Succession disputes usually don’t turn out well, as the Soga clan realized years before.
The succession dispute in this video is no different.
Prince Naka no Oe, one of the conspirators in the Soga coup, ascended the Japanese throne
in 661 to become Emperor Tenji.
Tenji was smart and wasn’t a fan of succession disputes, so in 664, he named his younger
brother the crown prince, heir to the throne.
His younger brother was Prince Oama.
OAma.
After the events of this video, Oama actually commissioned the creation of the Nihon Shoki,
one of the earliest texts on Japanese history.
It’s also the primary source for what happened next.
Props to Emperor Tenji for thinking ahead and naming an heir, you know?
Avoided that mistake.
Unfortunately, he made a different mistake.
He changed his mind.
Rumors spread that Tenji wanted his favorite son, Prince Otomo, to succeed him.
The Crown Prince Oama wasn’t happy.
We could tell because the Nihon Shoki recounts an incident that happened at a party where
Crown Prince Oama got frustrated and plunged a spear into the floor.
He probably had a few choice words for the guests too.
I really don’t know why people got so mad, he probably livened up the party.
The most excitement I ever got at a party was in college when I had too many pot brownies
and locked myself in the bathroom because I thought everyone was after me.
Just kidding, I wasn’t invited to parties.
Nakatomi no Kamatari was the person who calmed things down.
Remember Kamatari was the mastermind behind the Soga coup, and you could see his keen
political instincts here.
Some say it was Kamatari who mediated the tense relationship between Emperor Tenji and
his younger brother.
That’s why when Kamatari died, things took a turn for the worse.
In 671, Emperor Tenji gave his son Otomo the position of daijo-daijin, or chancellor.
This was a brand new position in the government, part of some administrative changes they were
doing at the time.
The chancellor took care of state affairs for the emperor.
It was basically the highest secular post in government.
Tenji may as well have shouted, “Nah nah nah nah nah” to his younger brother because
he was obviously giving the throne to his son.
Tenji soon became ill.
Nearing death, he called his brother Oama to his bedside.
Tenji told Oama he wanted HIM to be the next emperor.
Oama...
refused,
saying that the empress, Tenji’s consort, should take the throne and Otomo
should be her crown prince.
Oama then asked the emperor if he could go off into the mountains and devote his life
to Buddhism, removing himself from politics altogether.
Now, if you’ve been paying attention, you’d notice something weird about this exchange.
If you haven’t been paying attention, how dare you…
It’s weird because their words made no sense!
They were the opposite of their actions.
Emperor Tenji clearly wanted his son Otomo to succeed him, and Crown Prince Oama clearly
wanted the throne for himself.
So why would Tenji offer Oama the throne, and why would Oama refuse, and choose to leave
political life altogether?
The clue comes later in the story where it was revealed that someone warned Crown Prince
Oama to be careful of what he said to the emperor.
It was a trap.
Emperor Tenji was likely testing Oama’s loyalty, to see if he wanted the throne.
Accepting Tenji’s offer would have probably meant death for Oama.
And so Oama did the best thing he could have done:
he removed himself from the board.
He was saying, “Look, I’m no longer a threat to your son, so just let me go, okay?
You’re my brother, man, my brother, remember?
Tell me you remember!”
Now, are you ready for another curveball?
We mentioned earlier that this account comes from the Nihon Shoki, a historical text later
commissioned by Oama himself.
It was written by his allies.
It would be like if my ex’s best friend wrote a book about our failed relationship,
saying it failed because I was an emotionless monster.
You can’t trust that book.
It failed because she was a conniving little black widow.
It’s true, read my best friend’s book about it.
The Nihon Shoki has a massive pro-Oama bias, making you question everything in that meeting.
Did Tenji really offer Oama the throne?
Did the meeting even happen?
Or did Oama just lose the political fight and was forced to go off and be a monk?
The account seems awfully friendly to Oama, making him out to be a smart guy deftly avoiding
a trap.
Whatever happened, Oama did go off and live in the mountains with his family.
You’d think they would leave him alone, but in 672, the Nihon Shoki states that Oama
heard news that the capital was plotting against him.
He decided that if he couldn’t even hide in the mountains, then he couldn’t hide
anywhere.
It was time to fight.
It was called the Jinshin War.
It was a war between Tenji’s brother and Tenji’s son.
In those days, the capital didn’t have much of an army.
If you wanted troops, you had to ask the clan chieftains scattered across Japan.
Oama sent people east to the Ise and Iga provinces to get support from the chieftains there.
He also sent an army to block a major road going north, preventing the capital from sending
word to their friends in the northern provinces.
It was a race to see who could obtain support from more clan chieftains.
The side with more chieftains won, simple as that.
Oama was pretty good at this, and soldiers from the east and north started arriving to
bolster his army.
Back at the capital, Prince Otomo wasn’t doing so well.
He was blocked from the east and north, so he had to go west and south for help, mainly
from the Kibi and Tsukushi provinces.
They...refused.
Wah wah.
The Tsukushi governor said he didn’t want to abandon the defenses against foreign invasions.
You see, after Silla and Tang China conquered the Korean Peninsula, Japan built a bunch
of forts in preparation for a foreign invasion.
An imminent invasion was on everyone’s mind.
So was the Tsukushi governor really afraid of leaving the defenses, or did he think that
they could not defeat Oama’s forces?
Probably both.
Oama’s forces advanced to the capital from north and south, swatting aside any resistance
along the way.
Without much support, Prince Otomo tried the only solution he had left in this situation.
He killed himself.
It didn’t work,
Oama still claimed the capital.
Oama executed some of Otomo’s top allies and exiled the rest, then sat the throne as
the newly minted Emperor Tenmu.
By removing the top tier of the government and replacing it with his own allies, Emperor
Tenmu had more power than any emperor before him,
and he used it.
Hellooo.
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