Yoshitsune no Minamoto was a Military leader of the early Kamakura period.
Background
Yoshitsune no Minamoto was born in 1159 in Japan. He was the son of Minamoto no Yoshitomo and Tokiwa Gozen and in his youth was called Ushiwakamaru. in the twelfth month of 1159 his father, Yoshitomo, turned against the leader of the Taira family, Taira no Kiyomori, in the action known as the Heiji uprising, but in the first month of the following year Yoshitomo was killed in battle. Tokiwa Gozen tried to flee with her children but was siezed by the Taira forces. Later she married Fujiwara no Naganari and for a while Yoshitsune lived in the home of the latter.
Career
Around 1169 he entered the temple north of Kyoto called Kuramadera to become a monk. The religious life seemed not to have been to his liking, for around 1174 he left Kyoto and, eluding the Taira soldiers that had been sent to pursue him, made his way to the home of Fujiwara no Hidchira, a powerful lord of the province of Mutsu.
In 1180, hearing that Minamoto no Yoritomo, his elder brother by a different mother, had raised troops and was attempting to overthrow the Taira, he joined in the campaign. In 1183 another relative who had entered the struggle, Yoshitsune’s cousin Minamoto no Yoshinaka, succeeded in driving the Taira forces from the city of Kyoto, but he behaved defiantly toward Retired Emperor Goshirakawa, who controlled the imperial court, and as a consequence Yoshitsune was sent at the head of an army to restore order, attacking and killing Yoshinaka in 1184. Yoshitsune then continued the pursuit of the Taira forces, which had fled to the west, and at the battle of Dan-no-ura in the third month of 1185 finally destroyed them. Shortly after, however, dissension developed between Yoshitsune and his elder brother Yoritomo, who had remained in Kamakura, over the disposition of Taira hostages. Retired Emperor Goshirakawa, determined to exploit the rift between the brothers, commanded Yoshitsune to attack Yoritomo. Yoritomo then dispatched his retainer Tosabo Shoshun to assassinate Yoshitsune, but Yoshitsune succeeded in siezing and killing him instead. In order to evade the pursuers that Yoritomo sent after him, Yoshitsune fled fiom province to province, finally taking refuge with Fujiwara no Hidehira in Mutsu, where he had lived as a youth. When Hidehira died in the tenth month of 1187, however, Yoritomo ordered Hidehira’s son, Fujiwara no Yasuhira, to attack Yoshitsune, an order that he carried out in 1189, forcing Yoshitsune to commit suicide. He performed the deed in hopes of thereby retaining control of the province of Mutsu, but he, in turn, was killed by the forces of Yoritomo, who took over control of the area. Yoshitsune, along with his famous retainer Benkei, is the subject of a number of dramatic works that are still frequently performed today such as the Kabuki plays Ataka-no- seki no kanjinchb and Yoshitsune sembonzakura.