Other lordship · The Kamakura house and its housemen · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Pacific boat and port people

The sea is the fast road in 1200, and the people who run it are a power.

In the Kantō, Kamakura has no great harbour (the breakwater of Wakae-jima is of 1232, far later): ships beach on the sand at Yuigahama and use the sheltered anchorage at Mutsuura, in the bay of Kanazawa, which is the harbour of Kamakura's goods and the staple of the campaign board (the campaign board spells it Mutsura and puts it in Sagami; the place is in Musashi). The Miura peninsula's boat-warriors are the nearest thing to a fleet that Kamakura has. Across the strait of Uraga lies the Bōsō coast of the Chiba and the Awa lords; to the west the Izu coast and the Suruga harbours; and, by the open sea, the long coastal run to the Ise bay.

In Ise, Kuwana at the mouth of the three Kiso rivers and Anōtsu on the Anō river (Tsu) are the staples where rice, salt, timber, cloth and Ise offerings change boats. The Atsuta-Kuwana sea crossing joins the Tōkaidō across the head of Ise bay (recalled from later travel diaries).

Who he is

Title
Collective: boatmen, ferrymen and warehouse-keepers (tonya) of the ports; the Miura as the first boat-warriors of the Kantō
Since
not applicable
Family
The Miura house is written separately; for the Kuwana and Anōtsu boatmen no family is named by any source we opened.
Confidence
low

The campaign board (Mutsura, Anōtsu, Kuwana staples); recollection. The English and other pages on the ports were not opened.

Overlord

Kamakura at Mutsuura and Yuigahama; the court's governor and the Ise Jingū at Kuwana and Anōtsu (recalled)

What it holds

  • The landing at Yuigahama, the anchorage at Mutsuura
  • The ferries over the Sagami and Sumida rivers (recalled)
  • Kuwana and Anōtsu as the staples of the Ise coast

How it was acquired

By custom.

Allies and rivals

The Miura and the Kamakura Mandokoro at Mutsuura; the Ise Jingū and the Ise Taira remnants at Kuwana and Anōtsu.

How things stand that morning

Working harbours; no event is dated.

Wealth

Rice, salt, timber, cloth, Song coin and goods landed from the west; no figure.

Military

The Miura boat-warriors; elsewhere none known.

Threats

  • Storms and pirates (akutō); Kamakura's tolls; the Ise Taira

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.

  1. 1232Wakae-jima, a breakwater at Yuigahama, is built (far later).Depends on: Kamakura's growth Stopped by: Not known: no source says what would prevent it.

Where the sources disagree

  • The campaign board's Mutsura is in Musashi, not Sagami: Mutsuura (Kanazawa ward of Yokohama today).

Evidence: The campaign board entry and general knowledge.

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

On the map: Point and small seeds 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

  1. 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)
  2. 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
  3. Jeffrey P. Mass, Warrior Government in Early Medieval Japan (1974), from memory; the archive.org full text could not be opened

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.