Minamoto no Tameyoshi stared at the messenger, unable to speak.
His own son had betrayed him and sworn allegiance to the other side.
The once strong house of Minamoto was going to suffer a civil war, and he’d have to
raise swords against his own blood.
Alright so if you haven’t seen Part 1, get your booty over there and watch it,
then come back.
I’ll wait.
Forever.
Okay, so last we met, trouble was brewing in the Japanese Heian court.
Two sides were forming.
One side wanted to keep the balance of power in court in the hands of the Royal Family.
The other side wanted to restore power to the Fujiwara Regents who had once dominated
the court for 200 years.
Now political battles happened constantly in the Heian Period, it was how they passed
the time.
You and I watch Netflix, Heian nobles accused each other of treason.
And this would have been just another political fight, except… the times, they were a-changin.
Before, these debates were resolved by you know, the usual.
One person accusing the other of sorcery, or another person marrying a few daughters
into the Imperial Family.
But oh no, not this time.
In Japan, change was in the air.
And arrows, a lot of arrows.
A warrior class was peeking out from behind their shields and all of a sudden, war became
a convenient debating tactic.
And when it came to war, there were really only two options to choose from if you wanted
the best, and if you found an Option 3, Options 1 and 2 would put a blade through it.
I’m talking about the two strongest military clans at the time, the Taira and the Minamoto.
The two sides in court, the Imperial Faction and the Fujiwara Regency Faction, sought the
support of both clans.
Now where did these two clans come from?
I’m not telling, that’s for a later video.
Go cry about it.
Now while this feud in court was happening, a man named Minamoto no Tameyoshi (源為義)
was looking for a way back into court.
He was dismissed from court due to incompetence.
Tameyoshi was a Minamoto, but not just any Minamoto.
He had premium blood.
If I believed in bloodlines, I would’ve wanted to have his babies.
He was the head of the Kawachi Minamoto (河内源氏), a branch of the Seiwa Minamoto (清和源氏),
which was a branch of the overall Minamoto clan.
The Seiwa Minamoto descended from Emperor Seiwa (清和天皇 850 - 881) and it was
the clan’s most successful line.
They’re also called the Seiwa Genji, because many Japanese characters have two different
readings, two sounds for the same character.
Why?
It’s a Japanese plan to prevent foreigners from learning their language, and they 100%
succeeded.
Stop fooling yourself, gaijin.
Just kidding, it’s actually because long ago when the Japanese were thinking of how
to create a written language, they used the Linfamy Homework Method, copy off the Chinese.
Thank you, Vivian.
So they used Chinese characters for Japanese spoken words and two ways of reading developed.
The Chinese reading, which sounds kind of like Chinese, and the native Japanese reading.
This means the characters for Minamoto clan (源氏) can also be read as Genji.
And the characters for Taira House (平家) can also be read as Heike.
The history books often use Genji for the various Minamoto branches like Kawachi Genji
and Seiwa Genji, but I’ll keep using Minamoto because why do you have to go and make things
so complicated?
So Tameyoshi headed the Kawachi Minamoto.
These guys used to be the top warriors, but by the time of Tameyoshi, they were cockblocked
by the Taira.
The Imperial House preferred using Taira forces when they needed to deposit an arrow in someone’s
head.
Tameyoshi had a dream that one day he would regain that number one spot for his family.
Unfortunately, someone stood in Tameyoshi’s way, someone named Tameyoshi.
Himself, I mean, not another Tameyoshi.
He was like that rebel in high school, but he wasn’t a cool rebel, he was just a screwup.
He kept getting in trouble with the court for picking fights and hiding criminals.
He wasn’t exactly Mr. Dependable, so the Imperial House didn’t want to use his forces
because why would you want to lose battles?
Especially when the Taira actually got things done.
Not seeing a future with the Imperial Faction, Tameyoshi shuffled towards the Fujiwara Regency
Faction.
He made a great career move by swearing allegiance to Fujiwara no Yorinaga, one of the leaders
of the Fujiwara Regency, and eventually crawled his way back into a position in government.
With the drums of war beating in everyone’s head, Tameyoshi decided he needed to strengthen
his Minamoto clan, he needed to rally warriors to his cause.
And so he gave his eldest son a task.
He had a lot of kids, by the way.
More than twenty.
Some say it was because he owned a melon garden, but that’s unconfirmed.
Tameyoshi’s eldest son was Minamoto no Yoshitomo (源義朝), and his task was to go around
Japan recruiting allies for his father.
Yoshitomo seemed to be more competent than his father because he recruited the s--t out
of people.
Pretty soon he had a following of warriors that he could send to his father.
He could have done that.
But he didn’t.
Yoshitomo was young and had big dreams.
All he needed to kickstart those dreams was a little betrayal.
So he kept his allies and swore his bow to the Imperial Faction, his father’s enemies.
For his lovely betrayal, Yoshitomo won a position in court and became a provincial governor.
When the news reached his father, Tameyoshi, he was distraught and had to go make a few
more babies to calm down.
Afterwards, Tameyoshi made his second son his new heir.
Not being a fan of learning lessons, he tasked his second son with
going out and recruiting more allies.
Fortunately for Tameyoshi, the new heir remained loyal to his father.
Yoshitomo the Betrayer and Tameyoshi’s other sons continued their quests for more warrior
allies.
Pretty soon, the sibling rivalry got out of hand and into the battlefield.
They fought in a few small military poking matches.
Yoshitomo even fought against his father once.
This annoyed Retired Emperor Toba so much that he kicked Tameyoshi out of office.
Not only that, he also kicked out Tameyoshi’s sons.
Tameyoshi again found himself out of the court.
At this point, the Minamoto House was split.
The son, Yoshitomo, leaned Imperial.
The father, Tameyoshi, leaned Fujiwara Regency.
Unfortunately for Tameyoshi, the majority of the Minamoto sided with his son.
As for the other military clan, the Taira, it was also split.
The head of the Taira was Taira no Kiyomori (平清盛).
He was always a favorite of the Imperial House, so he was firmly in the Imperial Faction.
However, his uncle, Taira no Tadamasa (平忠正), sided with the Fujiwara Regency faction.
He and Retired Emperor Sutoku were long time friends.
And so in the Heian court, people chose their sides.
The drums were beating, the powder was dry.
It just needed a spark.
Well in 1156, the spark ignited when Retired Emperor Toba died.
Remember Toba had control of the court.
Toba was actually the emperor who, according to legend, was seduced by the nine-tailed
fox Tamamo no Mae.
I did a video about her story here.
Tamamo no Mae was a kitsune, a fox, who’s called one of the Three Most Evil Yokai of
Japan because they said she caused Toba’s death.
His death ignited a succession dispute that would snowball into a series of conflicts,
then hit a land mine called the Genpei War and change Japan’s history forever.
The first major conflict was called the Hogen Rebellion, and it’s happening in the next
video of this series.
Hey guys, I got a lot of my info from this book called Heavenly Warriors by William Wayne
Farris.
He goes into detail about Japan’s military from 500 to 1300, their tactics and weapons
and all the various wars.
If you’re interested in that stuff, I have a link in the description.
And seriously, if you here already and still haven’t seen Part 1, what are you doing?
Check it out.
I wanna thank the new patron this week Nicole.
Thanks Nicole, appreciate it.
Alright much love guys, and spread the knowledge!