The Hogen Rebellion of 1156 pitted father against son, uncle against nephew, and brother
against brother.
It started the famous rivalry between two warrior clans: the Taira (平) and the Minamoto (源).
And it was a sign that change was coming to Japan, wrapped in armor and on the backs of
horses.
It was called the Hogen no Ran (保元の乱), or Hogen Rebellion, or Hogen Disturbance.
Hogen was just the name of the era that it happened in.
On the surface, it was a succession dispute, as always.
Someone wanted the throne, and tried to seize it.
But below, bigger forces lurked.
It involved 3 different power centers of the Japanese court: the Imperial Family, the Fujiwara
clan, and the warrior clans of Taira and Minamoto.
The Hogen Rebellion was at its core a battle between the Imperial faction, people who wanted
the Imperial House to rule the Japanese court AS IT SHOULD, and the Fujiwara Regency faction,
people who wanted the Fujiwara clan to rule the court as regents AS IT SHOULD.
Regents were people who made decisions on behalf of the emperor.
The Fujiwara had previously used this title to basically turn the emperor into a figurehead.
Okay I have a lot of names to ram down your earhole, so let’s take these 3 power centers
one at a time.
Things fit through holes more easily one at a time.
Let’s step into the halls of the Imperial House.
Emperor Toba (鳥羽) did not like his grandfather, Shirakawa (白河).
Shirakawa was an Emperor in the Heian Period who duked it out politically with the Fujiwara.
The Fujiwara clan...had dominated the Heian court before Shirakawa came along and knocked
them off their pedestal, kicking off a type of government rule called insei (院政),
where authority did not lie with the Fujiwara or even the sitting emperor, but with emperors
who had already stepped down and retired to a Buddhist monastery.
Insei means cloistered rule or monastery rule.
So when Shirakawa stepped down from his throne, he was still the boss in court.
Emperor Toba the Frustrated reigned for 16 years.
16 years of playing Super Smash Bros while his grandfather did adult Emperor stuff.
Now Ex-Emperor Shirakawa had an adopted daughter of sorts.
Her name was Fujiwara no Shoshi (藤原璋子).
At age 7, her biological father died and Shirakawa took her in and raised her to adulthood.
No one knew at the time the trouble Shirakawa’s act of love would cause.
She would later be known by her honorary title Taikenmon-in (待賢門院).
When she grew up, Shirakawa chose her to be Emperor Toba’s primary consort.
Toba was probably not happy that his grandfather controlled his life, but she was a total babe
so you know.
Taikenmon-in did her wifely duties and bore him a son.
And to show you how securely Toba was under his grandfather’s thumb, grandpa forced
him to abdicate his throne in favor of the baby, a baby of 3 years.
The new baby emperor was named Emperor Sutoku (崇徳), and he was a cute wil’ empewow
yes he is.
Yes, this is the same Emperor Sutoku that legend would later call one of Japan’s three
great vengeful ghosts.
Currently, he’s just a baby.
As ex-emperor, Toba was still powerless before the might of Shirakawa, and spent his days
playing Super Smash Bros Ultimate and directing his frustration at poor Yoshi.
It was better than Super Smash Bros original at least.
Now, there’s something we must know about Emperor Sutoku for us to understand what Toba
later does to him.
Sutoku was Toba’s own son, but Toba did not seem to like him much, even though he
did seem to be fond of his wife Taikenmon-in.
She was beautiful, and men could not help but stare at her two soft, smooth, humongous
sleeves.
They were spectacular sleeves.
Turned out, that might have been the problem because a nasty rumor wafted through the halls
of the Heian court that Sutoku was not Toba’s son, but the son of his grandfather, old Ex-Emperor
Shirakawa.
If you haven’t thrown up yet, then you get an F because you haven’t been paying attention.
It would mean that Shirakawa adopted Taikenmon-in, married her to his grandson Toba, and then
put his child in her belly.
His adopted daughter’s belly.
Calm down Woody.
We don’t know for sure if the rumors were true, but Taikenmon-in’s reputation as a
harlot certainly did not help.
When Shirakawa finally kicked the bucket, Ex-Emperor Toba dropped his controller and
got to work replacing grandpa’s allies with his own.
Outside of grandpa’s shadow, Toba turned out to be a strong leader himself, though
he had a quirk of calling his enemies Yoshi.
He must have believed those nasty rumors because one day he told his son,
“Yoshi, you need to retire so my other son can become emperor.”
“My name is Sutoku,” said Emperor Sutoku, but his dad had already left.
Emperor Sutoku retired, and the new guy was Emperor Konoe (近衛), whose only important
accomplishment was that he later died.
Now as junior retired emperor, Sutoku was in the same position Toba was in, overshadowed
by a stronger retired emperor.
Sutoku didn’t lie down though, he sought allies and pushed for his son to be the next
emperor, and also asked for his stapler back.
But when Emperor Konoe died, he was always sick, Toba enthroned another son of his from
Taikenmon-in, who became Emperor Go-Shirakawa.
Go-Shirakawa is gonna be a big player in this.
The Go here translates to “later,” so it means the Later Emperor Shirakawa,
or Shirakawa the Second.
Ex-Emperor Sutoku felt abandoned by his own father, and realized that his line would never
regain the throne.
He had to do something.
Why live a cushy ex-emperor life at all if your line can’t continue on the throne?
Okay, now let’s leave the Imperial House for a bit and step into the Fujiwara House.
Besides the power struggle happening in the Imperial Family, there was another power struggle
going on within the Fujiwara family.
The Fujiwara had already lost its domination of the Heian court thanks to Emperor Shirakawa,
but it was still a strong clan, and they wanted their power back.
Two brothers competed for leadership of the clan: the older Fujiwara no Tadamichi (藤原忠通)
and the younger Fujiwara no Yorinaga (藤原頼長).
Their father, who was born without a name because I’ve had it up to here with remembering
names for this video--
their father was the head of the clan.
Although Big Brother Tadamichi was the oldest, their father favored the Little Brother Yorinaga.
Yorinaga was set to become the head of the family after his father.
He skyrocketed through the ranks of the court, and the position of regent was within his
grasp.
But that didn’t mean Tadamachi lost.
When the sickly Emperor Konoe died, Tadamichi accused his Little Brother Yorinaga of killing
the emperor by sorcery.
Yep, he said Yorinaga performed a magical ritual by sticking needles into the eyes of
a statue of Emperor Konoe, causing Konoe to die.
Ah, the old needle in the eye routine.
I remember this college party once where we all did that, except we didn’t use needles,
and we didn’t stick them in eyes.
Just kidding, I didn’t go to parties.
Just kidding, I didn’t go to college.
Just kidding, I don’t remember things.
Emperor Konoe was really sick when he died.
Probably was coughing up blood and stuff.
To look at him at that moment...it must have been an eyesore-cery.
In his grief, Ex-Emperor Toba believed the accusations and that kinda ruined Little Brother
Yorinaga’s relationship with Toba, and ruined Yorinaga’s chances of rising any more in
court.
But for Big Brother Tadamichi, life was good.
His younger brother was still the favorite son, but Tadamichi fully joined the Imperial
faction and gained the favor of the Imperial House.
We can see the sides forming now.
Yorinaga in the Fujiwara Regency faction, Tadamichi in the Imperial faction.
Which faction do you support?
Let me know in the comments.
Now so far, we’ve only talked about court nobles.
Soft, pale namby pamby elites.
A rebellion needs warriors!
While they were beating the drums of war, the two sides also sought out the strongest
warriors in the land, the warriors of clans Taira and Minamoto.
But you gotta poke my huge subscribe button and my enormous bell to see what happens next,
because that’s a video for a later time.
Hey so if you requested a charm/keychain, I’ve packaged them all and I’m starting
to ship them out.
If you didn’t know, these charms are blessed by their kami.
That’s right, I put each Amaterasu charm in the sun for 7 days to receive Amaterasu’s
blessing, the Tsukuyomi charms I placed under moonlight for seven nights, and the Susanoo
charms I threw into Hurricane Dorian.
May they watch over you.
Okay the new patrons this week are Redskar, Andrew Ramsey…(Bolton??), Tristan Fisher,
Cody Tesch, Victoria Gates, AJ Awang I’m sorry, Jennifer just Jennifer, Ian Lugo, Savi,
MtnHund, Plodiumshree, Sierra Herb, Vincent I love you in Final Fantasy, Kimberly Blackwell,
Eeva Kulmala, Karen Ramirez, RowenaMillicent, Michelle Navin, Tenko, Rabbit, and Ismael
Vallin hey Izzy.
Thank you so much you guys.
Also, thanks to the new patrons, Lil Linfamy has leveled up.
Yeah, he’s beautiful.
Hey this playlist about the rise and fall of the Fujiwara seems to be popular, so if
the next Hogen Rebellion video is not up yet, check this one out.
Alright much love guys, and spread the knowledge!