Town · The temple and shrine corporations · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Hōfu

The provincial seat of Suō beside the Sabagawa delta on the Inland Sea.

Suō's revenue was assigned to Tōdaiji for the rebuilding of the Great Buddha Hall; Chōgen's agents cut timber in the hills and float it to the coast here for shipment to Nara via Hyōgo [board, rec]. The local clerks (the Ōuchi) keep the provincial office. The coast is a roadstead, not a big port.

Who holds it

Name
Chōgen (as head of the work)
Title
Tōdaiji, which holds Suō for the rebuilding; its agent for Chōgen
Since
1180s
Born
1121
Confidence
medium

See Tōdaiji and Ōuchi of Suō.

Lord in 1200

Tōdaiji, through its agents and the Ōuchi.

Overlord

Tōdaiji

What the town holds

  • The provincial office of Suō
  • The timber coast

How things stand that morning

Still supplying timber (the Nandaimon of Tōdaiji is going up in 1199).

Trade and crafts

Timber for Nara; coasters.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The campaign board and the brief for the Tōdaiji assignment; the logistics are recollection.

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

Primary sources for Temple powers (west)

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
  • 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. OMNIA kja regional brief (KJA_BRIEF.md), the campaign's dated traps and realm table
  2. OMNIA board notes and places for area kjw (starting lead only, checked against the sources)
  3. Mikael Adolphson, The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers and Warriors in Premodern Japan (background reading, not re-read in this session)

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