Yoshitomo no Minamoto was a Military leader of the late Heian period.
Background
Yoshitomo no Minamoto was born in 1123 in Japan. He was the eldest son of Minamoto no Tameyoshi. His younger brother Tametomo, having been sent to Kyushu, began to acquire power of dangerous proportions and was accordingly ordered by the court to return to the capital; when he failed to obey the order, his father, Tameyoshi, accepting responsibility for the disobedience, went into retirement.
Career
Yoshitomo in 1154 became head of the Minamoto family. In 1156, when the quarrel among the court nobility known as the Hogen uprising broke out, Yoshitomo sided with the opposite faction from that supported by his father and younger brother, and though his side emerged victorious, he soon found himself engaged in a struggle for power with its leader, Taira no Kiyomori.
Kiyomori conspired with Retired Emperor Goshirakawa, the real wielder of power in the court, to block Yoshi- tomo’s advancement, whereupon in anger Yoshitomo siezed Retired Emperor Goshirakawa as his hostage in 1159 and declared himself in revolt. He was defeated and killed in battle by Taira no Kiyomori, however, and this disturbance—the Heiji uprising—quickly came to an end. A famous scroll painting depicting the events of the uprising, entitled Heiji monogatari emahi, is preserved in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.