The Genkō War ( 元弘の乱 , Genkō no Ran ) , also known as the Genkō Incident ( 元弘の變 , Genkō no Hen ) , was a civil war fought in Japan between the Emperor Go-Daigo and the Kamakura Shogunate from 1331 to 1333. The Genkō War was named after Genkō , the Japanese era corresponding to the period of 1331 to 1334 when the war occurred.
49-761: Go-Daigo became Emperor of Japan in 1318 and sought to remove the Kamakura Shogunate , which had ruled Japan as a de facto military government from the city of Kamakura since the Genpei War in 1185, and restore power to civilian government under the Imperial House in Kyoto . The Kamakura Shogunate was indirectly ruled by the Hōjō clan as shikken – the regents of the Shōgun – and actively blocked
98-474: A memorial Shinto shrine ( misasagi ) at Nara. The Imperial Household Agency designates this location as Go-Daigo's mausoleum . It is formally named Tō-no-o no misasagi . Go-Daigo had some other princesses from some court ladies. Kugyō (公卿) 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
147-476: A large number of working class commoners , leaving many of them with no means to learn a living as the traditional system of tenant farming was replaced with large-scale agriculture run by a small number of individuals. The upper class had responded to their plight by establishing institutions such as workhouses , where unemployed lower-class Britons could find a source of employment, and outdoor relief , where monetary and other forms of assistance were given to both
196-640: 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
245-669: A secluded monastery overlooking the Kizu River . Go-Daigo managed to escape Kasagi when it was attacked by Kamakura troops in the Siege of Kasagi , but was soon apprehended. Go-Daigo was subsequently exiled to the Oki Islands and the Kamakura then enthroned Emperor Kōgon , the first Emperor of the " Northern Court ", setting the stage for the upcoming Nanboku-chō period . Go-Daigo's son Prince Morinaga continued to fight against
294-434: A territory. This encouraged the formation of princely and kingly states, which needed to tax the common people much more heavily to pay for the expensive weapons and armies required to provide security in the new age. Up until the late 15th century, surviving medieval treaties on government were concerned with advising rulers on how to serve the common good: Assize of Bread is an example of medieval law specifically drawn up in
343-473: The common people or the masses , was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither royalty , nobility , nor any part of the aristocracy . Depending on culture and period, other elevated persons (such members of clergy ) may have had higher social status in their own right, or were regarded as commoners if lacking an aristocratic background. This class overlaps with
392-563: The Battle of Kumegawa , and the Battle of Bubaigawara . The Kamakura Shogunate was eventually defeated at the Siege of Kamakura in early July, when Imperial forces entered the destroyed city and the Hōjō committed suicide . Go-Daigo triumphantly returned to Kyoto and claimed power from Emperor Kōgon in what came to be known as the Kenmu Restoration . Go-Daigo's rule would only last three years as his policies disillusioned his supporters, and most of
441-608: The English Revolution of 1642. After the forces of Oliver Cromwell triumphed, movements like the Levellers rose to prominence demanding equality for all. When the general council of Cromwell's army met to decide on a new order at the Putney Debates of 1647, one of the commanders, Colonel Thomas Rainsborough , requested that political power be given to the common people. According to historian Roger Osbourne,
490-784: The Holy Roman Empire , though from the Carolingian era , clergy were generally recruited from the nobility. Of the two thousand bishops serving from the 8th to the 15th century, just five came from the peasantry . The social and political order of medieval Europe was relatively stable until the development of the mobile cannon in the 15th century. Up until that time a noble with a small force could hold their castle or walled town for years even against large armies - and so they were rarely disposed. Once effective cannons were available, walls were of far less defensive value and rulers needed expensive field armies to keep control of
539-597: 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
SECTION 10
#1732781111556588-670: 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. The actual site of Go-Daigo's grave is settled. This emperor is traditionally venerated at
637-714: The Rokuhara Tandai disposed of his close associate Hino Suketomo in the Shōchū Incident . 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 (the modern town of Kasagi , Sōraku District , Kyōto Prefecture ) and raised an army, but
686-769: The Roman Empire used the Latin term Senatus Populusque Romanus , (the Senate and People of Rome). This term was fixed to Roman legionary standards, and even after the Roman Emperors achieved a state of total personal autocracy , they continued to wield their power in the name of the Senate and People of Rome. With the growth of Christianity in the 4th century AD, a new world view arose that underpinned European thinking on social division until at least early modern times. Saint Augustine postulated that social division
735-593: The Shōgun and seized power from Emperor Go-Daigo, establishing the Ashikaga Shogunate based on the Kamakura system and marking the beginning the Nanboku-chō "Northern and Southern Courts" period. Go-Daigo Emperor Go-Daigo (後醍醐天皇 Go-Daigo-tennō ) (26 November 1288 – 19 September 1339) was the 96th emperor of Japan , according to the traditional order of succession . He successfully overthrew
784-608: The bourgeoisie during the Late Middle Ages , had seen an intermediate class of wealthy commoners develop, which ultimately gave rise to the modern middle classes . Middle-class people could still be called commoners. For example, Pitt the Elder was often called The Great Commoner in England, and this appellation was later used for the 20th-century American anti-elitist campaigner William Jennings Bryan . The interests of
833-775: 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
882-464: The serfs were unable to enter the group of the bellatores . Commoners could sometimes secure entry for their children into the oratores class; usually they would serve as rural parish priests. In some cases they received education from the clergy and ascended to senior administrative positions; in some cases nobles welcomed such advancement as former commoners were more likely to be neutral in dynastic feuds. There were cases of serfs becoming clerics in
931-408: 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
980-601: The 9th century. This threefold division was formalized in the estate system of social stratification , where again commoners were the bulk of the population who are neither members of the nobility nor of the clergy . They were the third of the Three Estates of the Realm in medieval Europe , consisting of peasants and artisans . Social mobility for commoners was limited throughout the Middle Ages . Generally,
1029-467: 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
SECTION 20
#17327811115561078-459: 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. This 14th-century sovereign personally chose his posthumous name after the 9th-century Emperor Daigo and go- (後), translates as "later", and he is thus sometimes called the "Later Emperor Daigo", or, in some older sources, "Daigo,
1127-571: The Colonel's speech was the first time a prominent person spoke in favor of universal male suffrage, but it was not to be granted until 1918. After much debate it was decided that only those with considerable property would be allowed to vote, and so after the revolution political power in England remained largely controlled by the nobles, with at first only a few of the most wealthy or well-connected common people sitting in Parliament. The rise of
1176-624: The Emperor's manoeuvres to restore Imperial rule. In 1331, Go-Daigo plotted to seize power through force and overthrow the Kamakura Shogunate by encouraging his vassals and other anti-Hōjō samurai to rebel. However, Go-Daigo was betrayed when his trusted adviser Fujiwara Sadafusa alerted the shogunate, who dispatched troops to Kyoto to suppress the uprising. Go-Daigo fled Kyoto with the Sacred Treasures and sought refuge in Kasagi ,
1225-573: The Genpei War and arch-rivals of the former Taira clan to which the Hōjō had belonged. Additionally, Takauji possibly hoped of being named Shōgun by Go-Daigo after his restoration to power. The Imperial army lifted the Siege of Chihaya and Imperial general Nitta Yoshisada won a string of victories in the Kōzuke–Musashi campaign in May, including the Siege of Chihaya , the Battle of Kotesashi ,
1274-468: The Hōjō. Meanwhile, Ashikaga Takauji , the chief general of the Hōjō, was dispatched west to fight against Go-Daigo's second uprising. However, for unknown reasons, Takauji defected to Go-Daigo's army shortly before reaching Kyoto, and began to fight against the Hōjō. The reason for Takauji's defection is unknown, but assumed to be because of his unofficial leadership of the Minamoto clan , the victors of
1323-497: The Kamakura, leading his father's supporters alongside Kusunoki Masashige . In 1333, Go-Daigo escaped Oki two years after his exile with the help of Nawa Nagatoshi ( 名和長年 ) , raising a new Imperial army at Mount Senjō in Hōki Province , in the modern town of Kotoura , Tottori Prefecture . He defeated the forces of Sasaki Kiyotaka at the Battle of Mount Senjōsan and gained the support of many warlords in western Japan against
1372-535: The accomplishments of the Genkō War were gradually undone. Many samurai who had fought for Go-Daigo were dissatisfied with their rewards, and his pursuit of consolidating Imperial power led to their subsequent exclusion from political affairs, whereas they had held significant influence under the shogunate. Japanese commoners were similarly dissatisfied as Go-Daigo failed to address the issues they had petitioned for him to resolve. In 1336, Ashikaga Takauji named himself
1421-645: The castle fell to the shogunate 's army the following year, and they enthroned Emperor Kōgon , exiling Daigo to Oki Province (the Oki Islands in modern-day Shimane Prefecture ), 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 (the modern town of Kotoura in Tōhaku District , Tottori Prefecture ). Ashikaga Takauji , who had been sent by
1470-515: The clergy, where many priests began to abuse the great power they had due to the sacrament of contrition. The Reformation was a movement that aimed to correct this, but even afterwards the common people's trust in the clergy continued to decline – priests were often seen as greedy and lacking in true faith. An early major social upheaval driven in part by the common people's mistrust of both the nobility and clergy occurred in Great Britain with
1519-464: The common people. Organizations, parties and movements arose, proclaiming the liberation of the people. These included among others: " People's Reprisal ", " People’s Will ", " Party of Popular Freedom " and the "People's Socialist Party". In the United States, a famous 1942 speech by vice president Henry A. Wallace proclaimed the arrival of the "century of the common man" saying that all over
Genkō War - Misplaced Pages Continue
1568-602: 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: The years of Go-Daigo's reign are more specifically identified by more than one era name or nengō . Emperor Go-Daigo's eight era name changes are mirrored in number only in
1617-518: The creator of history. By using the word "people", Marx did not gloss over the class differences, but united certain elements, capable of completing the revolution. The Intelligentsia's sympathy for the common people gained strength in the 19th century in many countries. For example, in Imperial Russia a big part of the intelligentsia was striving for its emancipation. Several great writers (Nekrasov, Herzen, Tolstoy etc.) wrote about sufferings of
1666-404: The division in three estates – nobility, clergy and commoners – had become somewhat outdated. The term "common people" continued to be used, but now in a more general sense to refer to regular people as opposed to the privileged elite. Communist theory divided society into capitalists on one hand, and the proletariat or the masses on the other. In Marxism , the people are considered to be
1715-635: 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
1764-480: The interests of the common people. But then works by Philippe de Commines , Niccolò Machiavelli , and later Cardinal Richelieu began advising rulers to consider their own interests and that of the state ahead of what was "good", with Richelieu explicitly saying the state is above morality in doctrines such as Raison d'Etat . This change of orientation among the nobles left the common people less content with their place in society. A similar trend occurred regarding
1813-534: The interests of the men who have all the money." Comparative historian Oswald Spengler found the social separation into nobility, priests and commoners to occur again and again in the various civilizations that he surveyed (although the division may not exist for pre-civilized society). As an example, in the Babylonian civilization, the Code of Hammurabi made provision for punishments to be harsher for harming
1862-401: The legal class of people who have a property interest in common land , a longstanding feature of land law in England and Wales. Commoners who have rights for a particular common are typically neighbors, not the public in general. In monarchist terminology , aristocracy and nobility are included in the term. Various sovereign states throughout history have governed, or claimed to govern, in
1911-585: The middle class were not always aligned with their fellow commoners of the working class. According to social historian Karl Polanyi , Britain's middle class in 19th-century Britain turned against their fellow commoners by seizing political power from the British upper class via the Reform Act of 1832 . The emergence of the Industrial Revolution had caused severe economic distress to
1960-657: The name of the common people . In Europe, a distinct concept analogous to common people arose in the Classical civilization of ancient Rome around the 6th century BC, with the social division into patricians (nobles) and plebeians (commoners). The division may have been instituted by Servius Tullius , as an alternative to the previous clan-based divisions that had been responsible for internecine conflict. The ancient Greeks generally had no concept of class and their leading social divisions were simply non-Greeks, free-Greeks and slaves. The early organization of Ancient Athens
2009-471: The reign of Emperor Go-Hanazono , who also reigned through eight era name changes. Emperor Go-Daigo appears in the alternate history novel Romanitas by Sophia McDougall . Unless otherwise noted (as BC), years are in CE / AD Imperial Consort and Regent Empress Jingū is not traditionally listed. Commoner A commoner , also known as the common man , commoners ,
Genkō War - Misplaced Pages Continue
2058-537: The second" or as "Daigo II". Before his ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne , his personal name ( imina ) was Takaharu -shinnō (尊治親王). He was the second son of the Daikakuji-tō emperor, Emperor Go-Uda . His mother was Fujiwara no Chūshi /Tadako ( 藤原忠子 ), daughter of Fujiwara no Tadatsugu (Itsutsuji Tadatsugu) ( 藤原忠継/五辻忠継 ). She became Nyoin called Dantenmon-in (談天門院). His older brother
2107-513: The unemployed and those on low income without them needing to enter a workhouse to receive it. Though initial middle class opposition to the Poor Law reform of William Pitt the Younger had prevented the emergence of a coherent and generous nationwide provision, the resulting Speenhamland system did generally manage to prevent working class commoners from starvation. In 1834, outdoor relief
2156-675: The working class were generally able to earn a good living, and as such working and middle class interests began to converge, lessening the division within the ranks of common people. Polanyi notes that in Continental Europe , middle and working class interests did not diverge anywhere near as markedly as they had in Britain. After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars along with industrialization ,
2205-467: The world the "common people" were on the march, specifically referring to Chinese, Indians, Russians, and as well as Americans. Wallace's speech would later inspire the widely reproduced popular work Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copland. In 1948, US President Harry S. Truman made a speech saying there needs to be a government "that will work in the interests of the common people and not in
2254-460: Was Emperor Go-Nijō . Emperor Go-Daigo's ideal was the Engi era (901–923) 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. In 1324, with the discovery of Emperor Go-Daigo's plans to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate ,
2303-459: Was a result of the Fall of Man . The three leading divisions were considered to be the priesthood ( clergy ), the nobility, and the common people. Sometimes this was expressed as "those who prayed", "those who fought" and "those who worked". The Latin terms for the three classes – oratores , bellatores and laboratores – are often found even in modern textbooks, and have been used in sources since
2352-447: Was abolished and workhouses were deliberately made into places so unappealing that many often preferred to starve rather than enter them. For Polanyi this related to the economic doctrine prevalent at the time which held that only the spur of hunger could make workers flexible enough for the proper functioning of the free market. By the end of the 19th century, at least in mainland Britain , economic progress has been sufficient that even
2401-463: Was something of an exception with certain official roles like archons , magistrates and treasurers being reserved for only the wealthiest citizens – these class-like divisions were weakened by the democratic reforms of Cleisthenes who created new horizontal social divisions in contrasting fashion to the vertical ones thought to have been created by Tullius. Both the Roman Republic and
#555444