Emperor Go-Daigo


Emperor Go-Daigo was the 96th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. He successfully overthrew the Kamakura shogunate in 1333 and established the short-lived Kenmu Restoration to bring the Imperial House back into power. This was to be the last time the emperor had real power until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The Kenmu restoration was in turn overthrown by Ashikaga Takauji in 1336, ushering in the Ashikaga shogunate. The overthrow split the imperial family into two opposing factions between the Ashikaga backed Northern Court situated in Kyoto and the Southern Court based in Yoshino. The Southern Court was led by Go-Daigo and his later successors.

Biography

Before his ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne, his personal name was Takaharu-shinnō.
He was the second son of the Daikakuji-tō emperor, Emperor Go-Uda. His mother was Fujiwara no Chūshi/Tadako, daughter of Fujiwara no Tadatsugu . She became Nyoin called Dantenmon-in. His older brother was Emperor Go-Nijō.
Emperor Go-Daigo's ideal was the Engi era during the reign of Emperor Daigo, a period of direct imperial rule. An emperor's posthumous name was normally chosen after his death, but Emperor Go-Daigo chose his personally during his lifetime, to share it with Emperor Daigo.

Events of Go-Daigo's life

  • 1308 : At the death of Emperor Go-Nijō, Hanazono accedes to the Chrysanthemum Throne at age 12 years; and Takaharu-shinnō, the second son of former-Emperor Go-Uda is elevated as Crown Prince and heir apparent under the direction of the Kamakura shogunate.
  • 29 March 1318 : In the 11th year of Hanazono's reign, the emperor abdicated; and the succession was received by his cousin, the second son of former-Emperor Go-Uda. Shortly thereafter, Emperor Go-Daigo is said to have acceded to the throne.
  • 1319 : Emperor Go-Daigo caused the nengō to be changed to Gen'ō to mark the beginning of his reign.
In 1324, with the discovery of Emperor Go-Daigo's plans to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate, the Rokuhara Tandai disposed of his close associate Hino Suketomo in the.
In the Genkō Incident of 1331, Emperor Go-Daigo's plans were again discovered, this time by a betrayal by his close associate Yoshida Sadafusa. He quickly hid the Sacred Treasures in a secluded castle in Kasagiyama and raised an army, but the castle fell to the shogunate's army the following year, and they enthroned Emperor Kōgon, exiling Daigo to Oki Province, the same place to which Emperor Go-Toba had been exiled after the Jōkyū War of 1221.
In 1333, Emperor Go-Daigo escaped from Oki with the help of Nawa Nagatoshi and his family, raising an army at Senjo Mountain in Hōki Province. Ashikaga Takauji, who had been sent by the shogunate to find and destroy this army, sided with the emperor and captured the Rokuhara Tandai. Immediately following this, Nitta Yoshisada, who had raised an army in the east, laid siege to Kamakura. When the city finally fell to Nitta, Hōjō Takatoki, the shogunal regent, fled to Tōshō temple, where he and his entire family committed suicide. This ended Hōjō power and paved the way for a new military regime.
Upon his triumphal return to Kyoto, Daigo took the throne from Emperor Kōgon and began the Kenmu Restoration. The Restoration was ostensibly a revival of the older ways, but, in fact, the emperor had his eye set on an imperial dictatorship like that of the emperor of China. He wanted to imitate the Chinese in all their ways and become the most powerful ruler in the East. Impatient reforms, litigation over land rights, rewards, and the exclusion of the samurai from the political order caused much complaining, and his political order began to fall apart. In 1335, Ashikaga Takauji, who had travelled to eastern Japan without obtaining an imperial edict in order to suppress the Nakasendai Rebellion, became disaffected. Daigo ordered Nitta Yoshisada to track down and destroy Ashikaga. Ashikaga defeated Nitta Yoshisada at the Battle of Takenoshita, Hakone. Kusunoki Masashige and Kitabatake Akiie, in communication with Kyoto, smashed the Ashikaga army. Takauji fled to Kyūshū, but the following year, after reassembling his army, he again approached Kyōto. Kusunoki Masashige proposed a reconciliation with Takauji to the emperor, but Go-Daigo rejected this. He ordered Masashige and Yoshisada to destroy Takauji. Kusunoki's army was defeated at the Battle of Minatogawa.
When Ashikaga's army entered Kyōto, Emperor Go-Daigo resisted, fleeing to Mount Hiei, but seeking reconciliation, he sent the imperial regalia to the Ashikaga side. Takauji enthroned the Jimyōin-tō emperor, Kōmyō, and officially began his shogunate with the enactment of the Kenmu Law Code.
Go-Daigo escaped from the capital in January 1337, the regalia that he had handed over to the Ashikaga being counterfeit, and set up the Southern Court among the mountains of Yoshino, beginning the Period of Northern and Southern Courts in which the Northern Dynasty in Kyoto and the Southern Dynasty in Yoshino faced off against each other.
Emperor Go-Daigo ordered Imperial Prince Kaneyoshi to Kyūshū and Nitta Yoshisada and Imperial Prince Tsuneyoshi to Hokuriku, and so forth, dispatching his sons all over, so that they could oppose the Northern Court.
  • 18 September 1339 : In the 21st year of Go-Daigo's reign, the emperor abdicated at Yoshino in favor of his son, Noriyoshi-shinnō, who would become Emperor Go-Murakami.
  • 19 September 1339 : Go-Daigo died;
The actual site of Go-Daigo's grave is settled. This emperor is traditionally venerated at a memorial Shinto shrine at Nara.
The Imperial Household Agency designates this location as Go-Daigo's mausoleum. It is formally named Tō-no-o no misasagi.

Genealogy

Consorts and children

  • Empress : Saionji Kishi later Empress Dowager Go-Kyōgoku-in, Saionji Sanekane's daughter
  • * Princess
  • * Second Daughter: Imperial Princess Kanshi later Empress Dowager Senseimon-in, Saiō at Ise Shrine; later, married to Emperor Kōgon
  • Empress : Imperial Princess Junshi later Empress Dowager Shin-Muromachi-in, Emperor Go-Fushimi's daughter
  • * Imperial Princess Sachiko
  • Nyōgo: Fujiwara no Eishi also Anfuku-dono, Nijō Michihira's daughter
  • Court lady: Fujiwara no Chikako also Chūnagon-tenji, Itsutsuji Munechika's daughter
  • * Eleventh Son: Imperial Prince Mitsuyoshi
  • Lady-in-waiting: Dainagon'nosuke, Kitabatake Moroshige's daughter
  • Lady-in-waiting: Shin-Ansatsu-tenji, Jimyoin Yasufuji's daughter
  • Lady-in-waiting: Sochi-no-suke
  • Court lady: Koto no Naishi, Saionji Tsunafusa's daughter
  • * Princess
  • Court lady: Shōshō no Naishi, Sugawara no Arinaka's daughter
  • *Imperial Prince Seijo – Head Priest of Onjō-ji
  • Court lady: Fujiwara no Renshi later Empress Dowager Shin-Taikenmon-in, Ano Kinkado's daughter
  • * Imperial Prince Tsunenaga
  • * Imperial Prince Nariyoshi
  • * Imperial Prince Noriyoshi later become Emperor Go-Murakami
  • * Imperial Princess Shoshi – Saiō at Ise Shrine 1333–1336; later, nun in Hōan-ji
  • * Imperial Princess Ishi – nun in Imabayashi
  • * Speculated - Imperial Princess Noriko later Empress Dowager Shinsenyō-mon-in
  • Court lady: Minamoto no Chikako, Kitabatake Morochika's daughter
  • * Imperial Prince Moriyoshi – Head Priest of Enryakuji
  • * Imperial Prince Kōshō – priest
  • * Imperial Princess Hishi – nun in Imabayashi
  • * princess – married to Konoe Mototsugu
  • * Imperial Prince Sonsho
  • Court lady: Fujiwara no Ishi/Tameko, Nijō Tameyo's daughter
  • * Imperial Prince Takanaga
  • * Imperial Prince Munenaga – Head Priest of Enryakuji
  • * Imperial Princess Tamako – nun
  • * Princess
  • Nyōgo: Fujiwara no Jisshi. Tōin Saneo's daughter
  • * Princess
  • Court lady: Fujiwara no Shushi/Moriko, daughter of Tōin Saneyasu
  • * Imperial Prince Gen'en – Head Priest of Kōfuku-ji
  • * Imperial Prince Saikei – priest in Myōhō-in
  • Princess: Imperial Princess Kenshi later Empress Dowager Shōkeimon'in, Emperor Kameyama's daughter
  • * Mumon Gensen – founder of Hōkō-ji
  • Court lady: Fujiwara Fujiko/Toshi also Gon-no-Dainagon no Sammi no Tsubone later Reisho-in, Nijō Tamemichi's daughter
  • * Imperial Prince Hōnin – priest in Ninna-ji
  • * Prince Kaneyoshi – Seisei Taishōgun 1336–?
  • * princess
  • Court lady: Ichijō no Tsubone later Yūgimon'in, Saionji Sanetoshi's daughter
  • * Imperial Prince Tokiyoshi
  • * Imperial Prince Jōson – priest in Shōgoin
  • * Imperial Princess Kinshi – nun in Imabayashi
  • Court lady: Shōnagon no Naishi, Shijō Takasuke's daughter
  • * Sonshin – priest
  • Nyōgo: Dainagon-no-tsubone, Ogimachi Saneakira's daughter
  • * Imperial Princess Naoko
  • Nyōgo: Saemon-no-kami-no-tsubone, Nijō Tametada's daughter
  • * Nun in Imabayashi
  • Court lady: Gon-no-Chūnagon no Tsubone, Sanjō Kinyasu's daughter
  • * Imperial Princess Sadako
  • Nyōgo: Yoshida Sadafusa's daughter
  • Nyōgo: Bōmon-no-tsubone, Bomon Kiyotada's daughter
  • * Princess
  • Nyōgo: Horikawa Mototomo's daughter
  • * Princess
  • Nyōgo: Minamoto-no-Yasuko also Asukai-no-tsubone later Enseimon'in Harima, Minamoto-no-Yasutoki's daughter
  • Nyōgo: Wakamizu-no-tsubone, Minamoto-no-Yasutoki's daughter
  • Nyōgo: Horiguchi Sadayoshi's daughter
  • * daughter married Yoshimizu Munemasa
  • Court lady: Konoe no Tsubone later Shōkunmon'in
  • * Prince Tomoyoshi
*
  • * Yōdō – 5th Head Nun of Tōkei-ji
  • * Rokujō Arifusa's wife
  • * Ryusen Ryosai
  • * Kenkō
Go-Daigo had some other princesses from some court ladies.

Kugyō

Kugyō is a collective term for the very few most powerful men attached to the court of the Emperor of Japan in pre-Meiji eras. Even during those years in which the court's actual influence outside the palace walls was minimal, the hierarchic organization persisted.
In general, this elite group included only three to four men at a time. These were hereditary courtiers whose experience and background would have brought them to the pinnacle of a life's career. During Go-Daigo's reign, this apex of the Daijō-kan included: