The Emperor in the Age of the Warrior — A Country with Two Centers

Last time, we watched how actual power shifted around the emperor, from the regency government to cloistered rule. Yet those who bore that power were still within the range of the nobility and the imperial family. The figures who appear in this installment are people of a different origin. The warriors, whose calling was the martial arts and who had taken root in the provinces, storing up strength. When they stepped onto the stage of history and at last established a government of their own, the place of the emperor and the court met a great turning point. Power to the warriors, authority to the court — the dual structure that characterizes this country’s long history takes shape here.

A Warrior Government Stands — The Kamakura Shogunate

At the end of the Heian period, the warriors who had stored up strength outside the world of the nobility at last stepped forward to the center of history. Through the wars between the Minamoto and the Taira, Minamoto no Yoritomo, based in the eastern provinces, rose as the one who bound the warriors together. In 1185 the Taira were destroyed, and around the same time Yoritomo is said to have been granted by the court the right to set up military governors and land stewards. There is a view that takes this as the point when a warrior government based at Kamakura effectively began to move. Yoritomo is held to have been appointed seii taishogun in 1192, and as to when the founding of the Kamakura shogunate should be placed, there are several views even in scholarship.

What deserves attention here is that even after the warriors took hold of power, the emperor and the court did not vanish. The very fact that Yoritomo received the position of shogun from the court tells of this. The warrior government sought, by receiving office from the emperor, to find a foundation of legitimacy for its own rule. In Kyoto there continued to be the emperor and the court, and at Kamakura there was the shogunate. Within a single country, two centers of differing character stood side by side — this configuration clearly shows itself here.

In other words, the Kamakura period was an age in which, even as the power that actually moved people passed into the hands of the warriors, the role of giving that power its authority still remained with the emperor and the court. The configuration of the space ‘between authority and power,’ seen last time, can be read as having been handed down on a larger scale, changing its bearers from the nobles to the warriors.

The Clash of Court and Shogunate — The Jokyu War

In a country where two centers stand side by side, the tension over the relationship between them is bound to come to the surface sooner or later. Where it burst out in a sharp form was the Jokyu War of 1221.

At this time, the retired Emperor Go-Toba, who was carrying out cloistered rule in Kyoto, is said to have raised arms with the aim of overthrowing Hojo Yoshitoki, the regent who held the real power of the Kamakura shogunate. The court side sought to confront the warrior government by force of arms. It is counted as one of the great events in Japanese history in which the court and a warrior government clashed head-on by force. Yet as a result, it was the shogunate side that won the victory. After this war, the shogunate is said to have placed a new institution in Kyoto to keep watch over the court, and to have come to exert influence even over matters such as the succession to the throne.

This event held great meaning in terms of where power resided. In terms of military force, the scale had already tipped greatly toward the warrior side. And yet the shogunate did not try to abolish the emperor or the court. The core of authority that was the emperor was kept intact, and the form in which the warriors carried out actual rule under that authority was maintained as before. Why did the side that won by force leave the center of authority in place? This question, too, is one to which we must return again and again in reading Japanese history.

The Attempt at Direct Imperial Rule, and the Split of the Northern and Southern Courts

While the warrior government of the Kamakura shogunate continued, a movement appeared in which the emperor himself sought to stand at the center of government. The one who aspired to this strongly was Emperor Go-Daigo. Emperor Go-Daigo pursued a plan to overthrow the shogunate, and among the warriors, too, some appeared who answered his call. And in 1333, the Kamakura shogunate fell, and Emperor Go-Daigo is said to have begun a new politics in which the emperor himself took up the work of government. After the era name of the following year, this is called the Kenmu Restoration.

Yet this direct imperial rule did not last long. Discontent is said to have spread over the rewards for the warriors’ efforts and over the way government was conducted, and within only a few years it began to waver. In time, Ashikaga Takauji, who had contributed greatly to the overthrow of the shogunate, came into conflict with Emperor Go-Daigo, and the restoration collapsed. Emperor Go-Daigo is said to have left Kyoto around 1336 and moved to Yoshino, asserting that he himself was the legitimate emperor. Meanwhile, the Ashikaga side set up another emperor in Kyoto. In this way, the split of the Northern and Southern Courts, in which two courts stood side by side, began.

Ashikaga Takauji opened a new warrior government in Kyoto, and this later came to be called the Muromachi shogunate. The conflict between the two courts of north and south continued for a long time, but in 1392, under the third Muromachi shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the two courts are said to have been reunited. During this time, the emperor as an existence was split in two and fought over; but turned around, this also means that both forces needed the authority of the emperor, and each asserted that it was the legitimate one.

With the reunification of the Northern and Southern Courts, the emperor returned to one once more. Yet this was not the beginning of a stable calm. The power of the Muromachi shogunate before long declined, and a long age of war drew near, in which warriors across the land fought among themselves independently. As it lost the backing of power, the court came to meet the most painful era of its history. Impoverished even economically, unable even to carry out its rites — within such a quiet trial, how did the emperor and the imperial household keep their thread of life? Next time, we trace the path from the upheaval of the Warring States to the stability of the Edo period.