Career
The 12th Century in Japan was marked by the passing of the supreme executive power from the hands of the Emperor and his court nobles into those of the rising class of militarists and also by the bitter struggle for supremacy between the two leading clans of samurai, namely, the Minamotos and the Tairas (Heikes). These two different threads of happenings, so closely interwoven with each other, came to a culmination in the year 1192 when the first Shogunate or military court in Japan was established at Kamakura by Yoritomo Minamoto, leader of the Minamoto Clan.
The first critical point in the turbulent life of Yoritomo was the heiji-no-Ran or War of the Heiji Era which saw his father Yoshitomo, of whom he was the third son, and other generals of the Minamoto Clan defeated and killed at the hands of Taira (1159). Yoritomo, then at the age of 11,narrowly escaped decapitation only because of intervention by Yorimori Taira and his wife and was exiled to Izu Province. There, as he grew older, Yoritomo came to cherish a secret ambition to overthrow the Taira Clan and to establish himself and his family as the ruler of the nation. With this goal in mind he maintained correspondence with Yasunobu Miyoshi, a relative of his wet nurse and thereby kept himself well informed on the conditions in Kyoto where the Taira family were enjoying the heyday of their prosperity.
In 1180 Yoritomo received a message from Mochihito-6 (Prince Mochihito) imploring him to raise an army to chastise the Taira Clan and this he immediately did with the assistance of Tokimasa Hojo, a local leader of Izu, to whose daughter, Masako, Yoritomo already had been married. Yoritomo suffered an initial defeat at the Battle of Mt. Ishibashiyama and fled to Awa Province, Chiba Prefecture. He soon succeeded in enlisting the help of other leading local militarists of Kanto and in October that year he moved to Kamakura, built his permanent residence there and made it the base of his operations against the Tairas.
Within the same month he routed at Fujikawa River the punitive troops of Taira, sent against him, and he coupled this military victory with a significant political step to consolidate his power. It was the establishment of Samurai-dokoro (The Place for Samurai), an administrative organ designed to govern his retainers with high efficiency, which formed the nucleus of the Kamakura Juogunate that he was to set up many years later, and he appointed foshimori Wada, one of his devoted followers, to the post of Betto or director of Samurairdobovo. For the next two years Yoritomo 'acted as a supervisor for other fighting generals of his clan in other parts of the country in their movement against the Tairas. It was in 1183 that Yoshinaka Kiso (Minamoto Clan), marched upon the capital of Kyoto, forcin,g the entire Taira Family to flee to Western Japan.
The days of Yoshinaka, however, were short-lived. This wild general from the mountainous province of Kiso had such short-sighted views of the general situation that the behavior of he and his men soon became the target of bitter criticism by the townsmen of Kyoto and Yoshinaka finally began acting in defiance of the Imperial orders. The Emperor now entrusted Yoritomo with the task of chastising Yoshinaka and Yoritomo had his halfbrothers, Noriyori and Yoshitsune, immediately depart with their troops for Kyoto. In the battle of Awazu in mi Province (Shiga Prefecture) they dealt a decisive defeat to Yoshinaka who subsequently committed suicide.
Yoritomo further made his brothers march westward to meet the troops of the Tairas and it was soon that the advance base of the Tairas at Ichinotani was carried in a spectacular daylight assault led by Yoshitsune. Yoritomo then created in Kamakura the Kumonjo (Place of Public Paper) and the Monchujo (Place of Questioning) which respectively were a general administrative oflice and a judicial court headed by Betto (Director) Hiromto Oe and Shitsuji (Chief Judge) Yasunobu Miyoshi.
In the meantime Yoritomo kept Noriyori busily engaged in the task of bringing local leaders of the Chugoku and Kyushu districts under control of the Minamotos, while having Yoshitsune raise a strong naval force. These efforts bore fruit when the fleets of the Minamotos scored a brilliant victory over those of the Tairas at the Battle of Yashima (February, 1185) and in the land battle of Yashima that was fought the following month, the Taira Family was completely wiped out. During all this time Yoritomo had come to hate his brother Yoshitsune for what he thought to be his ‘‘forwarding attitude” and Yoritomo even stopped Yoshitsune from coming back to Kamakura to report on the mission now so successfully completed.
Such actions of Yoritomo finally enraged Yoshitsune who joined forces with his uncle Yukiie Minamoto in his rebellion against Yoritomo. For the immediate purpose of arresting Yoshitsune, Yoritomo then placed in every province a Shugo (Governor), selected mostly from among- his own retainers, and a Jito (chief of the district) and this system soon proved to be a strong factor in strengthening the power of ms government. Yoritomo also, extended his power into the Imperial Court by having the Emperor formulate the ranks: of court nobles and also by having his favorite court noble Kanezane Kujo appointed to the rank of Sessho or Regent. After Yukiie was found and killed, Yoshitsune, who had taken refuge with the Fuji- wara Family at Hiraizumi in Mutsu Province was betrayed, trapped and put to death by Yasuhira Fujiwara, the then head of the Fujiwara Family. Yoritomo took this opportunity to send an expeditionary force against the Fujiwaras, killed Yasuhira and annexed Oshu (the present Toho- ku District) to his own territory, placing a Bugyd or govenor-.general to rule the area.
With the entire nation now under his rule, Yoritomo then established a central government called Bakufu (Tent Government) which today is usually referred to in the English Language as Shogunate. At the same time (1192) he was appointed by the Emperor to the post of Sedi-Taishogim (Barbarian-Subduing Grand General), the title which originally signified the commander-in-chief of punitive troops sent against the tribes of non-Yamato Race in the remotest parts of the country bat which now came to stand for the Shogun or military ruler of the nation.
Practically all historians a,gree that Yo- ritoipo took a wise step in avoiding Kyoto as site of his military government, for, by so doing, he saved himself a lot of troublesome entanglement with the Imperial Court and kept his men from being effeminated from the city life and the association with the sophisticated court nobles, as had been 1the case with the members of the Taira Clan. Shortly afterward Yoritomo murdered Noriyori, the other brother of his, whom he also suspected of treacherous intention. It was about this time that Yoritomo was at the zenith of his personal success. For, a few years later, Kanezane Kujo, his best friend in the Imperial Court lost his position as a result of a political maneuvering and Yoritomo’s influence and prestige in the court gradually declined Irom that time on.
At this early stage of military dictatorship the Imperial Court still held enough power to have the Shogun worry about how Ihe was liked there. In 1198, while he was on his way home from a Buddhist service I commemorating the construction of a new bridge over Sagami River, Yoritomo accidentally fell off his horse, took to bed and finally died the following year. However selfish ms own personal intention may have been, Yoritomo can be viewed as the founder of military government and feudalism which certainly brought more law and order to the nation in general.