Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
part of Musashi province. It became customary to relocate the royal palace after the death
of each emperor, until Japan's first permanent capital, Nara, was founded in 710.
It wasn't long before the capital was on the move again, however; in 784 the Fujiwara
court distanced itself from Nara's increasingly influential monks and priests by
relocating to nearby Nagaoka, then to Heian (later known as Kyoto) in 794. The
colourful Heian era came to a close with the Genpei wars of 1180-85; the victorious
Minamoto clan
chose to base themselves in Kamakura, just west of Tokyo. In fact,
Tokyo's original name,
Edo
, meaning “river gate”, can be traced back to the beginning
of the war; it was first used by Shigenago Edo of the competing Taira clan, who had
settled in the area.
The Kamakura and Muromachi eras
The leader of the Minamoto clan, Yoritomo, established his military-based Bakufu,
or
“tent government”
, at
Kamakura
, styling himself Sei-i Tai Shogun, the “Barbarian-
subduing Great General”. Japan settled into a period of semi-feudalism, with peasants
allowed tenure of land in return for service to their loyal lord. After Yoritomo's death in
1199, his loyal lieutenant Hōjō Tokimasa, in partnership with Yoritomo's widow
Masako, took the helm, assuming the combined roles of military and civil governor,
and ushering in the century-long era of the
Hōjō regents
- these regents, rather than
the figurehead emperor or shogun, were the real power holders during this time.
The Mongol invasions of the late thirteenth century - thwarted by typhoons, dubbed
the kamikaze or “divine wind” by the Japanese of the time - contributed to the fall of
the ineffectual Kamakura government, which in 1333 found itself roundly beaten by
the forces of
Emperor
Go-Daigo
. Kamakura's Bakufu soon dispatched the warrior
Ashikaga Takauji
to bring Go-Daigo to heel; the wily Takauji initially switched
allegiance to the emperor but later turned against him, forcing Go-Daigo to retreat to
the mountains of Yoshino. Takauji set up a rival emperor in Kyoto, and for sixty years
Japan had two courts; they were reconciled in 1392, by which time the Ashikaga
shogunate had established its headquarters in Kyoto's
Muromachi
district, from where
they ruled for over two centuries.
In the meantime, things were quietly ticking along in Tokyo (then still named Edo),
with its first castle erected in 1457 by Ōta Dōkan, a poet better known as
Ōta Sekenaga
,
and now regarded as the founder of modern Tokyo; his battlements formed part of what is
now the Higashi Gyoen, which abuts today's Imperial Palace, and it became the precursor
to a small wave of nearby temples, shrines and mercantile complexes. Ōta himself came to
a sticky end in 1486, killed in Sagami (now Kanagawa) after being falsely accused of
traitorship. His death occurred during a period of national strife, with the
Ōnin wars
of
1467-77 effectively relieving the government of authority, and regional
daimyō
(feudal
warlords) fighting for dominance - a pattern that continued for over a century.
Reunification
The civil wars ended with the reunification of Japan under a triumvirate of generals of
outstanding ability. The first, Oda Nobunaga, achieved dominance of the Kyoto
region; however, in 1582 he was betrayed and forced to commit ritual suicide.
1180
1185
1333
1457
First use of
Tokyo's original
name, Edo
Minamoto clan victorious
in Genpei wars; base
themselves in Kamakura
Kamakura government
falls
Founding of Tokyo
