What would you do if you changed from a nobody
into one of the most powerful people in the country, overnight?
Hojo Masako 北条政子 was the wife of Minamoto no Yoritomo,
the founder of Japan’s first shogunate.
Yoritomo was a political genius, and his wife was no slouch in that department either,
which made for epic domestic arguments
After Yoritomo’s death, Hojo Masako became a nun, but instead of leaving political life,
she decided to keep her clan in power and nurture the government that her husband created.
They called her the Nun Shogun.
Masako was born in 1157 to Hojo Tokimasa 北条時政.
The Hojo were a tiny slice in the large pie that was the Taira clan,
the clan who dominated the Japanese court at the time.
Hojo Tokimasa was the head of the Hojo family and was lord of some small lands in Izu Province.
He was actually the small fish in the area, surrounded by much bigger fish,
but his fortunes would later change.
In 1160, when Hojo Masako was 3 years old, the Taira exiled young Minamoto no Yoritomo
to Izu Province.
His father had fought against the Taira in the Heiji Rebellion and lost.
Instead of forcing Yoritomo to follow his father to the underworld,
the Taira exiled him to Izu, which they probably thought was the same thing.
That turned out to be a big oof on their part.
Eastern Japan was simmering as warriors gained more influence.
Violence was about to boil over and Yoritomo was about to pour that boiling pot
over the heads of the Taira.
Yoritomo stayed in exile for 2 decades, forgotten and probably bitter
that his once-great Minamoto clan was shattered.
And likely missing the pleasure quarters in the capital too.
When Masako was about 20 years old, she grew close to Yoritomo.
There’s a legend about how they met that went like this.
Yoritomo was actually after Masako’s younger sister.
This mighty warrior wrote a love letter and told a samurai to deliver it to the sister,
but the samurai made a mistake and handed it to Masako instead.
For some reason, her sister then had a dream that she held the sun and moon in her hands.
When she told Masako this, Masako convinced her sister that
this was a bad omen and bought the dream from her.
Yep, she bought the dream.
She gave her sister a kosode for it.
Back then, you could buy someone’s bad dream to remove the bad luck from that person.
But Masako was tricksy and believed that this was actually a good dream
that would bring her good luck.
It seemed to have worked out because she did become the wife of Yoritomo,
who would later found the shogunate.
This story was probably only a legend though.
When her father Tokimasa found out his daughter was simping for this dirty exile,
he got super pissed.
If his daughter married Yoritomo, it meant trouble for the Hojo clan.
You see, the Hojo were part of the Taira clan, and the Taira were mortal enemies of the Minamoto.
Also the Taira had their grip around the Kyoto court at the time.
The Taira in court could punish his family for taking in a dirty Minamoto, or at least
Tokimasa’s career in the capital could’ve been ruined.
This was a real threat, it wasn’t just Tokimasa being weird.
For example, Yoritomo once impregnated the daughter of a different local lord.
That lord killed the baby to avoid any trouble with the Taira elites.
To be fair, that baby was a jerk.
Hojo Tokimasa forbade Masako from continuing the relationship.
He obviously had never read a love story, because one dark and rainy night,
Masako ran away from home.
She hiked the mountain roads to be with her lover.
It was supposed to be a long trek too, so here we see that toughness in her.
The couple lived in a mountain temple for a while, hiding from Masako’s father,
until the old man finally relented and allowed them to marry.
So why did Masako go against her father’s wishes?
Was it really for love or was it for something else?
There is a view of Hojo Masako that she’s ruthless and ambitious, so she might have
wanted Yoritomo because he was a Minamoto and was destined for great things.
She wanted to be the wife of a shogun.
But this doesn’t really make sense.
We know that Yoritomo was going to be this great figure, but she didn’t.
Back then, the Minamoto name was pretty much dead.
It had been dead for 2 decades.
Also, having the Minamoto name could have been a disadvantage because the Taira would
never let him amount to anything.
Yoritomo was in his 30s, old for the time, he was an exile,
and he had no future in the capital.
Masako was a small town girl, living in a lonely world, from a relatively small family.
It seems like they really did fancy each other and she really did do it for love.
Hey just let me have this wholesome story okay?
When Yoritomo rose up against the Taira, it was hard for Masako in the beginning.
While Yoritomo went off to fight, bringing her father and brothers with him,
Masako, her daughter, and her sisters stayed under the protection of a temple.
It was the same temple that she and Yoritomo had hid in before.
Yoritomo’s revolt started out like my birthday parties, only a few people answered his call.
He lost his first battle and had to hide from the enemy in the mountains.
That’s also what happens at my parties.
Masako heard the news, but did not know if anyone she knew survived.
She had two choices:
stay at the temple and wait for the Taira to come after her,
or run away to hide somewhere else.
The warrior monks of the temple were on the Minamoto side and were ready to defend her,
but she knew they’d be overwhelmed, so she chose to run to a small village,
not knowing what the future held.
After a month or so, she got word that her father and brothers survived, and so did Yoritomo.
In fact, Yoritomo’s rebellion was gaining steam and warriors started rallying behind him.
He created a headquarters at Kamakura.
When Masako arrived at Kamakura, her world changed.
Everyone treated her and her husband with respect, calling them by names reserved for
members of the imperial family.
She went from a woman of minor status to the wife of the most powerful man in the east.
In 1181, Masako’s position as Yoritomo’s wife was secured
when she gave birth to Yoriie 頼家, their first son and Yoritomo’s heir.
It was a happy occasion, until she had to give up her son to another family.
Why? Well because of something called menoto 乳母.
So you’re familiar with wet nurses, right?
No no, wet nurse.
Women you hire to breastfeed your baby.
That’s what menoto literally means, but it’s so much more than that.
A high born family would give their child to another family who will raise the child,
the mother wouldn’t raise her own child.
So menoto didn’t just refer to the wet nurse, but the entire family that raises the child.
Some menoto families didn’t even breastfeed, the important thing was the raising of the
child and supporting the child’s future.
Yoritomo chose a few different clans to be Yoriie’s menoto,
most powerful among them were the Hiki 比企.
Now this position was no joke, and you may misunderstand historical events if you don’t
take into account menoto relationships.
It’s another arena of politics, as if Japanese history isn’t complicated enough.
A child’s menoto gave him strong allies outside of his family.
And on the other side, being a menoto of a high ranking child was one way to propel your
family’s status to the top,
no need to sweat it out on the battlefield like those thickheaded samurai.
A menoto’s power is often tied to the success of the child under their care.
If Yoriie became shogun after his dad, the Hiki would become one of the strongest clans.
So watch out for these guys, they will do anything, like backstabbing or murder,
to protect Yoriie’s interests.
Now this is just a guess but Masako probably didn’t like the menoto system.
It was something the high born clans did.
The Hojo did not.
At least, not before now.
She had been raising her daughter herself up to this point.
But since her status skyrocketed overnight, it was expected.
She must have hated giving up her son for others to raise.
This may be why her relationship with Yoriie when he grew up was not a close one.
So until now we’ve seen Masako being strong in the face of adversity.
Soon we’ll see her ruthless side.
Next time.
Hey guys, I wanna give a shoutout to this youtube channel called Cool History Bros.
It’s small right now, but let’s fix that.
They do a lot of Asian history and their videos are really high quality.
I think you’ll like it.
Link in the description.
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Brickrazer destroyer of bricks, CJ, Fabio Hadian, and Tammy Ford.
Thank you so much you guys.
Alright I love you and spread the knowledge.