Hōjō Tokimasa

Who he is

Name

Hōjō Tokimasa

Title

Head of the Hōjō; first-named of the Council of Thirteen; Yoriie's maternal grandfather

Since

Member of the Thirteen from 8 May 1199

Born

1138 (about 61 or 62); English Wikipedia gives 1138

Family

Hōjō of Izu, minor local warriors who took Yoritomo in as an exile. Children include Masako, Yoshitoki, Awa no Tsubone and others; second wife Maki no Kata. Daughters married to Ashikaga Yoshikane, Hatakeyama Shigetada, Inage Shigenari, Hiraga Tomomasa, Utsunomiya Yoritsuna and others (English Wikipedia).

Confidence

medium

English Wikipedia, Hōjō Tokimasa (read; the summary of it contains at least one error, 'daimyō of Ōmi', which we discard). His offices on 1 January 1200 are not pinned.

Overlord

Yoriie

What it holds

• Hōjō in Izu (Tagata district) and the family seat at Nirayama, in the valley of the Kano river
• A house at Nagoe in Kamakura (the site of Hiki Yoshikazu's death in 1203)
• A seat in the Thirteen
• The kin-links to the Ashikaga, Hatakeyama, Inage, Hiraga and Utsunomiya houses

How it was acquired

By his own marriage choices and the grant of Yoritomo's gratitude.

Allies and rivals

Allies: Yoshitoki, Masako, Miura Yoshizumi's house, the Wada, Hatakeyama (his son-in-law). Rivals: the Hiki (Yoshikazu), who hold Yoriie's wife and son.

How things stand that morning

At Kamakura on the Thirteen. He has not yet moved against anyone; on the likely course he gains from Kajiwara's fall and from the deaths of Yoshizumi and Morinaga (neither death has happened on 1 January).

Wealth

Hōjō lands and the Hōjō's share of stewardships (not itemised in any source we read).

Military

Hōjō retainers; no numbers.

Threats

• The Hiki
• His own young wife's ambitions (Maki no Kata), which later turn against him

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. Shōji 2/1/20 to 23 (about 6 to 9 February 1200)Kajiwara and Miura Yoshizumi disappear from the Thirteen.Depends on: The conditions of 1 January 1200 continuing: no player action in the east that changes them is assumed. Stopped by: Not known: no source says what would prevent it.

Later, on the likely course

1. Kennin 3/9/2 (8 October 1203)He has Hiki Yoshikazu killed at Nagoe and becomes shikken.Depends on: Yoriie's illness and the division of the realm Stopped by: The Hiki's striking first, or the housemen's refusing
2. Genkyū 2/7/19 (about August 1205)He is forced to retire to Izu by Masako and Yoshitoki after the plot against Senman; he dies in 1215.Depends on: Maki no Kata's plot with Hiraga Tomomasa Stopped by: Nothing in play stops a natural death; only a change in the person's circumstances (illness cured, flight, removal) alters the date, and the campaign rules on that.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board says Nirayama is Tokimasa's 'home seat' and calls him the exile's father-in-law: correct. The English page's 'Nirayama' is not mentioned; the site is drawn from the campaign board's position.

Evidence: Person and family well attested; his offices in 1200 are not pinned.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Only the home district is drawn; his posts elsewhere are not known.

Primary sources for Kamakura regime

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Hundred Times Refined Extracts: court annals (late thirteenth century, from court diaries). Short dated annals of the imperial court excerpted from courtiers' diaries, among them the Gyokuyo and the Meigetsuki. Read online
• Mirror of the East, Anonymous; compiled by officials of the Kamakura shogunate (compiled about 1300 from the shogunate's records, diaries and family documents). The Kamakura house's own chronicle, in daily entries. Read online
• Jottings of a Fool: an interpretative history of Japan, Jien (慈円) (about 1219 to 1220, revised to about 1223). A history by Kujo Kanezane's brother, head of the Tendai school and the leading churchman of the court, written to explain the fall of the Kujo and the rise of the warriors as the working of principle (dori). Read online
• Diary of the Inokuma Regent: the diary of Konoe Iezane, Konoe Iezane (近衛家実) (1197 to 1218, as a daily diary). The diary of the regent's heir, aged twenty-one in 1200 and already a senior courtier under his father Konoe Motomichi, who was regent (sessho) for the child emperor Tsuchimikado. Read online
• Leaves of Jade: the diary of Kujo Kanezane, Kujo (Fujiwara) Kanezane (九條兼實) (1164 to 1200, as a daily diary). The diary of the former regent, Yoritomo's ally at court, who had been driven from power in the Kenkyu purge of 1196 and lived in retirement in 1200. Read online
• Record of the Bright Moon: the diary of Fujiwara no Teika, Fujiwara no Teika (藤原定家) (1180 to 1235, as a daily diary, with gaps). The diary of the poet and courtier, then thirty-eight and a middle-ranking official of the Kujo house. Read online
• Surviving Documents of the Kamakura Period, Various; collected by Takeuchi Rizo (竹内理三) (documents of 1185 to 1333, collected and printed 1971 to 1997). The collected charters, deeds, court orders, shogunal directives, temple records and land registers of the Kamakura age, printed in date order. Read online
• The Tale of the Heike, Anonymous; traditionally attributed to Shinano no Zenji Yukinaga, performed and reshaped by blind reciters (early thirteenth century in its first form; the standard Kakuichi text was fixed in 1371). The epic of the Genpei war, in the form the reciters gave it over the century after 1200. Read online