Hereditary lords · The Kamakura house and its housemen · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Yūki Tomomitsu

Tomomitsu is the man whose remark started the storm.

In the Azuma Kagami's account (recalled, dates not re-read) he said at Yoritomo's memorial that a loyal man serves one lord and would have shaved his head when Yoritomo died; Kajiwara Kagetoki reported the remark to Yoriie as hostile talk; Masako's sister, the nurse Awa no Tsubone, told Tomomitsu of it; he went to Miura Yoshimura, and within days the lords of the east, sixty-six of them, had put their names to a petition for Kajiwara's removal. Yoriie gave way. The story is Hōjō-friendly and shapes who looks like the hero, but the petition itself is certain, and the brief dates the dismissal to 12/18 (5 or 6 January 1200).

After 1189 the Yūki also hold the Shirakawa lands of southern Mutsu (recalled), which puts them at the old Shirakawa barrier.

Who he is

Name
Yūki Tomomitsu
Title
Houseman (gokenin) and head of the Yūki house; Oyama's youngest brother (recalled)
Since
Adopted into the Yūki line before 1180 and served Yoritomo as a close attendant (recalled)
Born
1168 (recalled): about thirty-one; on the likely course he dies in 1254
Family
Youngest son of Oyama Masamitsu and the nun Samukawa-no-ama, so brother of Oyama Tomomasa and Nagayama Munemasa (recalled from the Azuma Kagami through the brief; the English Oyama page confirms only the father and the mother). The Yūki seat is Yūki in Shimōsa, on the Kinu river next to the Oyama.
Confidence
medium

The brief and recollection of the Azuma Kagami's story of the petition; no page on him could be opened (the English page title was not found).

Overlord

Minamoto no Yoriie

What it holds

  • The Yūki manor in Shimōsa (the home district on the Kinu)
  • Stewardship in the Shirakawa district of southern Mutsu, at the Shirakawa barrier, since the campaign of 1189 (recalled, not pinned)
  • A place among Yoriie's and Masako's attendants

How it was acquired

By adoption and by Yoritomo's grants.

Allies and rivals

Allies: the Oyama, Miura, Chiba, Wada, Hatakeyama, Awa no Tsubone and the Hōjō women's circle. Rival: Kajiwara Kagetoki, until his death on 20 January (about 6 February 1200) on the likely course.

How things stand that morning

A winner of the winter: the man who is said to have been protected by Masako's circle and whose enemy is now out of the city.

Wealth

The rice of the Kinu plain and the Shirakawa stewardship; no figure.

Military

Yūki housemen; no numbers.

Threats

  • Kajiwara's friends at Ichinomiya until they are dealt with

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. Shōji 2/1/20 (about 6 February 1200)Kajiwara dies in Suruga; the question that began with Tomomitsu is closed.Depends on: Kamakura's orders to the Suruga housemen Stopped by: Kajiwara reaching Kyoto

Places of note

  • Shirakawa stewardship: Recalled stewardship in southern Mutsu near the barrier; not pinned

Where the sources disagree

  • Brief: dismissal 12/18. The Azuma Kagami's earlier steps (the remark, the signing, the delivery by Ōe no Hiromoto) are recalled and their days are not given here.

Evidence: The story is recalled through the Hōjō-friendly chronicle; his lands are recalled.

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

  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
  4. English Wikipedia: Oyama Tomomasa (read this session; thin)

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