Nitta Yoshishige is Yoritomo's own cousin by the Minamoto line and an older man than Yoritomo, and for that reason a figure the regime has handled carefully.
He held the Nitta district of Kōzuke before 1180; he did not hurry to join Yoritomo in the Genpei war and, on the account that is recalled here, Kamakura gave the Nitta no great reward or office. The English page says only that the Nitta rose to importance in Kōzuke in the early thirteenth century 'but have little influence in Kamakura'. The Nitta lands lie in the Ōta-Kiryū plain at the foot of the hills of the Kōzuke-Shimotsuke border, next to the Ashikaga, kinsmen of the same Minamoto stock and now the Hōjō's in-laws.
In 1200 Yoshishige is sixty-four, and old enough to keep out of Kamakura's quarrels.
Who he is
- Name
- Nitta Yoshishige (Minamoto no Yoshishige)
- Title
- Lord of the Nitta manor (Nitta-no-shō) in Kōzuke; head of the Nitta Minamoto
- Since
- Lord of Nitta before 1180
- Born
- 1135 (English Wikipedia: Nitta clan); on the likely course he dies in 1202. Sixty-four by the Western count in January 1200.
- Family
- Elder brother of Minamoto no Yoshiyasu, the ancestor of the Ashikaga (English Wikipedia). Sons are recalled (Yamana Yoshinori and others) but not named by the page.
- Confidence
- medium
English Wikipedia (Nitta clan). The page says only that he held land in the Nitta district of Kōzuke and supported Yoritomo at Ishibashiyama in 1180; the clan 'has little influence in Kamakura'.
Overlord
Minamoto no Yoriie; the Kōzuke constable in the call-out (Hiki Yoshikazu, recalled)
What it holds
- Nitta-no-shō in the Nitta district of Kōzuke (English Wikipedia names the district; the campaign board puts the manor at Ōta)
- Branch lands held by his sons (recalled)
How it was acquired
By descent.
Allies and rivals
Kinsmen of the Ashikaga; cousins of the Minamoto house; the Hiki are the constables over him in Kōzuke (recalled).
How things stand that morning
At home. On the likely course he dies in 1202.
Wealth
Rice and silk of the Kōzuke plain; no figure.
Military
Nitta housemen; no numbers.
Threats
- The Hiki as constables
- Hōjō favour for the Ashikaga
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.
- 1202Yoshishige dies.Depends on: Natural death 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 English Nitta page puts the Genpei war 'a century earlier' than the Nitta's rise and says Yoshishige 'did not join his fellow Minamoto'; it also says he supported Yoritomo at Ishibashiyama. The two sentences do not agree and we could not settle them. The campaign board's Nitta point at 36.29 139.33 is accepted.
Evidence: One English page, contradictory in places.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: Home district only.
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
Sources and studies
- KJA_BRIEF.md and the OMNIA board for sheet kja (the lead's notes: [own] computation, [not yet checked against the source] recollection, [en] English Wikipedia)
- Azuma Kagami (the Kamakura chronicle), Kenkyu 10 to Shoji 2 entries, recalled and through the brief; ja.wikipedia and ja.wikisource were refused in this session, so no entry was re-read
- Jeffrey P. Mass, Warrior Government in Early Medieval Japan (1974), from memory; the archive.org full text could not be opened
- English Wikipedia: Nitta clan (read this session; thin)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.