was the second ''

shōgun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamaku ...

'' (1202–1203) of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

Kamakura shogunate The was the feudal military government of Japan during the Kamakura period from 1185 to 1333. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Kamakura-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 459. The Kamakura shogunate was established by Minamoto no ...

, and the first son of first shōgun

Yoritomo was the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate of Japan, ruling from 1192 until 1199.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Minamoto no Yoriie" in . He was the husband of Hōjō Masako who acted as regent (''shikken'') after his ...

. His

Dharma name A Dharma name or Dhamma name is a new name acquired during both lay and monastic Buddhist initiation rituals in Mahayana Buddhism and monastic ordination in Theravada Buddhism (where it is more proper to call it Dhamma or Sangha name). The nam ...

was Hokke-in-dono Kingo Da'i Zengo (法華院殿金吾大禅閤).

Life

Minamoto no Yoriie was born to

Hōjō Masako was a Japanese politician who exercised significant power in the early years of the Kamakura period, which was reflected by her contemporary sobriquet of the "nun shogun". She was the wife of Minamoto no Yoritomo, and mother of Minamoto no Yo ...

Hiki Yoshikazu was a Japanese samurai lord and a powerful ''gokenin'' of the Kamakura Shogunate during the Kamakura period. He was related to the ruling Minamoto clan through his daughter's marriage. He, and much of the Hiki clan, were killed for allegedly co ...

's residence in

Kamakura is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939. Kamak ...

.Yasuda (1990:592-593) Before he was born, his father Yoritomo had

Hōjō Tokimasa was a Japanese samurai lord who was the first ''shikken'' (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate and head of the Hōjō clan. He was ''shikken'' from 1203 until his abdication in 1205, and Protector of Kyoto from 1185 to 1186. Background The H� ...

and his men carry stones to build the Dankazura on

Wakamiya Ōji is a 1.8 km street in Kamakura, a city in Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan, unusual because it is at the same time the city's main avenue and the approach () of its largest Shinto shrine, Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū. Over the centuries Wakamiya ...

to pray for the child's safe delivery. When Yoriie later himself had an heir, Ichiman, the child was also born at the Hiki mansionThe mansion no longer exists and its location () is occupied by Myōhon-ji a temple dedicated to the memory of the Hiki clan, exterminated by the

Hōjō clan The was a Japanese samurai family who controlled the hereditary title of ''shikken'' (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate between 1203 and 1333. Despite the title, in practice the family wielded actual political power in Japan during this period ...

. to Hiki's daughter Wakasa no Tsubone, a fact which further consolidated an already strong emotional bond.Kamiya Vol. 1 (2008:44-45) From this relationship Hiki gained considerable influence when Yoriie became shōgun, incurring the hostility of

, who was instead close to Yoriie's younger brother Senman (future third shōgun Sanetomo), and who was in his turn trying to leverage that relationship for political advantage. His childhood name was Manju (万寿). When he was young, he was interested in military arts like fencing, and horse-riding. After his father's death in 1199, the 17-year-old became head of the

Minamoto was one of the surnames bestowed by the Emperors of Japan upon members of the imperial family who were excluded from the line of succession and demoted into the ranks of the nobility from 1192 to 1333. The practice was most prevalent during the ...

clan and was appointed ''sei-i taishōgun'' in 1202. He was, however, criticized for his abandonment of his father's policies, and his mother forbade him from any political activity. On June 30, 1203, his remaining powers were formally taken from him and assumed by a council of 13 elders, headed by his grandfather

. He ordained as a Buddhist monk. Yoriie, in turn, plotted with the Hiki to subjugate the Hōjō clan. However, he failed, and was put under house arrest, where he was forced to abdicate. Then in July 17, 1204, he was assassinated in his mansion in Izu. Yoriie was succeeded by his younger brother Sanetomo, the last of the

to rule over

Hiki Yoshikazu's rebellion

Seriously ill, Yoriie proposed to name both his younger brother, Minamoto no Sanetomo, and his young son Minamoto no Ichiman to succeed him; the two would split power, governing separate parts of the country. It seemed natural to them that Hiki would then be the regent, even if unofficially, of young Ichiman. Hiki suggested to Yoriie that they arrange to have Sanetomo killed.

, Yoriie's mother and wife of the first shōgun Yoritomo, allegedly overheard the conversation. On a pretext,

invited

to his home and assassinated him. A battle between the clans ensued, the Hiki were defeated by a coalition of the Hōjō, Wada, Miura and Hatakeyama clans and were exterminated. Yoriie died in Shuzenji, a small town in what was later called

Izu Province was a province of Japan in the area of Shizuoka Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Izu''" in . Izu bordered on Sagami and Suruga Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . The mainland portion of Izu Province, comprising th ...

, assassinated by his grandfather

Two sons of Yoriie

Yoriie had two sons, Ichiman,

Kugyō is the collective term for the very few most powerful men attached to the court of the Emperor of Japan in pre- Meiji eras. The term generally referred to the and court officials and denoted a court rank between First Rank and Third Rank un ...

. Minamoto no Yoshiko married to fourth shōgun of

Kujō Yoritsune , also known as , was the fourth ''shōgun'' of the Kamakura shogunate of Japan. His father was '' kanpaku'' Kujō Michiie and his grandmother was a niece of Minamoto no Yoritomo. His wife was a granddaughter of Minamoto no Yoritomo and daughter o ...

. But all of his son were killed, falling victim of the power struggle that followed Yoritomo's sudden death. Ichiman (1198–1203) was the eldest. His mother, Wakasa no Tsubone, was

's daughter, and the child was brought up by the Hiki clan. It is claimed that he allegedly died in the fire that destroyed the Hiki residence. And his second son Yoshinari, who was the only one to reached adulthood, was forced to become a Buddhist monk. And in 1219, he murdered his uncle Sanetomo on the stone stairs at Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū in the shogunal capital of

, an act for which he was himself slain on the same day.Kusumoto (2002: 70–73)

Family

* Father:

Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate of Japan, ruling from 1192 until 1199.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Minamoto no Yoriie" in . He was the husband of Hōjō Masako who acted as regent (''shikken'') after his ...

* Mother:

* Wife: Wakasa no Tsubone (d. 1203) * Children: ** Minamoto no Ichiman **

Eras of Yoriie's ''bakufu''

The years in which Yoriie was shōgun are all within only one

era name A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin ''regnum'' meaning kingdom, rule. Regnal years considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year of ...

or ''

nengō The , also known as , is the first of the two elements that identify years in the Japanese era calendar scheme. The second element is a number which indicates the year number within the era (with the first year being ""), followed by the literal ...

'': ''

Kennin was a after ''Shōji'' and before '' Genkyū.'' This period spanned the years from February 1201 through February 1204. The reigning emperor was . Change of era * 1201 ; 1201: The new era name was created to mark an event of shin'yū (辛酉) ...

'' (1201–1204).

Notes

References

* * * Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005)
''Japan encyclopedia''.
Cambridge:

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...

.
OCLC 58053128
* Papinot, Edmond. (1906) ''Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie du japon''. Tokyo: Librarie Sansaish
..Click link for digitized 1906 ''Nobiliaire du japon'' (2003)
* Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). ''

Nihon Ōdai Ichiran , ', is a 17th-century chronicle of the serial reigns of Japanese emperors with brief notes about some of the noteworthy events or other happenings. According to the 1871 edition of the '' American Cyclopaedia'', the 1834 French translation of ...

''; ou
''Annales des empereurs du Japon''.
Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland
OCLC 5850691
*

External links

by the Kamakura Citizen's Net, accessed on September 30, 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Minamoto no, Yoriie 1182 births 1204 deaths 12th-century Japanese people 13th-century Japanese people 13th-century shōguns Kamakura shōguns Minamoto clan People from Kamakura People of Heian-period Japan People of Kamakura-period Japan Kamakura period Buddhist clergy Assassinated Japanese people