Japanese historians regard Fujiwara Shinzei as chiefly responsible for these untoward events. Shinzei's record shows him to have been cruel, jealous, and self-seeking, but it has to be admitted that the conditions of the time were calculated to educate men of his type, as is shown by the story of the Hogen insurrection. For when Sutoku's partisans assembled at the palace of Shirakawa, Minamoto Tametomo addressed them thus: "I fought twenty battles and two hundred minor engagements to win Kyushu, and I say that when an enemy is outnumbered, its best plan is a night attack. If we fire the Takamatsu palace on three sides to-night and assault it from the fourth, the foe will surely be broken. I see on the other side only one man worthy to be called an enemy. It is my brother Yoshitomo, and with a single arrow I can lay him low. As for Taira Kiyomori, he will fall if I do but shake the sleeve of my armour. Before dawn we shall be victors."
Fujiwara Yorinaga's reply to this counsel was: "Tametomo's method of fighting is rustic. There are here two Emperors competing for the throne, and the combat must be conducted in a fair and dignified manner." To such silliness the Minamoto hero made apt answer. "War," he said, "is not an affair of official ceremony and decorum. Its management were better left to the bushi whose business it is. My brother Yoshitomo has eyes to see an opportunity. To-night, he will attack us.". It is true that Tametomo afterwards refrained from taking his brother's life, but the above proves that he would not have exercised any such forbearance had victory been attainable by ruthlessness. History does not often repeat itself so exactly as it did in these Hogen and Heiji struggles. Fujiwara Yorinaga's refusal to follow Tametomo's advice and Fujiwara Nobuyori's rejection of Yoshitomo's counsels were wholly responsible for the disasters that ensued, and were also illustrative of the contempt in which the Fujiwara held the military magnates, who, in turn, were well aware of the impotence of the Court nobles on the battle-field.
The manner of Yoshitomo's death, too, reveals something of the ethics of the bushi in the twelfth century. Accompanied by Kamada Masaie and a few others, the Minamoto chief escaped from the fight and took refuge in the house of his concubine, Enju, at Awobaka in Owari. There they were surrounded and attacked by the Taira partisans. The end seemed inevitable. Respite was obtained, however, by one of those heroic acts of self-sacrifice that stand so numerously to the credit of the Japanese samurai. Minamoto Shigenari, proclaiming himself to be Yoshitomo, fought with desperate valour, killing ten of the enemy. Finally, hacking his own face so that it became unrecognizable, he committed suicide. Meanwhile, Yoshitomo had ridden away to the house of Osada Tadamune, father of his comrade Masaie's wife. There he found a hospitable reception. But when he would have pushed on at once to the east, where the Minamoto had many partisans, Tadamune, pointing out that it was New Year's eve, persuaded him to remain until the 3d of the first month.
Whether this was done of fell purpose or out of hospitality is not on record, but it is certain that Tadamune and his son, Kagemune, soon determined to kill Yoshitomo, thus avoiding a charge of complicity and earning favour at Court. Their plan was to conceal three men in a bathroom, whither Yoshitomo should be led after he had been plied with sake at a banquet. The scheme succeeded in part, but as Yoshitomo's squire, Konno, a noted swordsman, accompanied his chief to the bath, the assassins dared not attack. Presently, however, Konno went to seek a bath-robe, and thereupon the three men leaped out. Yoshitomo hurled one assailant from the room, but was stabbed to death by the other two, who, in their turn, were slaughtered by the squire. Meanwhile, Masaie was sitting, unsuspicious, at the wine-party in a distant chamber. Hearing the tumult he sprang to his feet, but was immediately cut down by Tadamune and Kagemune. At this juncture Masaie's wife ran in, and crying, "I am not faithless and evil like my father and my brother; my death shall show my sincerity," seized her husband's sword and committed suicide, at which sight the dying man smiled contentedly. As for Konno, after a futile attempt to lay hands on Tadamune and Kagemune, he cut his way through their retainers and rode off safely. The heads of Yoshitomo and Masaie were carried to Kyoto by Tadamune and Kagemune, but they made so much of their exploit and clamoured for such high reward that Kiyomori threatened to punish them for the murder of a close connexion—Kiyomori, be it observed, on whose hands the blood of his uncle was still wet.
Yoshitomo had many sons* but only four of them escaped from the Heiji tumult. The eldest of these was Yoritomo, then only fourteen. After killing two men who attempted to intercept his flight, he fell into the hands of Taira Munekiyo, who, pitying his youth, induced Kiyomori's step-mother to intercede for his life, and he was finally banished to Izu, whence, a few years later, he emerged to the destruction of the Taira. A still younger son, Yoshitsune, was destined to prove the most renowned warrior Japan ever produced. His mother, Tokiwa, one of Yoshitomo's mistresses, a woman of rare beauty, fled from the Minamoto mansion during a snow-storm after the Heiji disaster, and, with her three children, succeeded in reaching a village in Yamato, where she might have lain concealed had not her mother fallen into the hands of Kiyomori's agents. Tokiwa was then required to choose between giving herself up and suffering her mother to be executed. Her beauty saved the situation. Kiyomori had no sooner seen her face than he offered to have mercy if she entered his household and if she consented to have her three sons educated for the priesthood. Thus, Yoshitsune survived, and in after ages people were wont to say of Kiyomori's passion and its result that his blissful dream of one night had brought ruin on his house.
*One of these sons, Tomonaga, fell by his father's hand. Accompanying Yoshitomo's retreat, he had been severely wounded, and he asked his father to kill him rather than leave him at Awobake to fall into the hands of the Taira. Yoshitomo consented, though the lad was only fifteen years of age.
THE TAIRA AND THE FUJIWARA
In human affairs many events ascribed by onlookers to design are really the outcome of accident or unforseen opportunity. Historians, tracing the career of Taira no Kiyomori, ascribe to him singular astuteness in creating occasions and marked promptness in utilizing them. But Kiyomori was not a man of original or brilliant conceptions. He had not even the imperturbability essential to military leadership. The most prominent features of his character were unbridled ambition, intolerance of opposition, and unscrupulous pursuit of visible ends. He did not initiate anything but was content to follow in the footsteps of the Fujiwara. It has been recorded that in 1158—after the Hogen tumult, but before that of Heiji—he married his daughter to a son of Fujiwara Shinzoi. In that transaction, however, Shinzei's will dominated. Two years later, the Minamoto's power having been shattered, Kiyomori gave another of his daughters to be the mistress of the kwampaku, Fujiwara Motozane. There was no offspring of this union, and when, in 1166, Motozane died, he left a five-year-old son, Motomichi, born of his wife, a Fujiwara lady. This boy was too young to succeed to the office of regent, and therefore had no title to any of the property accruing to the holder of that post, who had always been recognized as de jure head of the Fujiwara family. Nevertheless, Kiyomori, having contrived that the child should be entrusted to his daughter's care, asserted its claims so strenuously that many of the Fujiwara manors and all the heirlooms were handed over to it, the result being a visible weakening of the great family's influence.*
*See Murdoch's History of Japan.