Background
Yoshitomo sided along with Taira no Kiyomori in support of the Emperor Go-Shirakawa and Fujiwara no Tadamichi, while his father Minamoto no Tameyoshi sided with the retired Emperor Sutoku and Fujiwara no Yorinaga.
源 義朝
Yoshitomo sided along with Taira no Kiyomori in support of the Emperor Go-Shirakawa and Fujiwara no Tadamichi, while his father Minamoto no Tameyoshi sided with the retired Emperor Sutoku and Fujiwara no Yorinaga.
Yoshitomo, defeating his father and the forces of Sutoku and Yorinaga, became head of the Minamoto and established himself as a political power in the capital of Kyoto. However, despite his attempts to have his father pardoned, Tameyoshi was executed. Also, the outcome of the Hōgeneral rebellion established the Minamoto and Taira as the two strongest political rivals in the country.
Three years later in 1159, Yoshitomo and Fujiwara no Nobuyori placed Go-Shirakawa under house arrest and killed his retainer, the scholar Fujiwara no Michinori, in what is called the Eventually, Taira no Kiyomori, in support of Go-Shirakawa, defeated Yoshitomo.
Later, Yoshitomo was betrayed and killed in his bath. However, Yoshihira and Nobuyori were executed.
His grave in Aichi Prefecture is surrounded on all sides by wooden swords (bokuto), as by legend his last words were "If only I had even a bokuto..".
With the outbreak of the in 1156, the members of the Minamoto and Taira samurai clans were beckoned into the conflict.
