High Country Heritage

In about 1192, Yoritomo assumed leadership and became Japan’s first shogun. A shogun is a hereditary title given to military commanders. Frequently, the shoguns operated as the real power behind the emperor. This form of government was known as a shogunate. Yoritomo was the first shogun in the Kamakura era, so named because Yoritomo established his political center in the city of Kamakura. The Kamakura era lasted nearly 150 years, from 1185 until 1333. In the beginning, Yorimoto quickly moved to eliminate his enemies. He eliminated individuals who had been his allies during the war. He even killed two of his brothers, both of whom had assisted him during the war. To make sure that his brothers’ families would not challenge him, he even had their infant sons killed! Thus, the Kamakura era started in a bloodbath, a tragic pattern that continued through much of this era.

demise of the brutal Kamakura shogun leadership left a vacuum that was briefly filled by Emperor Go-Daigo. He was older, wiser, and more able to exert his leadership over the shogun than were emperors during the Kamakura era. He defeated all of the remaining Kamakura leaders except one, Shogun Ashikaga Takauji, who had established a rival dynasty with his own emperor in a capital near Kyoto. Thus, there were two competing imperial courts. In time, however, Ashikaga became ruler of all Japan.

Ashikaga ushered in the Muromachi period in Japan’s history, so named because he set up his capital in Muromachi, an area near Kyoto. He passed the title of shogun onto his son and thus the hereditary line of the family was established for the Muromachi era. This era was marked by less centralized power than under the Kamakura and by the rising power of the daimyo, which means “great names.” Most of the daimyo were military men who had accumulated power, samurai, land, and wealth.

In the 1540s, the Portuguese arrived in Japan. They brought two important things to Japan: firearms and Christianity. The introduction of firearms increased the technology available to warring factions in Japan and made killing easier. Those daimyo who were able to secure these new weapons rapidly gained superiority over rivals who only had traditional weapons. After the arrival of the Europeans, more years of bloody conflict followed and thousands of people died in fighting.

 

In the 1560s, a daimyo named Oda Nobunaga tried to unite and bring Japan under his leadership. Before Nobunaga could accomplish this goal, however, he was assassinated. His death and those of other strong leaders caused a continuing power struggle until Tokugawa Ieyasu seized control in 1603. This started the era that historians call the Tokugawa, or Edo, period. Edo is the early name for Tokyo. Tokugawa Ieyasu moved the capital to Tokyo in the early 1600s. To control the daimyo, the Tokugawa shoguns required that all daimyo spend half of the year in Tokyo and half on their estate. In Tokyo, the central government could keep an eye on these local leaders. Spies were used to gather information and root out traitors.