Minamoto no Yoshitsune
Minamoto no Yoshitsune (源 義経? 1159 – June 15, 1189) was a general of the clan Minamoto of Japan who lived in the late Heian period and early Kamakura period. He is one of the most prominent samurai in Japanese history, known for being one of the key members of the Minamoto clan that allowed it to recover from the military failures it had suffered in the previous three years and defeat and annihilate in just one year. to the previously dominant Taira clan during the Genpei Wars in 1185.
With this victory, the Minamoto consolidated their power as the dominant clan in Japan. An older brother of Yoshitsune, Minamoto no Yoritomo, founded that same year the Kamakura shogunate, the first in the country, which marked the transition of power from the courtly to the warrior classes and became an alternate power that rivaled that of the emperor of Japan., who was relegated as a ceremonial and religious leader for the following seven hundred years.
However, his own brother Yoritomo was the one who pursued Yoshitsune for the next four years and ended his life tragically at the age of 30. Yoshitsune's story is closely framed between historical events and some more associated with Japanese folklore. His life has been reviewed from classic and traditional works of the time such as Heike Monogatari to video games, films and TV series. latest manga and anime.
Start
Yoshitsune belonged to the Minamoto clan, specifically to the Seiwa Genji branch, one of the most powerful and successful samurai branches in Japanese history, whose founder, Minamoto no Tsunemoto, was the grandson of Emperor Seiwa (850-880); From this branch Yoshitsune came from the Kawachi Genji line, one of the three lines derived from the Seiwa Genji and whose founder was Minamoto no Yorinobu, grandson of Tsunemoto and second-degree great-great-grandfather of Yoshitsune. Yoshitsune was the ninth son of Minamoto no Yoshitomo, who was head of the clan at the time of Yoshitsune's birth; and his mother was Tokiwa Gozen, Yoshitomo's concubine.
He was born shortly before the Heiji Rebellion of 1159, in which the Minamoto and Taira clans, bitter rivals since they had the same imperial origin, sought to obtain influence in the Imperial Court in Kyoto, with the Minamoto supporting the cloistered Emperor Go- Shirakawa and the Taira to Emperor Nijō; The rebellion, however, was quickly put down by the Taira. With this victory, this clan, led by Taira no Kiyomori, ensured its growing influence in the political environment of Japan, and laid the foundations for the establishment of the power of the samurai warrior class within the country.
With this supremacy, the Taira clan murdered Yoshitomo and Yoshitsune's two older brothers, Minamoto no Yoshihira (20 years old) and Minamoto no Tomonaga (16 years old). As a baby, Yoshitsune's life was spared and he was sent to the Kurama Temple, established on Mount Kurama, near Kyoto, and was given the name Ushiwakamaru, while his brother Yoritomo (Yoshitomo's third son) was exiled to the province of Izu and Minamoto no Noriyori, another brother of Yoshitsune, was also separated and exiled, while his mother Tokiwa Gozen was spared her life, in exchange for forgetting her children and becoming Kiyomori's concubine. Shortly after, Yoshitsune, by order of Kiyomori, was sent to the town of Hiraizumi and placed under the protection of Fujiwara no Hidehira, leader of the powerful northern Fujiwara clan, which controlled the province of Mutsu, north of the island of Honshu.
Very little is known about Yoshitsune's childhood and youth; some historians of the time filled this period of his life with a series of fantastic adventures; one of the most famous is the one in which Yoshitsune ran away as a young man for a time and was trained in Japanese swordsmanship and combat tactics by Sōjōbō, the mythical king of the tengu, a kind of minor deity within Japanese mythology that lived in the mountains. Apparently, it would have received the name Shanao during this time.
Confrontation with the Taira
Background
The reigns of Emperor Nijō (1158-1165), Emperor Rokujō (1165-1168) and Emperor Takakura (1168-1180) were not very notable since the three emperors ruled as children and were forced to abdicate by the Taira clan.; royal power was divided between the cloistered emperor Go-Shirakawa and Taira no Kiyomori, now converted into Dajō Daijin (chancellor of the Kingdom, with power equivalent to the current prime minister) since 1167; He was the first and only samurai to obtain this title since its creation in 702. The Taira clan was slowly settling its members within the Imperial Court of Kyoto, so little by little this warrior caste began to adopt qualities typical of the courtesan class.
In 1180, after the forced abdication of Emperor Takakura, the one-year-old Emperor Antoku ascended the throne, who on his mother's side belonged to the Taira clan, and was the grandson of Kiyomori. Prince Mochihito, son of the cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa, claimed the imperial title and issued a national call to form an army to fight against the Taira clan, a force in which the Minamoto clan was integrated. Shortly after, the Genpei Wars began—on May 6 of that same year. However, Prince Mochihito died in the First Battle of Uji on June 23 of that year, which turned the confrontation from that moment on into a bitter struggle between the two clans for power in the country.
The situation of the Minamoto clan was at first at stake because it did not manage to win any clash during the war until the battle of Kurikara, on June 2, 1183, three years after the conflict began, a victory that gave it a considerable advantage over the Taira clan. Also the death of Taira no Kiyomori in 1181 caused an acephaly in the leadership of the Taira that favored the Minamoto, since power was then distributed among their sons, although later Taira no Munemori became the new head of the clan.
The Battles of Yoshitsune
Yoshitsune, already being twenty years old, learned that his lost brother Yoritomo, now the leader of the clan, was fighting in said battles. Yoshitsune immediately left the northern Fujiwara clan in 1180 and joined Yoritomo in the Kanto region of western Honshu along with his other estranged brother Noriyori. Although it is not known with certainty what role Yoshitsune played in this conflict during 1180 and 1183, he must have had a prominent participation as an army commander in the last three clashes between the Taira and Minamoto clans between 1184 and 1185.
During the Genpei Wars, Yoshitsune met Saitō Musashibō Benkei, a skilled and strong sōhei (Buddhist warrior monk) from Kyoto and whose name is an important topic in Japanese folklore. Tradition has it that Benkei challenged those who carried swords to a duel, took those of those he defeated, and collected 999 swords. In his thousandth duel, Yoshitsune defeated Benkei; He then became a vassal and good friend of Yoshitsune and fought alongside him for the rest of his life.
Battles against Minamoto no Yoshinaka
In mid-1183, a faction emerged within the Minamoto clan that rivaled the power of Yoritomo and Yoshitsune and was headed by his cousin, Minamoto no Yoshinaka, who entered the imperial capital of Kyoto in late 1183, where he attempted kidnap Emperor Antoku and seize the Three Sacred Treasures of Japan during the Siege of Hōjūjidono in early 1184. He expelled members of the Taira clan, who moved with Emperor Antoku and the Sacred Treasures to the town of Yashima, on the island of Shikoku. After this event, Emperor Go-Toba, only three years old and grandson of the cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa, assumed the throne; At the same time, Yoshinaka received the title of shogun from the cloistered emperor.
Evidently Yoritomo did not want his cousin to seize power in the country, so he sent Yoshitsune to Kyoto to control what Yoritomo considered a rebellion. Thus, on February 19 of the same year, the Second Battle of Uji took place on the outskirts of Kyoto in which Yoshitsune, together with Noriyori and Kajiwara Kagetoki, an ally of the Minamoto, faced Yoshinaka's army. Yoshitsune divided his army into two sectors, one commanded by himself and the other by Noriyori; They fought with Yoshinaka's forces and quickly defeated them. When Yoshinaka learned that his army had been defeated, he quickly fled Kyoto with his few remaining men. This was Yoshitsune's first tactical victory in battle and he managed to thwart the new shogun's aspirations.
Two days later, Yoshitsune's forces engaged Yoshinaka's escaped men at the Battle of Awazu in Omi Province. Having a numerical advantage, Yoshitsune destroyed Yoshinaka's army, which fought to the death, including Yoshinaka himself, who performed seppuku.
Yoritomo then obtained the support of the cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa, and the reunification of both factions of the clan was consummated, which focused on the objective of defeating the Taira.
Battle of Ichi-no-Tani
Yoshitsune, Noriyori and Benkei clashed with the Taira clan; They were commissioned to fight in the western provinces. On March 13, 1184 they arrived near the Seto Inland Sea and where they fought the Battle of Ichi-no-Tani, an important coastal fortress dominated by the Taira in the province of Harima, west of present-day Kobe; This place had been the refuge of the Taira clan when Yoshinaka expelled them from Kyoto the previous year. The Ichi-no-Tani fortress was reinforced by two small forts, Mikusuyama, to the north, and Ikuta no Mori, to the west, and the rear of the fortress was protected by an elevation; In order to attack Ichi-no-Tani, the forts that surrounded it had to be attacked first.
Yoshitsune initially divided his army into two groups: one led by himself, which had ten thousand men and would advance through the west; and another of fifty thousand under the command of Noriyori, who would advance through the east. On the night of March 18, he approached the western flank of the Mikusuyama fort, managed to destroy it, and inflicted around five hundred deaths on the Taira clan. The three grandsons of Taira no Kiyomori who were defending the fort fled to the island of Shikoku, south of the Seto Inland Sea.
After this action Yoshitsune again divided his army into two parts: one of seven thousand men under the command of Doi Sanehira and who would go through the west of Ichi-no-Tani and another headed by Yoshitsune with three thousand men who would climb the mountains steep walls that protected the rear of the fortress. Noriyori's forces and Sanehira's forces immediately attacked both the Ikuta no Mori fort and the lower part of the fortress. Thus, Yoshitsune's group began to descend from the steep rear part of the fortress, having Benkei as a guide; The Taira, focused on the fight on both fronts, could do nothing when they saw them enter the fortress directly.
This battle was the most important of the war, especially because of the individual combats that were fought and because of the presence of the strongest men of the Taira clan. Many of the passages of this combat are dramatized in the play Heike Monogatari, as well as in nō and kabuki plays. In the end, the Taira clan was defeated and many of its members fled in boats to Yashima, to the south. Taira no Tadanori, one of the commanders of the fortress, was murdered and Taira no Shigehira, another of them, was taken prisoner and later executed for not committing seppuku.
Return to Kyoto
After Ichi-no-Tani, Yoshitsune and Noriyori considered pursuing the Taira at Yashima, the clan's main base on the island of Shikoku, but Yoritomo ordered his brothers not to continue the offensive and to return to Kyoto with the heads of its opponents as battle trophies. Thus, Yoshitsune remained in Kyoto for six months, from the end of 1184 to the beginning of 1185. Noriyori was sent in October 1184 to the western island of Kyushu to lead several battles against the Taira in that region.
During this period, Yoshitsune became Yoritomo's chief delegate and assumed the role of maintaining order in the territories controlled by the Minamoto clan, issuing edicts for the cessation of hostilities in said regions. He was also in charge of approving or vetoing any project or tax established without the consent of the clan.
However, during this stage his relationship with his brother Yoritomo began to deteriorate. One of the reasons was his refusal to grant Yoshitsune the noble titles that he had granted to Noriyori for the services rendered; the underlying reason was the attempt to keep Yoshitsune out of court.
Battle of Yashima
With Noriyori's plans for the invasion of Kyushu prepared, he was sent back to war. On March 22, 1185, Yoshitsune commanded a few hundred men to carry out an assault on the city of Yashima (present-day Takamatsu), on the island of Shikoku. Yashima was the new center of the Taira clan (which was suffering considerable defeats in the war) and had a fortress and palace there for Emperor Antoku and the Three Sacred Treasures of Japan, which he held.
Yoshitsune arranged a fleet of ships in the city of Watanabe, in the province of Settsu. In this battle, Kajiwara Kagetoki, an allied samurai argued intensely with Yoshitsune about what the combat strategy should be and caused an incident that discredited Yoshitsune in the future. On the night of the 22nd, he decided that it was the best time to embark, even though at that time the weather was terrible. Even so he ordered his men to embark. However, his subordinates refused to obey him. Yoshitsune threatened to kill anyone who disobeyed him, and so some decided to accompany him that night.
Yoshitsune arrived at the island of Shikoku at dawn and stationed himself five kilometers from Yashima; There he learned from a local samurai chief that the forces on Yashima were reduced, in part because a Taira expeditionary force had marched to Iyo Province. At that time Yashima was separated from the rest of the island by a narrow channel that could be crossed on horseback at low tide. The Taira castle was situated on the beach overlooking the island, and the ships were in a shallow area in front of the castle.
Again, Yoshitsune applied a stratagem: he lit bonfires near the fortress, in the sea, to think to the Taira that a naval battle was being fought with a superior force on the part of the Minamoto. The Taira abandoned the fortress and took the emperor and the Treasures, not realizing that the bulk of Yoshitsune's forces were on the ground. At that moment the battle in the canal began and Taira no Munemori realized that Yoshitsune's forces at sea were smaller than they initially believed. The fort at Yashima was burning in flames.
Then the Taira, with the purpose of belittling the enemy and making him waste his arrows, raised a fan on top of one of their ships and challenged the Minamoto to test their aim on the fan. Yoshitsune chose Nasu no Yoichi, a young and small archer, who, on his horse and in the middle of the canal, managed to hit the fan (if he missed he had to commit seppuku).
The next morning, the Taira were still sailing near the city of Shido, while Yoshitsune pursued them from the coast. According to the Heike Monogatari, the Taira overestimated the number of troops the Minamoto had and preferred to flee the island of Shikoku.
Due to this confusion, the Minamoto obtained the second victory thanks to Yoshitsune; However, Emperor Antoku and the Three Treasures, along with most of the members of the Taira clan, fled again, to Dan-no-Ura, in the Shimonoseki Strait, between Kyushu and Honshu.
Battle of Dan-no-Ura
The troops of the Taira clan regrouped in Nagato province (present-day Yamaguchi prefecture), in the far west of Honshu; Meanwhile, Yoshitsune crossed Shikoku towards the province of Suō, further east. With the news of Yoshitsune's victories, some warriors began to arrive in the region, which constituted a reinforcement of troops and ships.
On April 25, 1185, Yoshitsune's forces clashed with the Taira in a naval battle off the town of Dan-no-Ura. Yoshitsune had in his possession eight hundred and fifty ships. Although the Taira only had five hundred, they were aware that they had to fight to the death, since they had no escape. The battle began around eight in the morning; The tides, naval tactics, and knowledge of the battle zone were initially advantageous to the Taira clan.
The Taira had divided into three squads, while the Minamoto were stationed in a single group, with their archers ready. At the beginning of the battle, there was an attack with arrows, but the Taira took advantage of the tide to surround the Minamoto and several attacks with swords and daggers followed; As the hours passed, the tide changed and was taken advantage of by the Minamoto.
Unfortunately for the Taira, one of the generals in their command, Taguchi Shigeyoshi, approached Yoshitsune and revealed to him the ship where Emperor Antoku was. Yoshitsune then focused the attack on said ship; Many Taira clan fighters committed suicide before being defeated by the Minamoto. In this suicidal action were the widow of Taira no Kiyomori and her grandson, Emperor Antoku, who at just six years old died an abrupt death, jumping into the ocean.
With this battle, the Taira clan was almost completely destroyed; The Minamoto had already assured victory in the Genpei Wars and, incidentally, absolute control of Japan. The few survivors of the Taira clan, among them Taira no Munemori, were captured and sent to Kyoto, where they were executed at the end of 1185.
Recent years
After the Genpei Wars, Yoshitsune allied himself with the cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa to rebel against his brother Yoritomo. Abandoning the protection of Fujiwara no Hidehira for the second time, he was betrayed and murdered in 1189 by Fujiwara no Yasuhira, son of Hidehira.
The Shinto temple Shirahata Jinja in Fujisawa honors the memory of Yoshitsune.