＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49) on X
(Reference) Original article in Japanese
・残念な天皇の話(その１０)。後醍醐天皇は武士を軽視して政権が崩壊した！？
Emperor Go-Daigo is famous for overthrowing the Kamakura Shogunate and initiating the Kenmu Restoration, as well as for establishing the Southern Court. But what was his life like?
This time, we’d like to introduce Emperor Go-Daigo in an easy-to-understand way.
1. Who was Emperor Go-Daigo?
Emperor Go-Daigo (1288-1339, reigned 1318-1339 as the 96th Emperor, though also the first Emperor of the Southern Court, 1321-1339) was the second son of Emperor Go-Uda (1267-1324, reigned 1274-1287), and his mother was Tadako, the daughter of Fujiwara no Tadatsugu.
He was not favored by his father, Emperor Go-Uda, and in 1298, his half-brother Kuniharu became Crown Prince to the 93rd Emperor Go-Fushimi (Jimyoin lineage), and in 1301, he ascended to the throne as the 94th Emperor Go-Nijō (1285-1308, reigned 1301-1308) (Daikakuji lineage).
Seeing that he had long been unable to receive the title of “Imperial Prince,” his mother, Tadako, asked Emperor Kameyama, Go-Uda’s father, to support his request for the title.
In response, Emperor Kameyama married the beautiful Tadako, putting pressure on Go-Uda, and finally, in 1302, the title of Imperial Prince was granted.
2. Dissatisfaction with the Alternating Succession of the Two Lines and the Plan to Overthrow the Shogunate
In 1308, upon the accession of the 95th Emperor Hanazono (1297-1348, reigned 1308-1318) (of the Jimyōin lineage), he became Crown Prince.
He ascended to the throne at the age of 30 in 1318 following Emperor Hanazono’s abdication, but for the first three years after his accession, Emperor Go-Uda ruled as cloistered emperor.
Furthermore, according to Emperor Go-Uda’s will, he was positioned as a second-in-command (quasi-direct descendant) after Crown Prince Kuniyoshi, the son of his half-brother, Emperor Go-Nijō, placing him in a vulnerable position as a “transitional” “one-generation ruler.”
He harbored strong dissatisfaction with this treatment and the Kamakura shogunate’s acceptance of the alternating succession of the two lines, and in 1324, he plotted to overthrow the shogunate (the Shōchū Incident). The Rokuhara Tandai punished Hino Suketomo, a close confidant of the emperor, but he was acquitted and released.
After Prince Kuniyoshi’s death in 1326, four of his sons, including his eldest son Prince Takanaga, became candidates for Crown Prince. Ultimately, however, the eldest son of the Jimyōin lineage, Prince Kazuhito (later Emperor Kōgon), was chosen, increasing pressure for abdication.
In 1331, he again planned to overthrow the shogunate (the Genkō War). However, his plan was discovered prematurely due to a betrayal by a close associate, and he was captured by the shogunate and exiled to Oki Island.
During this period, anti-shogunate forces, including his son Prince Moriyoshi, Kusunoki Masashige of Kawachi, and Akamatsu Norimura of Harima, were active in various regions.
Therefore, he did not give up. In 1333, with the help of the Nawa clan, he successfully escaped from Oki Island. With the assistance of Ashikaga Takauji and Nitta Yoshisada, he again raised an army to overthrow the shogunate and destroyed the Kamakura shogunate.
3. The Kenmu Restoration
In 1333, he initiated a new government (the Kenmu Restoration). He aimed for direct imperial rule, similar to the Engi and Tenryaku eras. He harbored a grand ambition to govern independently, without being dictated by the nobility, the retired emperor, or the shogunate.
However, the people’s main concern at the time was the rewards and personnel decisions for those who had fought on opposing sides in the Genkō War. He decided to reward collaborators and confiscate the territories of those who opposed him, but things were not so simple.
In the Genpei War and the Jōkyū War, the “enemy” was narrowed down to a minimum number of people, such as the Taira clan and the ringleaders of the rebellions, to a level that many could accept. However, he broadly interpreted “enemy” and attempted to bestow many rewards upon his “allies.” Furthermore, there were problems such as insufficient rewards for samurai and frequent overturning of court decisions made by the shogunate.
This new regime, a dictatorial government under direct imperial rule that disregarded samurai and nobles, led to defection from both the court nobles and samurai, including Ashikaga Takauji.
Therefore, Emperor Go-Daigo ordered Nitta Yoshisada and Kitabatake Akiie to suppress Ashikaga Takauji, leading to battles such as the Battle of Minatogawa. However, in 1336, defeated by Ashikaga Takauji’s forces, he made peace, escaped Kyoto, and fled to Yoshino.
4. The Beginning of the Nanboku-cho Period
After his departure, Takauji enthroned Emperor Kōmyō of the Northern Court in 1336, enacted the Kenmu Shikimoku (Kenmu Code), and established the Muromachi Shogunate.
As an aside, while the current Imperial family is of the “Northern Court lineage,” it’s strange that there’s a bronze statue of Kusunoki Masashige, who served Emperor Go-Daigo loyally on the Southern Court side and died in the Battle of Minatogawa, in front of the Imperial Palace. This seems to stem from Emperor Meiji’s misunderstanding, where he declared, “I belong to the Southern Court.”
5. Episodes of Emperor Go-Daigo
(1) Heroes Love Women
Although he relied on the power of samurai, he was the “only emperor to overthrow the shogunate” and possessed exceptional decisiveness among successive emperors. However, he also seems to have been quite active in his relationships with women. He had relationships with more than 30 women and fathered at least 36 children.
Perhaps due to a troubled childhood, he lacked the ability to empathize with others’ feelings, and apparently even had no qualms about taking the wives of his retainers.
(2) Deep knowledge of scholarship and art
He is said to have left monumental achievements in all fields: Confucianism, etiquette, esoteric Buddhism, Zen, monastic rules, Shinto, calligraphy, poetry, literature, music, and tea ceremony.
(3) Discovery of Musō Soseki, the perfectionist of Zen gardens
Musō Soseki was a Zen monk of the Rinzai school, a garden designer, a Chinese poet, and a waka poet from the late Kamakura period through the Nanboku-chō period and the early Muromachi period, and is considered the “founder of the Musō school.” He claimed to be a 9th-generation descendant of Emperor Uda.
Emperor Go-Daigo recognized his talent and revered him, bestowing upon him the title of “Musō Kokushi” (National Teacher).
Musō Soseki was revered not only by Emperor Go-Daigo but also by Ashikaga Takauji, the first shogun of the Muromachi shogunate. In addition to his achievements as a Zen monk, he perfected Zen gardens and dry landscape gardens, and is considered “one of the greatest landscape architects in world history.”