The harbour the Taira made.
Kiyomori improved the old anchorage of Ōwada no tomari, with an artificial island (Kyōgashima) built in 1173 [not yet checked against the source] to shelter Song ships and his own fleet. After the Taira fell in 1185 the harbour remained the east gate of the Inland Sea and the first night out from Watanabe-tsu. The Tōdaiji rebuilders, who hold Suō and its timber, keep a presence at Hyōgo and its landing [not yet checked against the source].
A chapel of the nembutsu hijiri and a market stand beside the quay.
Who holds it
- Title
- Not known; the court's offices, with Tōdaiji's agents having a hand in the harbour [not yet checked against the source]
- Confidence
- low
Recollection; no source for the 1190s.
Lord in 1200
Not pinned: the court's offices and Kamakura's constable of Settsu (not known) are over it; Tōdaiji's agents [not yet checked against the source].
Overlord
the court
What the town holds
- The harbour and the island works
- The ferry and landing rights [not yet checked against the source]
How things stand that morning
At work; Taira rule over it is thirteen years gone.
Trade and crafts
Transhipment of rice, salt and timber; Song goods in small quantity; ship-repairing.
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board entry id hyogo-owada-no-tomari says Kiyomori dredged and walled the harbour with his island: we read this as the artificial island of 1173 [not yet checked against the source], not an engineering record we have checked.
Evidence: The campaign board entry and recollection.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: The harbour island works are not drawn.
Primary sources for Kyoto court
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
- History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. 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
4 more in the sources library for Korea and Japan.
Sources and studies
- OMNIA kja regional brief (KJA_BRIEF.md), the campaign's dated traps and realm table
- OMNIA board notes and places for area kjw (starting lead only, checked against the sources)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.