Court politics at Heian in 1159, the first year of the Heiji era, wereguided by the complex web of rivalries, ambitions, personal rela tionships, and alliances that had arisen at court following the Hogen conflict three years earlier. Go-Shirakawa had come to the throne in 1155 as a stopgap successor transitional to the accession of his sonNijo. When he abdicated in favor of Nijo in the fall of 1158, the rela tionship between the two was for that reason even more tense than usual in the case of an ex-emperor who would rule as senior retired emperor and a reigning emperor. Bifukumon-in, former mistress of the late ex-emperor Toba and an original supporter of Nijo in the succession struggles, was still alive, exercising a powerful influence at court as a result of her relationship with Nijo and also because of the vast shoen wealth that had come to her from Toba.
Emperor Nijo was still young, only fifteen years old, but he had a reputation for quick intelligence, and he was intent on ruling the court in his own right, after the manner of his father, whose wishes he tended to ignore. He was supported in that ambition and advisedby two skilled Fujiwara politicians: his maternal uncle, Grand Coun selor Tsunemune (1119-89), and his wet-nurse’s son, Korekata (fl. 1125-66), the Superintendent of the Imperial Police (kebiishi no betid). Warriors in the emperor’s entourage included Minamoto no Yoshitomo’s senior kinsmen Mitsuyasu (1095-1160), the father of ex-emperor Toba’s last mistress, who had served as a wet-nurse to Nijo, and Minamoto noYorimasa (1104-80), who had long been in the employ of imperial family members and remained loyal now to his sovereign, even eventually turning his back on his own clan leader to follow Nijo into the embrace of the Taira.
The control of the court that had been exercised by Shinzei since the Hogen Disturbance was now endangered by the strength of theemperor’s party and more particularly by the rapid growth in influ ence of a new favorite of Go-Shirakawa, Fujiwara no Nobuyori(1133-60), who seemed to be on the verge of usurping Shinzei’s for merly dominant role. Shinzei was alive to the danger and endeavored to bring Nobuyori into disrepute with the ex-emperor, denigrating him at every opportunity, but the result was only to incense Nobuyori further against himself. The relations between Nobuyori and Shinzeireached their nadir when Shinzei succeeded in blocking the appoint ment of Nobuyori to a key office that was usually a stepping-stone to high ministerial rank. Pleading illness, the enraged Nobuyori refused to attend court, staying in seclusion «to practice the military arts.»
Toward the end of the first year of the Heiji era, on a day corre sponding to a date in January 1160, Taira no Kiyomori, in fulfillment of a vow, left the capital accompanied by his eldest son, Shigemori(1138-79), and a small body of followers on a pilgrimage to Ku mano, a well-known and popular sacred site of important shrines,mystics, and mysticism near the west coast of Ise Bay in the south ern part of modern Mie Prefecture. The shrines were about 175miles distant by the circuitous route around the mountains that usu ally required a minimum five days to traverse.
Just five days after Kiyomori’s departure, his chief rivals at court, Nobuyori and the Minamoto chieftain Yoshitomo, began to moveagainst him and his patron Shinzei. Despite Yoshitomo’s critical ser vices at the time of the Hogen conflict, his fortunes had been checked by Kiyomori acting in league with Shinzei, and he was quick now tojoin a cause that might offer remedy for that injustice. The Nobuyori Yoshitomo alliance was joined by other disaffected warriors and by courtiers seeking to strengthen Emperor Nijo’s personal control of the court, notably Tsunemune and Korekata. Its military core and most of its strength was Minamoto.
On the ninth of the twelfth month of the Heiji year, a body of mounted men under the command of Yoshitomo and Nobuyori forced ex-emperor Go-Shirakawa to vacate his Sanjo palace and move to the Greater Imperial Palace, where he and Emperor Nijo were held under house arrest. Fire was set to the palace at Sanjo andto Shinzei’s residence next door with great loss of life. On the fol lowing day, Nobuyori exercised his new power at court to rid the government of Shinzei’s sympathizers and to obtain the dismissal of Shinzei and Kiyomori from their official posts. He also obtained for himself a coveted appointment to a high ministerial post and for Yoshitomo the governorship of Harima that had just been snatched from Kiyomori. Shinzei fled to Nara, where a few days later he was caught and executed following a suicide attempt interrupted by his executioners. His severed head was brought back to the capital for public display like that of a common criminal, and the revenge of Nobuyori seemed complete.
Kiyomori, whose absence from the capital had created the oppor tunity for the conspirators, was at a post station on the Pacific coast toward the tip of the Kii peninsula when a messenger reached him with news of the untoward events at court. After some vacillation, he set out for the capital at die head of his small retinue, now grown with local reinforcement to one hundred mounted men. Picking up the support of three hundred additional men en route, he enteredhis Rokuhara residence in the city just a few days later, on the sev enteenth of the month. He made an initial show of submission to the newly triumphant regime, but when on the twenty-sixth Emperor Nijo, disenchanted with Nobuyori’s highhanded ways and advised by Tsunemune and Korekata, managed to slip out of the imperialpalace disguised as a woman to join the Taira at Rokuhara, Yoshi tomo and Nobuyori were clearly defined as rebels and the Rokuhara Taira acquired the legitimacy of an imperial army. On the same day, Go-Shirakawa also escaped custody at the imperial palace and fled to the Ninnaji Temple.
The day after the flight of Nijo and Go-Shirakawa, on the twenty seventh of the month, the Taira force under Shigemori launched anattack on the forces ofYoshitomo and Nobuyori at the Greater Im perial Palace. The attackers withdrew after fierce fighting, luring theMinamoto out of the palace, which the Taira were then able to occupy and secure. The dispossessed Minamoto advanced on Roku hara, where Kiyomori waited to do battle with them, crushing them and sending them into headlong retreat toward their homelands in the east. After only a few hours of actual fighting between troops of several hundred horsemen, the conflict was over.
The badly frightened Nobuyori, fleeing for his life before the final battle, was caught and executed near Rokuhara on the bed of theKamo River at Rokujo. His age was just twenty-six. Yoshitomo at tempted to flee to the east, but he was betrayed and killed at a refuge in Owari Province. Yoshitomo’s two older sons were executed, and the thirteen-year-old Yoritomo would have suffered the same fate butfor the plea of Kiyomori’s stepmother, Ike no Zenni. He was banished to Izu, placed in the custody of a trusted Taira ally, H6j6 Toki masa.The infant Yoshitsune was also spared and was assigned to the priesthood. The Taira victory over the Minamoto appeared to be complete and the Minamoto toryo line at an end. But in a remarkable reversal of fate, the brothers Yoritomo andYoshitsune survived to lead the Minamoto to victory over the Taira twenty-five years later.
The Heiji Disturbance had its beginnings in the rivalries and jeal ousies among confidants of Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa andEmperor Nijo, but unlike the Hogen incident, its action was deter mined not by commands issued by emperors or court officials, but by warrior chieftains acting on their own personal ambitions. The events revealed to the warriors the powerlessness of the court and the first hints of the political realities of the warriors’ military power.
Nevertheless, it is probably premature to speak of this time as the beginning of warrior rule, as some historians have. It is at about this time, when the military and political landscape was changing and warriors acted more on their own initiative, that the term bushi came into use in referring to warriors. (The term existed in Nara and early Heian times, when it referred neither to warriors or military officials [bukan], but rather to literati who were skilled in military arts.)