Hōjō Masako had 2 sons, who both died.
What do you think she did about it?
Her first son was the second shogun of the Kamakura shogunate, Yoriie the Insufferable.
Last time, we saw that Yoriie was taking a bath when he was rudely interrupted by a murder.
His own. Not nice. You don’t disturb a person’s bath.
Masako was probably devastated, but she took comfort in the fact that her other son, Sanetomo,
was alive and he was the shogun.
Tokimasa Rises.
The guy who masterminded putting Sanetomo on the shogun’s seat was Masako’s father,
Tokimasa, the head of the Hōjō family.
Things really turned out well for him because he basically became the most powerful man
in the shogunate once Sanetomo became shogun.
Tokimasa took the position of shikken 執権, which would later mean regent for the shogun,
someone who ruled on behalf of the shogun.
At the time, shikken just meant the head representative of a group.
It wasn’t until later when his son took charge that shikken came to mean regent.
But it doesn’t matter because he wielded authority like a regent.
In a power move, he transferred the new shogun out of Masako’s residence and into his own home,
removing the shogun from Masako’s eye.
Sanetomo, the new leader of the badass military government, was like, “oh o-okay...”
Tokimasa ran the place.
Most orders that came out of the shogunate only had his signature on them.
Meet the New Shogun: Sanetomo.
Now Hōjō Masako knew that her previous son, Yoriie the Incompetent, wasn’t the best leader.
He was raised by another family, not by Masako herself.
He grew up to be selfish and arrogant, but despite those positive qualities,
he was not a fan of the Hōjō clan, which was something she disliked in her shogunses.
With her second son, Masako thought,
“Well I helped raise Sanetomo myself, so he’ll grow up to be just like his father.”
Narrator: He didn’t.
Now Minamoto no Sanetomo 源 実朝 wasn’t a throbbing dickhead like his late brother,
but he didn’t seem interested in doing shogun stuff.
That, or he was so controlled by Tokimasa that he couldn’t.
He was the artsy type that went to poetry readings in dimly lit rooms
and snapped his fingers somberly.
He was excellent at poetry and enjoyed a lot of praise.
I’m gonna give him some credit here.
At first, obsessing over poetry may sound like a way to avoid your responsibilities,
like leaving your career to start a YouTube channel, but it wasn’t.
It’s called diplomacy, you guys, the art of making friends for power.
It’s hard to criticize celebrities that you like.
Mila Kunis could smack a baby in the head and I’d be like,
“Yeah but what kinda faces was that baby making at her?
Does he have a criminal history?
What did he Google in the past 30 days?
We must know the truth.
Wake up sheeple.”
Nobles of the imperial court in Kyoto fawned over Sanetomo for his mad poetry skills.
He rose to become one of the highest ranking people in Kyoto.
This likely helped smooth the growing tension between the two governments in Japan, the
shogunate in Kamakura and the traditional imperial government in Kyoto.
Tokimasa’s Rule.
With Sanetomo as puppet shogun--
Sanetomo: poet shogun!
and Tokimasa as regent, the Hōjō clan was having a grand ole time
pursuing their favorite form of entertainment: removing political enemies.
Netflix wasn’t invented yet.
The thing you gotta know about this family is that the Hōjō was a minor clan.
“The Hōjō were just lucky that they rode on the coattails of the first shogun, Minamoto no Yoritomo,”
a cheeky person could say, before dying mysteriously the next day.
Remember, the Minamoto clan was almost destroyed, and Yoritomo lived in the countryside,
ashamed and forgotten.
It was Hōjō Tokimasa who supported his cause,
allowing him to raise an army and win a war and establish the first shogunate.
After Yoritomo won, Tokimasa thought the Hōjō clan would become an influential clan.
He wanted to be part of the Big Boys Club.
A club with that name sounds kinda sketchy, but you wouldn’t wanna be part of the Little Boys Club either,
so I get it.
But after Yoritomo took power, he left Tokimasa hanging.
It didn’t seem like Tokimasa had any important responsibilities while Yoritomo was in power.
Tokimasa had lifted Yoritomo up from nothing, and this was the thanks he got?
So when his grandson Sanetomo became shogun, Tokimasa was determined to give his family
the legacy that they deserved.
The Hōjō’s major weakness was their low background, so they never tried to become shogun themselves,
but they were alright with ruling behind the scenes.
While he and later his son led the Hōjō, they somehow destroyed 6 leading samurai clans,
all families that were loyal to the late Yoritomo.
Coincidentally, these families had all been owners of land the Hōjō had their eyes on.
But Tokimasa made a mistake when he ordered the destruction of one of these clans,
claiming that they were plotting rebellion.
His son, Hōjō Yoshitoki 北条 義時, had to carry out the killing
even though he thought it was BS and he had to kill a friend.
It caused a rift between the two.
When your dad forces you to execute your friend, Thanksgiving dinner gets a bit awkward.
Tokimasa’s Fall.
In 1205, a rumor spread on Twitter that Tokimasa planned to overthrow the shogun
and replace him with his son-in-law.
People mainly blamed his young wife for putting the idea in his head.
It was a dumb idea, but he was an old man with a hot young wife, it’s understandable.
By this time, his daughter Masako had already lost 3 of her kids.
Now her father is planning a coup on her son?
The nerve. She had had it.
She and Yoshitoki, sister and brother, struck first.
She moved Sanetomo back to her own residence.
He was a puppet so it was easy to move him--
Sanetomo: Poet!
Then Yoshitoki gathered a bunch of men to show he meant business.
Tokimasa saw that things were dire, and agreed to be exiled.
That’s right, the kids exiled their own father.
They even sent someone to kill Tokimasa’s son-in-law.
Funny thing though.
It does seem weird that Tokimasa would choose to overthrow the shogun, especially since
he put the kid on the shogun’s seat in the first place.
It could be that Tokimasa had deeper conflicts with his children, and Masako and Yoshitoki
decided to frame their father to get him out of the way.
But that’s only speculation.
Tokimasa’s exile left Yoshitoki and Masako as two of the senior members of the shogunate.
Yoshitoki would’ve had weak support if it wasn’t for Masako.
Her status as Yoritomo’s widow helped to legitimize him.
Still, they had way less power than Tokimasa had at first.
But it wasn’t until something happened in 1219 that they were able to grab control of
the shogunate and never let go.
Another Son Bites the Dust.
There was a monk named Kugyō 公暁.
He was a son of the previous shogun Yoriie the Dumdumbutt.
When he was a kid, his father was killed in the bathtub like we mentioned before,
and he blamed the Hōjō family for it.
It must have seemed pretty unfair to Kugyō that his father’s killers were doing so well.
Luckily for him, murder is always an option.
One day in 1219, the shogun Sanetomo was at a ceremony.
He was walking down some steps with a sword-bearer, who was also part of the ceremony.
Kugyō jumped out with some men and yelled, “I strike at my father’s enemy!”
Then he struck at his father’s enemy, who was his uncle by the way.
This family...
Kugyō’s men also killed the sword-bearer, who immediately regretted going to sword-bearing school.
Sanetomo’s body fell on the snow,
but his head started riding down a road away from the ceremony.
Kugyō was carrying it of course.
He hid somewhere and sent a messenger to inform his ally,
a man named Miura Yoshimura 三浦 義村.
When Yoshimura heard, he told Kugyō to stay put,
and then he let the Hōjō know where Kugyō was.
Yoshitoki ordered Yoshimura to kill the guy, and pretty soon Kugyō was in possession
of two heads: Sanetomo’s and his own.
He got beheaded.
With Kugyō and the shogun Sanetomo dead, it ended Yoritomo’s family line.
Now there’s a theory about what may have happened behind the scenes.
It says that this Miura Yoshimura guy actually talked Kugyō into doing the assassination.
Kugyō was very close with the Miura clan, they raised him since he was a baby.
Yoshitoki was supposed to be the sword-bearer at the ceremony, but he got sick at the last
minute and was replaced by some poor schlepp.
The plan was to kill both the shogun Sanetomo and Yoshitoki, then make Kugyō shogun and
the Miura clan the regent family.
But when Kugyō failed to kill Yoshitoki, Miura Yoshimura feared retaliation
and betrayed Kugyō.
Joke’s on him though, because years later, the Hōjō would destroy the Miura clan anyways.
Victory.
You do feel bad for Masako.
She lost her husband and all of her children.
Two daughters and two sons.
But with this death, the Wonder Twins powers activated.
Masako and her brother Yoshitoki used the shogun’s death to consolidate power.
This was when Yoshitoki’s regency really took off.
Without a shogun, the governing council had no authority to pass edicts, and Yoshitoki
stepped in to rule similar to how his father did.
Masako also became a huge figure, her presence reminding the samurai
of the glory days of her husband.
Brother and sister controlled the shogunate, giving the Hōjō clan a bright future.
And then war broke out.
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