Minamoto no Yoriie

Who he is

Name

Minamoto no Yoriie

Title

Head of the house (tōryō) and lord of Kamakura; Sakon'e-no-chūjō (Left Middle Captain of the Inner Guards)

Since

The court's order of the first month of 1199 (recalled as 1/26, about 22 February 1199) confirmed him in his father's place. Yoritomo died 9 February 1199.

Born

1182 (Juei 1, about September); seventeen by the Western count

Family

Son of Yoritomo and Hōjō Masako; brother of Senman (Sanetomo); wife Wakasa no Tsubone (a Hiki), son Ichiman (b. 1198); his foster mother and his wife's father are of the Hiki; his mother's father and brother, Tokimasa and Yoshitoki, sit on the Thirteen.

Confidence

high

Brief; English Wikipedia on Hiki Yoshikazu and Hōjō Tokimasa; zh.wikipedia (Yoriie). The Azuma Kagami and the Gukanshō, our main witnesses, were written by men hostile to him; we could not open either.

Overlord

The court (Go-Toba and Tsuchimikado) in law; none in the east.

What it holds

• The Ōkura mansion at Kamakura and the household offices round it
• The Kantō goryō (the house's own estates) and the right to name the court's governors in the Kantō gobunkoku provinces
• The sealed orders (kudashibumi) and the confirmation of lands: only he can confirm a houseman's holdings, even if the Thirteen hear the suit
• The title of Sakon'e-no-chūjō; the title of shogun is not granted until 1202 (the likely course), and whether it has been asked for is not known

How it was acquired

By inheritance and the court's order after Yoritomo's death on 9 February 1199.

Allies and rivals

Allies: the Hiki (Hiki Yoshikazu, his wife's father, and Hiki Munetomo and Tokikazu among his companions, recalled), Kajiwara Kagetoki until the petition. Watchers and rivals: the Hōjō (his mother, grandfather, uncle), the Miura, Wada, Chiba, Hatakeyama and Oyama houses that led the petition, and the court's Michichika party.

How things stand that morning

At the Ōkura mansion for the New Year audiences, with the petition against Kajiwara decided in effect and its last step, the formal dismissal, a few days away. He has the sealed orders but not the hearing of suits. He does not yet hold the title of shogun; on the likely course the court grants it in the seventh month of 1202 (see below), and when it is first asked for is not known.

Wealth

His own estates, the revenues of the Kantō provinces whose governors he names, the rewards he alone can give. No figure.

Military

Commands only through the housemen; his own household guard and the men of the Saburai-dokoro (Wada Yoshimori's office) attend him. No numbers.

Threats

• The housemen's collective will, shown in the petition against Kajiwara
• The Hōjō's guardianship of the younger brother Senman
• His own temper and his favourites, if the later portrait is right
• A court that can withhold the title of shogun

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 is killed and Miura Yoshizumi dies, within four days; Yoriie is left with fewer of the old men near him.Depends on: The fall of Kajiwara and Yoshizumi's age 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.
2. Shōji 2/8, about late September 1200He takes Adachi Kagemori's concubine; Masako has to stop the quarrel.Depends on: His conduct and Kagemori's pride Stopped by: Masako's intervention

Later, on the likely course

1. Kennin 2/7 (about August 1202)The court makes him Sei-i-taishōgun.Depends on: Kamakura's request and Michichika's goodwill Stopped by: Michichika's death in the tenth month does not undo it
2. Kennin 3/7 to 9 (about August to November 1203)Grave illness, the division of the realm between Ichiman and Senman, the destruction of the Hiki, his forced tonsure and removal to Shuzenji.Depends on: The Hōjō-Hiki quarrel over the heir Stopped by: His recovery before the division
3. Genkyū 1/7/18 (about August 1204)He is murdered at Shuzenji.Depends on: Hōjō supremacy Stopped by: A change in who holds the power to order it (see the dependency), or the victim's escape or protection.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board says he is not yet shogun: correct. Yoritomo's own title dates from 1192; Yoriie's from the 7th month of 1202.

Evidence: The man is well attested; the character is the Azuma Kagami's and the Gukanshō's, both hostile.

"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 seat is drawn; his rights are over men and scattered estates.

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