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In May, 1183,
this decisive phase of the contest was opened; Koremori, Tamemori,
and Tomonori being in supreme command of the Taira troops, which are
said to have mustered one hundred thousand strong. At first, things
fared badly with the Minamoto. They lost an important fortress at
Hiuchi-yama, and Yukiiye was driven from Kaga into Noto. But when the
main army of the Minamoto came into action, the complexion of affairs
changed at once. In a great battle fought at Tonami-yama in Echizen,
Yoshinaka won a signal victory by the manoeuvre of launching at the
Taira a herd of oxen having torches fastened to their horns.
Thousands of the Taira perished, including many leaders.

Other victories at Kurikara and Shinowara opened the road to Kyoto.
Yoshinaka pushed on and, in August, reached Hiei-zan; while Yukiiye,
the pressure on whose front in Noto had been relieved, moved towards
Yamato; Minamoto no Yukitsuna occupied Settsu and Kawachi, and
Ashikaga Yoshikiyo advanced to Tamba. Thus, the capital lay at the
mercy of Yoshinaka's armies. The latter stages of the Minamoto march
had been unopposed. Munemori, after a vain attempt to secure the
alliance of the Hiei-zan monks, had recalled his generals and decided
to retire westward, abandoning Kyoto. He would have taken with him
the cloistered Emperor, but Go-Shirakawa secretly made his way to
Hiei-zan and placed himself under the protection of Yoshinaka,
rejoicing at the opportunity to shake off the Taira yoke.

RETREAT OF THE TAIRA

On August 14, 1183, the evacuation of Kyoto took place. Munemori,
refusing to listen to the counsels of the more resolute among his
officers, applied the torch to the Taira mansions at northern and
southern Rokuhara, and, taking with him the Emperor Antoku, then in
his sixth year, his Majesty's younger brother, and their mother,
together with the regalia--the mirror, the sword, and the
gem--retired westward, followed by the whole remnant of his clan.
Arrived at Fukuhara, they devoted a night to praying, making sacred
music, and reading Sutras at Kiyomori's tomb, whereafter they set
fire to all the Taira palaces, mansions, and official buildings, and
embarked for the Dazai-fu in Chikuzen. They reckoned on the
allegiance of the whole of Kyushu and of at least one-half of
Shikoku.

EIGHTY-SECOND SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR GO-TOBA (A.D. 1184-1198)

The Taira leaders having carried off the Emperor Antoku, there was no
actually reigning sovereign in Kyoto, whither the cloistered Emperor
now returned, an imposing guard of honour being furnished by
Yoshinaka. Go-Shirakawa therefore resumed the administration of State
affairs, Yoshinaka being given the privilege of access to the
Presence and entrusted with the duty of guarding the capital. The
distribution of rewards occupied attention in the first place. Out of
the five hundred manors of the Taira, one hundred and fifty were
given to Yoshinaka and Yukiiye, and over two hundred prominent Taira
officials were stripped of their posts and their Court ranks.
Yoritomo received more gracious treatment than Yoshinaka, although
the Kamakura chief could not yet venture to absent himself from the
Kwanto for the purpose of paying his respects at Court. For the rest,
in spite of Yoshinaka's brilliant success, he was granted only the
fifth official rank and the governorship of the province of Iyo.

These things could not fail to engender some discontent, and
presently a much graver cause for dissatisfaction presented itself.
Fujiwara Kanezane, minister of the Right, memorialized the Court in
the sense that, as Antoku had left the capital, another occupant to
the throne should be appointed, in spite of the absence of the
regalia. He pointed out that a precedent for dispensing with these
tokens of Imperialism had been furnished in the case of the Emperor
Keitai (507-531). No valid reason existed for such a precipitate
step. Antoku had not abdicated. His will had not been consulted at
all by the Taira when they carried him off; nor would the will of a
child of six have possessed any validity in such a matter. It is
plain that the proposal made by the minister of the Right had for
motive the convenience of the Minamoto, whose cause lacked legitimacy
so long as the sovereign and the regalia were in the camp of the
Taira.

But the minister's advice had a disastrous sequel. Yoshinaka was
resolutely bent on securing the succession for the son of Prince
Mochihito, who had been killed in the Yorimasa emeute. It was
practically to Mochihito that the Court owed its rescue from the
Taira tyranny, and his son--now a youth of seventeen, known as Prince
Hokuriku, because he had founded an asylum at a monastery in
Hokuriku-do after his father's death--had been conducted to Kyoto by
Yoshinaka, under a promise to secure the succession for him. But
Go-Shirakawa would not pay any attention to these representations. He
held that Prince Hokuriku was ineligible, since his father had been
born out of wedlock, and since the prince himself had taken the
tonsure; the truth being that the ex-Emperor had determined to obtain
the crown for one of his own grandsons, younger brothers of Antoku.
It is said that his Majesty's manner of choosing between the two lads
was most capricious. He had them brought into his presence, whereupon
the elder began to cry, the younger to laugh, and Go-Shirakawa at
once selected the latter, who thenceforth became the Emperor Go-Toba.

FALL OF YOSHINAKA

Yoshinaka's fortunes began to ebb from the time of his failure to
obtain the nomination of Prince Hokuriku. A force despatched to
Bitchu with the object of arresting the abduction of Antoku and
recovering possession of the regalia, had the misfortune to be
confronted by Taira no Noritsune, one of the stoutest warriors on the
side of the Heike. Ashikaga Yoshikiyo, who commanded the pursuers,
was killed, and his men were driven back pele-mele. This event
impaired the prestige of Yoshinaka's troops, while he himself and his
officers found that their rustic ways and illiterate education
exposed them constantly to the thinly veiled sneers of the dilettanti
and pundits who gave the tone to metropolitan society. The soldiers
resented these insults with increasing roughness and recourse to
violence, so that the coming of Yoritomo began to be much desired.
Go-Shirakawa sent two messages at a brief interval to invite the
Kamakura chief's presence in the capital. Yoritomo replied with a
memorial which won for him golden opinions, but he showed no sign of
visiting Kyoto. His absorbing purpose was to consolidate his base in
the east, and he had already begun to appreciate that the military
and the Imperial capitals should be distinct.

Naturally, when the fact of these pressing invitations to Yoritomo
reached Yoshinaka's ears, he felt some resentment, and this was
reflected in the demeanour of his soldiers, outrages against the
lives and properties of the citizens becoming more and more frequent.
Even the private domains of the cloistered Emperor himself, to say
nothing of the manors of the courtiers, were freely entered and
plundered, so that public indignation reached a high pitch. The
umbrage thus engendered was accentuated by treachery. Driven from
Kyushu, the Taira chiefs had obtained a footing in Shikoku and had
built fortifications at Yashima in Sanuki, which became thenceforth
their headquarters. They had also collected on the opposite coast of
the Inland Sea a following which seemed likely to grow in dimensions,
and, with the idea of checking that result, it was proposed to send
troops to the Sanyo-do under Minamoto Yukiiye, who had been named
governor of Bizen. Taught, however, by experience that disaster was
likely to be the outcome of Yukiiye's generalship, Yoshinaka
interfered to prevent his appointment, and Yukiiye, resenting this
slight, became thenceforth a secret foe of Yoshinaka.

In analyzing the factors that go to the making of this complicated
chapter of Japanese history, a place must be given to Yukiiye. He
seems to have been an unscrupulous schemer. Serving originally under
Yoritomo, who quickly took his measure, he concluded that nothing
substantial was to be gained in that quarter. Therefore, he passed
over to Yoshinaka, who welcomed him, not as an enemy of Yoritomo, but
as a Minamoto. Thenceforth Yukiiye's aim was to cause a collision
between the two cousins and to raise his own house on the ruins of
both. He contributed materially to the former result, but as to the
latter, the sixth year of his appearance upon the stage as Prince
Mochihito's mandate-bearer saw his own head pilloried in Kyoto.

Yoshinaka, however, had too frank a disposition to be suspicious. He
believed until the end that Yukiiye's heart was in the Minamoto
cause. Then, when it became necessary to choose, between taking
stupendous risks in the west or making a timely withdrawal to the
east, he took Yukiiye into his confidence. That was the traitor's
opportunity. He secretly informed the ex-Emperor that Yoshinaka had
planned a retreat to the east, carrying his Majesty with him, and
this information, at a time when the excesses committed by
Yoshinaka's troops had provoked much indignation, induced
Go-Shirakawa to obtain from Hiei-zan and Miidera armed monks to form
a palace-guard under the command of the kebiishi, Taira Tomoyasu, a
declared enemy of Yoshinaka. At once Yoshinaka took a decisive step.
He despatched a force to the palace; seized the persons of
Go-Shirakawa and Go-Toba; removed Motomichi from the regency,
appointing Moroie, a boy of twelve, in his place, and dismissed a
number of Court officials.

In this strait, Go-Shirakawa, whose record is one long series of
undignified manoeuvres to keep his own head above water, applied
himself to placate Yoshinaka while privately relying on Yoritomo. His
Majesty granted to the former the control of all the domains
previously held by the Taira; appointed him to the high office of
sei-i tai-shogun (barbarian-subduing generalissimo), and commissioned
him to attack Yoritomo while, at the same time, the latter was
secretly encouraged to destroy his cousin.