The court at Kyoto and its provinces

Who rules

Name

Tsuchimikado (emperor); Go-Toba (cloistered emperor, the working ruler)

Title

Emperor (tennō) with a cloistered emperor (in) ruling for him

Since

Tsuchimikado received the throne on Kenkyū 9/1/11 (18 February 1198 Julian) and was enthroned in the 3rd month (10 April 1198); Go-Toba has ruled from the cloister since then

Born

Tsuchimikado born Kenkyū 6/12/2 (3 January 1196 Julian), so three by Western count; Go-Toba born in the summer of 1180, so nineteen

Family

Go-Toba is a son of Takakura and a grandson of Go-Shirakawa; Tsuchimikado's mother is Zaishi (Ariko, 1171-1257), the adopted daughter of Minamoto no Michichika

Confidence

high

Dates from the English Wikipedia pages on Tsuchimikado, Go-Toba and Michichika, converted as those pages give them (Julian). The regent and the ministers are from the brief and recollection.

Overlord

none in law; Kamakura holds the military and police rights the court granted in 1185 and confirmed to the new head of its house in 1199

What the realm holds

• The Kinai provinces Yamashiro (Kyoto), Kawachi, Izumi and Settsu (Yamato is Kōfukuji's)
• Ōmi (the provincial seat at Seta), Tanba, Tango, Tajima and Wakasa
• The San'yō and San'in provinces and the four provinces of Shikoku, mostly assigned as benefice provinces (chigyō-koku) to courtiers and temples
• North Kyūshū under the Dazaifu (Chikuzen, Chikugo, Buzen, Bungo, Hizen, Higo), with Tsushima and Iki
• The estates of the cloistered emperors (the Chōkōdō and Hachijō-in blocks) and of the regent houses, scattered through every province
• A title over the islands of Tane, Yaku and Tokara; the court itself called Amami 'beyond Japan's administration' in 1188

How it was acquired

Inherited: the Heian state, hollowed out since the 1180s by the Genpei war, by the grant of constables and stewards to Kamakura in 1185 and by the burning of Nara in 1180.

Allies and rivals

Go-Toba and Michichika hold together against the Kujō house, which is out of office since the coup of 1196. Michichika is also at odds with Ichijō Takayoshi, Kamakura's man in the capital, who is said to have plotted against him after Yoritomo's death in 1199, and he shares the cloistered household with Go-Toba's nurse Fujiwara no Kenshi [not yet checked against the source], a second centre of favour. The great temples (Enryakuji, Onjōji, Kōfukuji, Tōdaiji, Kumano) are each a power the court must bargain with, not command.

The realm that morning

On 1 January 1200 (Shōji 1/12/13 by the lunar count; the new year, Shōji 2/1/1, falls on 18 January) the court is calm and the capital is at peace. Wars: none on this ground. Feuds in force: Enryakuji against Onjōji (the Sanmon and the Jimon, over the Tendai succession and Onjōji's wish for its own ordination platform); Kōfukuji and Enryakuji against each other; Michichika's party against the fallen Kujō; Michichika against Takayoshi.

Truce of convenience: Go-Toba and Kamakura, which each need the other and neither has tested the other since Yoritomo died. Not yet: the Saimen guard (1200), Morinari as crown prince (1200), the Wakadokoro (1201), the Shin Kokinshū (ordered 1201), Michichika's death (1202), the Rokuhara tandai (1221) and the Jōkyū war (1221).

Wealth

Rice and cloth tax from the provinces that still pay it, dues from the estates of the cloistered emperors, offices given for service, and, in the west, a share of the Song trade at Hakata through the Dazaifu. Song copper cash circulates in the ports and the capital; the court mints nothing.

Military

No standing army. The guard of the cloistered emperor's palace (the north-face guard, hokumen), soon to be joined by the west-face guard (Saimen, dated 1200 by recollection); the kebiishi police; Kamakura's housemen on capital guard; and the armed monks of the great temples, who are as often the court's opponents as its tools.

Threats

• A Kamakura that settles its quarrels and turns on the court's independence (not before 1203)
• Armed petitions (gōso) from Enryakuji and Kōfukuji, who carry the Hie and Kasuga sacred objects to the palace gates
• Fire and flood in the capital, and famine: the Yōwa famine of 1181-1182 is within living memory

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.

In 1200

1. Shōji 2 (1200), 4th month by the lunar count, about mid-April to mid-May; the day is not pinnedGo-Toba's third son Morinari (b. 22 October 1197, the later Juntoku) is made crown prince, and Michichika becomes his tutor (English Wikipedia gives the year only)Depends on: Go-Toba's favour for Morinari; Michichika still alive and in office Stopped by: Michichika's earlier death or a successful challenge by Tsuchimikado's mother's house
2. 1200, month not knownGo-Toba forms the Saimen (west-face) guard, a guard of his own beside the old north-face guardDepends on: Go-Toba's wish for armed men not tied to Kamakura Stopped by: A quarrel with Kamakura that makes the recruits unreliable

Later, on the likely course

1. Kennin 1 (the era begins in the 2nd month of 1201)New era name; the Wakadokoro (poetry office) is founded in 1201 and the Shin Kokinshū is ordered in the 11th month of 1201Depends on: Go-Toba's court life continues Stopped by: A collapse of the Go-Toba and Michichika partnership
2. Kennin 2/10/21 (about 7 November 1202 Julian)Michichika dies suddenly; Kujō Yoshitsune replaces Motomichi as regent (sesshō) late in 1202 or early in 1203Depends on: Go-Toba's decision to rule without Michichika Stopped by: Michichika's survival

Places of note

• Kyoto, the capital: The Left City is built up; the Right City is marsh and ruins; the great palace (Daidairi) burned in 1177 and the emperor lives in borrowed mansions (satodairi)
• Toba-dono: The retired emperors' south palace, in use by Go-Toba (board)

Where the sources disagree

• The OMNIA board blurb says Tsuchimikado is on the throne from 1198 and Go-Toba holds real power as cloistered emperor: right in form, but the working head of the court is Michichika until 1202 (board, kyoto-heian-kyo).
• English Wikipedia (Michichika) names Ichijō Yoshiyasu in the plot of 1199; Yoshiyasu died in 1197, so his son Takayoshi is meant (brief).
• The brief dates the Saimen to 1200; no source we could open confirms the month, so they are not shown as existing on 1 January.

Evidence: The English Wikipedia pages for Go-Toba, Tsuchimikado, Juntoku and Michichika give the main dates; the regent's years and the Saimen are recollection (ja.wikipedia, ja.wikisource and zh.wikipedia were refused or not found). Gyokuyō ends with Kanezane's fall; Meigetsuki (Teika) is the best diary for 1200 but was not read.

On the map: The colour kyoto covers ground where court-appointed governors take the main revenue; every province record says where a temple, a constable or the Shimazu hold more.

Primary sources for this realm

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
• Draft Compilation of the Collected Statutes of the Song, Various; the Song huiyao were compiled by the Song state, the surviving draft reassembled by Xu Song from the Yongle dadian in the nineteenth century (the original Song compilations date from the eleventh to the thirteenth century; the surviving extracts were recovered in 1809 to 1820 and printed in 1936). Dated extracts from the Song government's own statute collections, arranged by office. Read online
• Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200. 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
• An Account of My Hut, Kamo no Chomei (鴨長明) (1212). A short essay on impermanence by a Kyoto poet and shrine official who had failed to win his family's post at the Kamo shrine. Read online