The Kenmu Restoration: Japan's Emperor Strikes Back
The Kenmu Restoration was a brief return to imperial rule in early medieval Japan. Dominating the Japanese islands for more than a century had been the Kamakura Shogunate, a result of the supplanting of the emperor by a strong warlord, the first ruling shogun, Minamoto no Yoritomo. He and his successors were the nominal powers behind the throne from 1192 to 1331 (although many of the later Kamakura shogun were the lesser-empowered individuals who were figureheads for regency governments). 
After many decades of subjugation, the imperial forces struck back. In 1331, Emperor Go-Daigo (right) and his supporters launched a rebellion known as the Genko War. Go-Daigo had been emperor since 1318 but resented the shogun's power and made plans to rebel. He placed his trust in someone who betrayed that trust, as one of his advisors, Fujiwara Sadafusa, revealed the plot to the shogunate, which at that time was technically led by Prince Morikuni but was in fact controlled by regent Hojo Moritoki. The shogunate sent a large force to confront Go-Daigo, trapping him in the monastery of Kasagi and, after a siege, capturing him and exiling him, to the Oki Islands. Go-Daigo's son Prince Morinaga took up the mantle, rallied the troops, and was ready when his father escaped two years later and returned to the fray. In the ensuing clash, imperior forces scored a great victory at the Battle of Mount Senjosan; after that, many warlords switched sides, embracing a return to imperial rule. As it turned out, one of those was Ashikaga Takauji, who had been one of the shogunate's most trusted fighters. The defection of Takauji and many like him led to a turnabout, as imperial forces won a series of victories, driving the shogunate further and further from power. At last, imperial troops overran the city of Kamakura itself, forcing the shogun from power. Go-Daigo returned in triumph to Kyoto and reigned anew, as a revitalized, powerful emperor. This came to be known as the Kenmu Restoration, the name created to mark a new era. What the emperor found, however, was that the needs of the people had changed, in two fundamental ways. Under the shogunate, the samurai had enjoyed new power and new benefits; the emperor's taking some of those away alienated many samurai and their families. Go-Daigo did dole out to his biggest supporters many tracts of former Hojo lands, but he did that almost exclusively, neglecting to also reward some who had fought for him. As well, the emperor, in order to pay for a new palace, installed a new tax that applied only to samurai, because they had the most money. 
Go-Daigo also neglected the wants and needs of the working class, whose labor and support he needed to make the overall mechanisms of society succeed. So in a sense, in two short years, he made many enemies. One of those alienated was the very samurai who had switched sides earlier, Ashikaga Takauji. Go-Daigo did indeed handsomely reward Takauji and his brother Tadayoshi, but the emperor's other moves angered Takauji and others like him, and they eventually turned against their benefactor. Takauji, with the example of the Kamakura shogunate fresh in the Japanese consciousness, assumed more and more power, taking on more and more of what the shogun had done and what the emperor had reasserted control over – like appointing officials and organizing samurai into cadres of loyalty. Making a symbolic statement, Takauji had a mansion built in Okura, the same place that had housed the first Kamakura shogun, Minamoto no Yoritomo. It was then a time of dueling influences, as great bands of samurai who were pledged to the emperor kept that pledge while other great bands of samurai threw on their lot with their fellow samurai Takauji. It was yet another civil war, and the victor this time was Takauji. In February 1336, a victorious Takauji entered Kyoto, deposed the emperor, and officially ended the Kenmu Restoration. What followed then was the Ashikaga shogunate. . |
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