Ch 5 - Koryo and the Mongols

Samurai Rising

The Fujiwara clan established a system of control from behind the scenes through a figurehead that set the pattern for future generations. Numerous "mini-states" emerged in the provinces as warrior aristocrats began building their power with the help of armed retainers, or samurai. Minamoto Yoritomo became the first Japanese Shogun.

In virtually any other country, the long and nearly total dominance of the government by a single clan would certainly have resulted in the usurpation of the throne. That never happened in Japan, where hereditary authority and the emperor's role in Shinto rituals were such strong forces that outright usurpation was something never to be contemplated. Instead, the Fujiwara clan established a system of control from behind the scenes through a figurehead that set the pattern for future generations. Throughout most of Japan's history, it has been true more often than not, that the man or group in nominal control was, in fact, simply the pawn of some other man or group in the background.

During the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Fujiwara family lived in the cultural limelight, all the while holding a firm grip on the reins of power in Heian-kyo. This was a period of brilliant literary and artistic accomplishment in Japan, a time when capital aristocrats transformed a borrowed Chinese civilization into a native Japanese culture. Decadent, effeminate courtiers in Heian-kyo, men whose power rested more in their expertise in poetry and aesthetic sensitivity than on their military skills, produced literature and art that future generations would look back to with pride. While the aristocracy busied itself conducting the form and ceremony of a fading government, they lost control over the political and economic life of the country. Meanwhile, their less sophisticated and sturdier countrymen in the provinces were preparing the foundation for an entirely new Japan.

The aristocratic power structure based in Heian-kyo, although superficially constructed from the Chinese model, had none of the absolute power of the Chinese dynasties. It had none of the bureaucratic organization of the Chinese empires, nor did it exert much control over Japan's ever-expanding territories. Little by little, with no direction from the government and completely overshadowed by the royal families at the imperial court, local clans in the provinces began absorbing much of the basic knowledge and essential skills imported from Asia. In some ways, tenth century Japan was not unlike the "wild west" of nineteenth century America, an era when strong, ambitious, hard-working pioneers expanded their territories and developed rice farming lands, always ready to defend their property against native inhabitants and competitors. Rice meant power and wealth, and by the end of the tenth century, rice farming under the control of local clans was an established fact on virtually all the major flood plains on Honshu.

With only about 20 percent of the land usable for agriculture, armed struggles among local clans over land control or provincial offices increased in frequency as the imperial government diminished in influence. The Heian-kyo court had an impressive "paper" army of peasant conscripts from the capital area, but it amounted to little more than labor gangs. The imperial family retained its great prestige during this period, but it exercised only theoretical rule over a central government that cast little more than a shadow over the land. In truth, it ruled only its own estates and lived on the income they produced.

The proliferation of "mini-states" in Japan gave people in the provinces economic and legal protection against officers of the central government, but it did nothing to provide them protection from local enemies. To protect themselves, provincial authorities, managers and local proprietors of private estates acquired the right to maintain small armies. In time, they also received military titles. Defensive forces of this type gradually emerged as clan organizations, composed of head and branch families, but over time many non-related subordinates known as "house men," kenin, joined these groups. As they gained power and influence, clan organizations provided not just physical protection for the property rights of the members, but rewarded loyal members with new rights.

To protect themselves from local threats, clan warrior aristocrats sought mutual security in the form of regional alliances. These alliances were usually held together by common interests, marriage ties, old friendships, and sometimes by the qualities of leadership or the prestige of a heroic local warrior. Mutual defense groups tended to form behind the most powerful families in the region, particularly those with hereditary prestige. This tended to produce a number of small independent armies led by the most prestigious members of the provincial aristocracy. The central figure in this new social structure, as it had been from long before the inroads of Asian culture, remained the clan leader, the aristocratic warrior, the fighting man on horseback. Warfare in ancient Japan was largely confined to battles between separate clans led by a warrior-chieftain. The fact that contemporary military technology made fighting a very expensive proposition however, made armed combat primarily an aristocratic profession.

Until the ninth century, Japan had no true warrior class as such. At about the same time the Japanese provincial warrior aristocracy began to take the stage on the fields of battle, a new social class of warrior, bushi, emerged. These were the samurai, armed servants or retainers who fought in the service of an aristocratic lord. Originally, the samurai were servants of the Emperor and owed him their loyalty. As real political and military power began moving from the aristocrats in Heian-kyo to armed aristocratic warriors in the provinces, the samurai began joining private armies attached to local clan aristocrats.

Most early samurai came from the lower classes in Japanese society where they earned their livelihood as farmers. Generally illiterate and actually held in contempt by the aristocracy, they worked the fields in peacetime and took up arms to fight in time of war, mainly among themselves. These were not the noble, highly cultured warriors of Japanese bushido, "way of the warrior," whose legendary exploits in later centuries gave the samurai his deserved reputation as a skilled warrior loyal to the death. The basic requirements for these early samurai were an expertise in archery and horsemanship, loyalty toward his master and bravery in battle. The samurai's only real duty was to kill the samurai of an opposing lord's army.

Though quick to engage each other on the field of battle, these provincial armies showed little interest, for the most part, in assuming the governmental prerogatives of the Hiean-kyo court. Unlike the capital aristocracy, the provincial clan aristocrats were quite self-sufficient and seemed content to leave the imperial government alone so long as they could continue to control the peasants on their estates and organize their armed cliques for local self-defense without interference from the capital. Oddly enough, it was the royal aristocracy in Heian-kyo that eventually brought provincial warriors onto the capital scene. Courtiers, who devoted their energy more to writing poetry than to governing, occasionally brought samurai to Heian-kyo from their provincial estates to overawe their rivals at court or to serve as palace guards to defend the court against the armed forces of local Buddhist monasteries. At other times, samurai were used to forcefully settle factional disputes over royal succession or battles for leadership of the Fujiwara clan itself.

The power of the Fujiwara reached its peak in 1016 under the watchful eye of Chancellor, kampaku, Fujiwara Michinaga. Public order slowly deteriorated after Michinaga's tenure in court as a number of less capable, often incompetent men assumed important government offices in Heian-kyo. The Fujiwara's supremacy in court virtually ended in 1068, when the newly enthroned emperor, Go-Sanjo, decided to rule Japan by himself and the clan discovered he could not be controlled. Go-Sanjo abdicated in 1086, leaving the throne in the hands of Emperor Shirakawa, the first of a series of rulers who continued to influence government affairs from retirement. Starting with Shirakawa-In, retired emperors who became Buddhist monks and lived the serenity of monastic life began exercising political control behind the scenes from their residence in the monastery. This system of political control came to be known as the Insei government, the rule of the "Cloistered Emperors," a form of government that lasted for seventy years, until a break in the line of succession set off a small revolution in Japan.

For nearly a century, Japanese warriors fought each other with both sides trying to have their rivals branded as "rebels" against the imperial court. Aside from the temporary halt in revenue from the estates involved, the fighting had little impact on Heian-kyo itself. Certain provincial warriors however, were increasingly used in the capital as Police Commissioners and members of the palace guard. A number of Minamoto warriors came to be known as the "claws and teeth" of the main Fujiwara family, while a family line of the Taira clan became prominent in Heian-kyo as the military supporters of the retired emperors. Through their involvement in the capital's political affairs, provincial military leaders gradually assumed an increasing role in the old central government. This process accelerated greatly in the mid-twelfth century following the death of the retired emperor Konoye in 1155.

Emperor Konoye vacated the throne without having designated a successor. The naming of Go-Shirakawa as emperor set off a small revolution in the capital as two of Konoye's sons engaged in a sharp struggle for control of the court. Each son held the support of rival claimants to leadership of the Fujiwara and a mixed assortment of warrior groups from the great Minamoto and Taira clans. Taira no Kiyomori, an aristocrat who had long been prominent at court and controlled a large power base in the Inland Sea area led one of these groups. Minamoto no Tameyoshi, the aristocratic leader of the Minamoto family that had won ascendancy on the Kanto Plain led the other group.

The first major engagement between these two factional forces in 1156 resulted in a decisive victory for Taira no Kiyomori, whose troops executed most of the surviving leaders of Minamoto Tameyoshi's samurai. Among the many warriors who fought under the bright red battle flags of the Taira was a group under the command of Minamoto Yoshitomo, Tameyoshi's thirty-three-year-old son. The victory marked a turning point in Japanese history, for it demonstrated just how much power to determine the affairs of the state had clearly passed to the warrior clans and their massive private armies. To the consternation of the imperial court, Taira Kiyomori and his leading knights established a palace residence at Rokuhara on the southeastern edge of Heian-kyo and settled down to stay. Kiyomori took the title of Prime Minister and quickly adopted the time-honored Fujiwara practice of providing titular superiors with Taira wives and dominating them without replacing them. A far more significant outcome was Taira Kiyomori's realization that he and his samurai now formed the paramount military force in the capital district and that Go-Shirakawa and his court were powerless in their hands.

Minamoto Yoshitomo became dissatisfied with his share in the rewards of victory, and with support from dissident elements among the Fujiwara, Yoshitomo seized Heian-kyo in the winter of 1159-1160. Before he could enjoy the fruits of his minor success, Kiyomori and his samurai brutally defeated the Minamoto, killing Yoshitomo and most of his sons. It was only the intercession of Kiyomori's mother that prevented him from murdering them all. Kiyomori exiled the rest of the family, including the ten-year-old Minamoto Yoritomo, to the mountainous Izu Peninsula far from the capital district. These two brief military clashes, the Hogen Wars of 1156 and the Heiji Wars in 1159-1160, named for the "year periods" in which they occurred, gave the shrewd and ambitious Taira Kiyomori and his samurai undisputed military control of Heian-kyo. The two small wars fought in and around the capital at Heian-kyo made it very apparent just how much dominating power these military men actually commanded.

While emperors, retired emperors and Fujiwara regents, sessho, and chancellors, kampaku, maintained their respective pretenses to authority, the real power to rule rested with Taira Kiyomori. He took title to many more estates in western Japan, replaced many Fujiwara nobles in high positions in the central government with his relatives, and rewarded his supporters with governorships and posts on provincial estates. After the accession of Go-Nijo, a lesser lord of the Taira, Kiyomori used the old Fujiwara trick of marrying his own daughter to the emperor in hopes of putting her son on the throne. Slowly at first, Taira Kiyomori began to accrue massive power for himself in the Emperor's court.

Taira Kiyomori faced continuing threats to his position from not only the rival Minamoto family, but from the increasingly militant and difficult to control Buddhist monasteries in the capital region. He had even less control over the remaining samurai armies in the provinces. Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa was adamantly opposed to the Taira clan's rise to power under the forceful and ruthless direction of Taira Shigemori, head of the Taira clan. Shirakawa, who still had support from the Minamoto, attempted to lay a military ambush for Kiyomori with the aid of a minor lord named Minamoto Yukitsuna. The plot failed and opened an irreparable breach between the Taira clan on one side and the retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa and the Minamoto clan on the other. Despite continued opposition from Go-Shirakawa, Kiyomori dominated the court of emperors Niijo, Rokujo and Takakura.

Taira Shigemori died in 1179, leaving the Taira clan in the hands of his brother, Munemori. Go-Shirakawa, who knew Munemori to be a coward and a poor strategist, quickly saw an advantageous opening and moved to dismiss Taira officials in the capital. Kiyomori ordered his samurai into the capital and forced Emperor Takakura off the throne. In 1180, he installed his own one-year-old infant grandson, Antoku, as the new Emperor. Offended by Taira excesses and determined to return control of the government to the court, Takakura immediately called for military support from the Minamoto to rid the capital city of the Taira usurpers. Minamoto no Yorimasa, the only high-ranking Minamoto nobleman in Heian-kyo, heeded the call and rebelled against Taira no Kiyomori, but was quickly defeated.

Inspired by his cousin's initiative, the exiled Minamoto no Yoritomo, surviving son of former Minamoto leader Yoshitomo, resurrected the clan's white battle standard in the Izu Peninsula. The Minamoto clan's prestige was still strong in the Kanto region and, in the provinces at least, men believed a local military leader would be more likely to respect and protect their interests and property rights than would a distant court aristocrat like the military dictator Taira Kiyomori. Yoritomo quickly raised a samurai army to chastise the Taira, whom he branded as usurpers.

The Gempei War began in 1180 when loyalist samurai under Minamoto Yoritomo's command moved to establish control over the Kanto Plain. After suffering early defeats by superior forces, Yoritomo soon forged a series of alliances with other military men and built an army sizeable enough to drive the Taira from the capital. He gave command of the attack to his younger brother, Yoshitsune, who successfully seized Heian-kyo and the capital district. Taira resistance collapsed following the death of Kiyomori in March, 1181. Forced out of the capital city, the Taira fled westward down the Inland Sea, hotly pursued by Yoshitsune's samurai. A series of major land and sea battles over the next four years pushed the Taira further west until there was no where else to run.

On April 24, 1185, Yoshitsune finally trapped the remaining Taira with their backs to the sea near the modern city of Shimonoseki. Yoshitsune annihilated the Taira in a fierce naval engagement in the narrow Kanmon Strait at Dan no Ura. Most of the Taira leadership and all courtiers with high titles were either slaughtered or executed in a battle reportedly so bloody it turned the sea red. Outnumbered and outmaneuvered, terrified survivors of the fighting threw themselves into the sea in massive numbers and drowned. Taira Kiyomori's widow, Nii-no-ama, gathered up the Imperial Regalia and her seven-year-old grandson, the Emperor Antoku. Holding the young boy tightly in her arms, with the words, "In the depths of the ocean is our capitol," she leapt into the sea and drowned, preferring death to being taken prisoner by the Minamoto. The entire Taira battle fleet was destroyed .

Although Minamoto Yoritomo played the role of behind-the-lines strategist during the Gempei War, he emerged as the hegemonic leader of a new ruling order in Japan. In order to firmly secure his position, he actively sought the support and approval of the court establishment in Heian-kyo in exchange for financial support. Following his brother's victory at Dan no Ura, the imperial court bestowed high court posts and ranks and special titles on Yoritomo to signify his military control over the country. With the blessings of the imperial court, Yoritomo succeeded in setting up a new bureaucratic and judicial system that made him a military dictator in name and reality, placing his own constables and stewards in every province. Within four years of the Taira defeat, Minamoto Yoritomo destroyed the Fujiwara family of Hiraizumi in northern Honshu and brought the whole of Japan under his military control.

In the process of creating so many effective alliances among great regional powers, the Minamoto established policies and institutions that actually superseded aristocratic rule. Instead of simply mimicking the old-style court offices or attaching themselves to aristocratic patrons in the imperial government, they created new offices and filled them with samurai whose first and foremost allegiance was to the Minamoto clan. This new system was certainly no stronger than the alliances which held it together, but its existence provided a fundamental challenge to the power of the imperial court.

Unlike Chinese warlords who fought for regional or national hegemony against all comers, including the imperial court, Minamoto Yoritomo accomplished what he did in active cooperation with the imperial court in Heian-kyo. Instead of trying to eliminate the established nobility as a revolutionary, he actively tried to identify himself with them. He appeared to be quite happy to receive court rank and office and to socialize with court officials. He even adopted the tactic of trying to place two of his daughters in the imperial harem, no doubt hoping to become the grandfather of an emperor in the tradition of Fujiwara Michinaga and, more recently, Taira no Kiyomori.

On July 26, 1192, Minamoto Yoritomo received a message from Emperor Go-Toba in Heian-kyo that honored him with the grand title, Seii-tai-shogun ("Barbarian-Quelling Generalissimo"). The title, once assigned to leaders of military expeditions against the Ainu in northern Japan, was later used in its shortened form, Shogun, to denote the supreme military leader over all Japan.