Taga castle, north-east of Sendai bay near Shiogama, was the seat of the Mutsu governor and of the frontier command (the Chinjufu was moved north in the ninth century) from 724.
By 1200 it is an old provincial centre and ruin, with the stone memorial of 762 (recalled), and the working office of the Mutsu caretaker (rusu-dokoro) under Isawa Iezumi. Shiogama shrine, the Ichinomiya of Mutsu, is a short way to the east. The Ōshū road runs through it from Shirakawa to Hiraizumi.
Who holds it
- Name
- Isawa Iezumi
- Title
- Caretaker of the Mutsu offices (rusu-shiki)
- Since
- 1189 or after
- Born
- not known
- Family
- See the lord record.
- Confidence
- low
The brief; recollection.
Lord in 1200
Isawa Iezumi, Mutsu rusu-shiki; the court's governor of Mutsu as the absentee head
Places of note
- Taga monument (Tagajō-hi): A stone of 762 recording the building of the castle (recalled)
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Recollection and the campaign board; no page on the place was opened.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: Seat 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
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.