Yoritomo and the Doves of War

Japan’s first Shogun owed his life and his rise to power to a spider and two harmless doves.

1180

King Henry II 1154-1189

Introduction

This post is number 2 in the series Japanese History

This tale from Japanese history tells how Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147-1199), a contemporary of Henry II and Richard the Lionheart, rose to power and became the first of the Shoguns, military dictators who sidelined the Emperors and wielded supreme authority in Japan until 1868.

by Clay Lane

SHORTLY after Henry II of England came to the throne in 1154, bringing almost twenty years of civil war in England to an end,* Imperial Japan was embroiled in her own. The practice of allowing Emperors to retire to the cloister had let loose a bitter rivalry between their heirs, and the Hogen Rebellion in 1156 established a lasting enmity between the Taira and Minamoto clans. Even as Henry’s ambitious sons Richard and John jockeyed for position in France, samurai warrior Oba Kagechika of the Taira clan inflicted a damaging defeat on Minamoto no Yoritomo at the Battle of Ishibashiyama on September 14th, 1180, during the Genpei War.*

The story goes that Yoritomo fled to the Hakone mountains, and Kagechika immediately organised a manhunt led by his cousin Kajiwara Kagetoki.* Kagetoki tracked his enemy without much difficulty to a large tree with a hollow bole, but did not raise the alarm. In happier times Yoritomo had been his friend, and Kagetoki went back to Kagechika empty handed, reporting that Yoritomo was nowhere to be found.

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See and King Henry II.

Précis

IN 1156 civil war broke out in Japan between the Taira and Minamoto clans. At the Battle of Ishibashiyama in 1180 the Taira commander Oba Kagechika overcame Minamoto Yoritomo, who fled into the nearby forest and hid in a hollow tree trunk. There Kagetoki, Kagechika’s cousin, spied him; nevertheless, he reported back that Yoritomo had vanished without trace.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

Why did Kagetoki go looking for Yoritomo on September 14th, 1180?

Suggestion

He was ordered to by his cousin.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Kagechika and Yoritomo fought the Battle of Ishibashiyama. Kagechika won. Yoritomo escaped into the forest.

Clay Lane The Copybook