) and the leader of the dominant branch of the Minamoto (Genji) clan long called the “tooth and claws of the Fujiwara” for helping the dominant court family intimidate rivals and put down rebellions. However, such service was often repaid by court promotion of the rival Taira (Heike) clan, also of royal blood, to check the Minamoto. The court’s dangerous game of using warriors for political muscle proved costly when two factions called warriors to the capital in 1156. The resulting Hōgen disturbance consisted of only one modest battle, won by Minamoto Yoshitomo, although many losers were Minamoto. The winning side, which supported Emperor Go-Shirakawa, elevated Taira Kiyomori (1118-1181) to high office while slighting Yoshitomo, who had sided with Kiyomori, and enraged Yoshitomo by demanding capital punishment (unused for 350 years) for fifty warriors on the losing side, mainly Minamoto family members, including Yoshitomo’s father and brother.

In 1159, Yoshitomo and disgruntled Fujiwara family members unsuccessfully attempted a coup (Heiji disturbance); he and his two oldest sons were killed. Thirteen-year-old Yoritomo, his oldest surviving son, was exiled to Izu. Hōjō Tokimasa (1138-1215), his second warden there, later allowed Yoritomo to wed his daughter Masako and then became his loyal vassal.

Life’s Work

Over the next two decades, Kiyomori gained dictatorial control of the state, placing scores of Taira in high offices, marrying his daughter Tokuko to Emperor Takakura (r. 1168-1180) and making their two-year-old son Emperor Antoku (r. 1180-1185). Kiyomori’s arrogance provoked rebellion by a passed-over prince, Mochihito, and an aging Minamoto courtier, Yorimasa, initiating the Gempei War (1180-1185). They soon died, but in Izu, Yoritomo, now thirty-two, took up Mochihito’s call to expel the Taira. Yoritomo had difficulty recruiting kinsmen; in his first battle, his overwhelmingly outnumbered force was crushed, and he narrowly escaped capture (Ishibashiyama; August 23, 1180). However, after establishing a permanent base in Kamakura, he increased his force dramatically by persuading many erstwhile opponents to join him and by offering protection and confirmation of property rights to warriors who became his vassals. By the time he faced Taira loyalists again, at Fujigawa, Suruga Province (November 20, 1180), he had a huge force, which the fearful Taira fled without fully engaging. It was his last Gempei battle. Yoritomo turned his army back to Kanto, where he forced reluctant Minamoto lords to join him.

Widespread famine and plague brought a hiatus in the war, during which Yoritomo solidified his control by creating the office of samurai (samurai dokoro; November, 1180). The initial organ of the feudal government that he would establish, the office of samurai curbed warrior lawlessness, particularly confiscation of land, and became the entity though which he organized his warriors.

The virtual truce ended in April, 1183, when the Taira moved into Chubu to attack Yoritomo’s cousin Minamoto (Kiso) Yoshinaka (1154-1184) and feckless uncle Minamoto Yukiie. Yoshinaka, a daring and resourceful warrior, controlled five provinces and, though he had supported Yoritomo in 1180, in reality represented a third potent military force with Yoritomo and the Taira. Yoshinaka rushed to meet his attackers, crushing their larger force at Kurikara Pass, Toyama, then driving them from Kyoto. There he received an imperial mandate to pursue them but delayed, wary of Yoritomo, whom retired emperor Go-Shirakawa was secretly contacting. Yoshinaka’s unruly troops became unwelcome. First denied authorization to attack Yoritomo, the impulsive Yoshinaka stormed Go-Shirakawa’s residence, beheading scores of his supporters. Yoshinaka then offered to ally with the Taira against Yoritomo but was rebuffed.

Finally granted the authorization he sought, Yoshinaka was even elevated to the highest military office, shogun. In response, Yoritomo ordered his half brothers Noriyori and Yoshitsune (1159-1189) to march on Kyoto. Yoshinaka weakened his position by sending some of his troops against Yukiie, who had deserted him, then divided the remainder between the Seta and Uji approaches to the capital. Yoshitsune broke though Uji and entered Kyoto. Yoshinaka died trying to flee Noriyori’s Seta force. The victors quickly moved west against the Taira base at Ichinotani. Yoshitsune, with seventy men, boldly scaled the Hiyodori Impasse to its north and charged down a steep ravine, befuddling the startled defenders. Suffering one thousand slain and nine chieftains captured, the Taira fled to Shikoku (March, 1184).

It was six months before the Genji pursued their advantage, apart from soliciting converts in Shikoku and Kyushu. In August, Yoritomo sent an army under Noriyori west, but timidity and logistical problems bogged him down. In November, 1184, Yoritomo established two more governmental organs, the office of administration (kumonjo, later renamed mandokoro), headed by Ōe Hiromoto, and the judicial board (monchūjo), headed by Miyoshi Yasunobu. These men were experienced Kyoto scholar-administrators and contributed much to the success of the emerging bakufu (tent government) Yoritomo was creating, whose core institutions were now in place.

Meanwhile, a rift developed between Yoritomo and Yoshitsune. Yoritomo, evidently jealous of his brother’s military brilliance and fearing a potential rival, failed to recommend him for court honors after Ichinotani, even though Noriyori and four others far less deserving were given governorships. Yoshitsune then accepted appointments (palace guard, imperial police) from Go-Shirakawa, which angered Yoritomo, who had prohibited such appointments without his recommendation. If Go-Shirakawa hoped to divide the brothers, he succeeded but with appalling consequences for the court.

Nevertheless, Noriyori’s ineptness forced Yoritomo to give a new command to Yoshitsune. Once again, he displayed daring and strategic brilliance. Crossing to Shikoku with only 150 men in a storm that had damaged most of his ships, Yoshitsune made a forced march through the night to the stronghold of Yashima, burning villages as he approached to appear to be a larger force (March 22, 1185). The frightened Taira embarked before guessing the truth, then sailed west. With new allies, Yoshitsune assembled a large naval force. A month later (April 25), he engaged the Taira in the Kyushu-Honshu straits at Dannoura. Awaiting a tidal change, he closed on the Taira ships, his archers targeting sailors to facilitate boarding Taira ships. Many chiefs and Kiyomori’s emperor-grandson, Antoku, died in the battle, the Taira’s final defeat.

Yoshitsune’s brilliant generalship left Yoritomo supreme. However, the latter, fearful of potential rivals and willing to credit his slanderous vassal Kajiwara Kagetoke’s reports, ordered Yoshitsune to Kamakura, then refused him entry, ignored his plea of loyalty, and sent him back to Kyoto soon to be followed by an assassin. The latter bungled, driving Yoshitsune closer to the court and Yukiie, whom Yoritomo also wished to eliminate. Go-Shirakawa authorized the two to take up arms against Yoritomo, but their plan to establish bases in Kyushu and Shikoku ended when a storm destroyed their vessels. Yukiie was captured and executed six months later. Yoshitsune eluded authorities in the capital area for many more months, then made his way north to Hiraizumi and the protection of Fujiwara Hidehira.

Yoritomo punished the court, demanding dismissal of those who supported the mandate to attack him, the establishment of a ten-man advisory council appointed by him, and the appointment of Fujiwara Kanezane, long his intimate, as imperial adviser. Kanezane’s approval was required of all court decrees, and he informed Yoritomo of court activities. Yoritomo also gained from the court the power to appoint provincial constables (shugo) and military estate stewards (jitō), and to impose a 2 percent “emergency military tax” on previously untaxed manors (shōen) ostensibly to deal with the public menace constituted by the fugitive Yoshitsune. The shugo managed the bakufu’s jitō in each province; the latter, who were supported by the shōen they oversaw, extended Kamakura’s power to the local level throughout the country though appointment of both official was gradual. Hōjō Tokimasa’s presence in Kyoto with troops had encouraged acceptance of these demands. Thus, Yoritomo exploited Yoshitsune’s recent alliance with the court (which, obviously, he had created), to eliminate its autonomy and enhance the power of the bakufu.

Yoritomo exploited in yet another way the existence of the “renegade” Yoshitsune. Yoshitsune’s protector in Ōshū, Fujiwara Hidehira, died in October, 1187. Throughout the following year Yoritomo pressed Hidehira’s heir Yasuhira, via court orders, to give up Yoshitsune, and finally obtained court permission to attack Ōshū. Fearful, Yasuhira attacked Yoshitsune, coerced his suicide (June 15, 1189), and sent his head to Kamakura in a lacquer box of sake. Undeterred, Yoritomo overran Ōshū with a huge army, eliminating the last sizable force that might oppose him. In the west, recent converts had been called on to demonstate their loyalty by joining the campaign. Hence, his grip on the entire country was strengthened.

The death of Go-Shirakawa in 1192 left Kanezane unchallenged at court. He persuaded the boy-emperor Go-Toba (1183-1198) to grant Yoritomo what Go-Shirakawa had long denied: the title of shōgun (generalissimo; August, 1190). Thus, the regime Yoritomo set up in Kamakura became the shogunate, an institution that would endure for seven centuries.

The honor did not make Yoritomo less distrustful. The following year, he had Noriyori executed on trumped-up charges. His cruelty had already strained his domestic relations. When Yoshinaka turned against him, Yoritomo had Yoshinaka’s twelve-year-old son held as a hostage and betrothed to Yoritomo’s six-year-old daughter Ohime executed. The girl and her mother, Masako, were outraged, and the fearless Masako forced Yoritomo to have the boy’s killer executed. Yoritomo later hoped to make Ohime an imperial consort, but she died at the age of twenty.

Although he dominated his age, the cause of Yoritomo’s death at about age fifty-two is not known. His foresight, judgment, ability to attract able men to his service, and relentless drive to enlarge his power shaped Japan’s history. However, there was nothing noble about him. He made a great show of religious piety and sought court mandates whenever possible to give his actions an aura of legitimacy, but he was ruthless, with slight regard for human life. He earned his countrymen’s respect but not their love. His deplorable treatment of Yoshitsune is remembered as well as anything else he did.

As for the epic struggle with the Taira that defined his life, his death brought a great irony. He had killed all his male relatives save his two young sons, far less able than himself. His father-in-law Hōjō Tokimasa took over as shogunal regent, also heading the mandokoro, samurai dokoro, and council of office, and would be succeeded by his son. Both of Yoritomo’s sons were murdered, and eventually (1254), princes served as figurehead shoguns, while the Hōjō, one of the ablest political families in Japanese history, ran the country. The Hōjō were a branch of the Taira clan.

Significance

The centralized political system Japan borrowed from China in the seventh century had fatally atrophied by the twelfth. Whereas Taira Kiyomori had established a short-lived dictatorship based on usurpation of outmoded institutions, Yoritomo built a new political system in Kamakura based on feudal command. It imposed discipline on the warrior class, gave them fair treatment though its legal institutions, and provided them financial support through jitō appointments and estates confiscated from the Taira. Thus reunified and strengthened, Japan was able to repulse the Mongol invasions of 1274 and 1281, and, although the shogunate was transferred to Kyoto when the Hōjō were defeated in 1333, and to Edo in 1600, it would endure until 1867.

Major Leaders of the Kamakura Shogunate, 1192-1333

Reign

• Shogun

1192-1199

• Minamoto Yoritomo

1202-1203

• Minamoto Yoriie

1203-1219

• Minamoto Sanetomo

1226-1244

• Kujo Yoritsune

1244-1252

• Kujo Yoritsugu

1252-1266

• Prince Munetaka

1266-1289

• Prince Koreyasu

1289-1308

• Prince Hisaaki

1308-1333

• Prince Morikuni

Major Emperors of the Kamakura Period (1185-1333) and Kemmu Restoration (1333-1336)

Reign

• Ruler

1183-1198

• Go-Toba

1198-1210

• Tsuchimikado

1210-1221

• Jintoku

1221

• Chukyo

1221-1232

• Go-Horikawa

1232-1242

• Shijō

1242-1246

• Go-Saga

1246-1260

• Go-Fukakusa

1260-1274

• Kameyama

1274-1287

• Go-Uda

1287-1298

• Fushimi

1298-1301

• Go-Fushimi

1301-1308

• Go-Nijō

1308-1318

• Hanazonō

1318-1339

• Go-Daigo

Bibliography

Mass, Jeffrey P. Warrior Government in Early Medieval Japan: A Study of the Kamakura Bakufu, Shugo, and Jitō. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974. A good review of the development of warrior rule in Japan.

Mass, Jeffrey P. Yoritomo and the Founding of the First Bakufu. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999. A revisionist work that emphasizes the conservative elements in Yoritomo’s government and the limited implementation in his lifetime of the reforms associated with him.

Sansom, George. A History of Japan to 1334. Vol. 1. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1958. One of the most respected histories of Japan.

Shinoda, Minoru. The Founding of the Kamakura Shogunate, 1180-1185, with Selected Translations from the Azuma Kagami. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960. Excellent study of the political and military developments that brought Yoritomo control of Japan.

Sugawara Makoto. “Bushidō.” The East 16-19 (1980-1983). Interesting, very detailed narrative, based on traditional histories.