20 March 1181 – Death of Taira no Kiyomori 平 清盛, the first samurai to establish samurai-dominated administrative government in the history of Japan.
>>Note: the official recorded date is 治承5年閏2月4日(Jishō 5, 4th day of the 2nd month). I found several version of its Christian calendar date, which are 20 March 1181 (Wikipedia), 21 March 1181 (Britannica), and 27 March 1181. I choose 20 March simply because I found more books/references with 20 March than 21 March. There’s table of comparison between Jishō year to Christian calendar/Julian date here (in Japanese) if you’re interested.<<
He was born the first son of Taira no Tadamori, the head of the Ise branch of the Taira clan. There’s also speculation that he’s actually Emperor Shirakawa’s son who was later given to Tadamori who raised him as his own son.
It has been said that, when he was young, he often visited the residence of Fujiwara no Ienari, who was the most favoured retainer of cloistered Emperor Toba (who ruled through insei). After the death of his first wife, Kiyomori married Taira no Tokiko, daughter of Taira no Tokinobu. Tokinobu was a Hogan-dai (an administrative official of the retired-Emperor's Office) of cloistered Emperor Toba, and together with Fujiwara no Akiyori and Takashina no Michinori (Fujiwara no Shinzei), he was in charge of business affairs at the government affairs office, thus another connection to Toba.
In 1147, during the Gion-toran-jiken (the Gion Brawling Incident), an arrow shot by the Kiyomori’s side accidentally hit the holy shrine. Although the Enryaku-ji Temple, whose branch temple was Gion-sha Shrine, strongly demanded deportation of Tadamori and Kiyomori, Toba protected them from the wrath of the temple. With the death of Iemori, his younger half brother, in 1149, Kiyomori's position as a person of the direct clan lineage therefore became firmly established. He created huge profits by being appointed Aki-kokushu (Governor of Aki Province) and obtaining naval dominance over the Seto Inland Sea, and he and his father together expanded their power to Sai-goku (Western Japan) and in 1153, after the death of Tadamori, he became the head of the Ise branch of the Taira clan in Kyoto.
In 1156 a conflict for power erupted between the retired emperor Sutoku and his younger brother, the reigning emperor Go-Shirakawa (both were sons of Emperor Toba). Sutoku attempted a coup d’état with the support of the Minamoto warrior clan, led by Minamoto Tameyoshi. Kiyomori supported Go-Shirakawa in the ensuing conflict, known as the Hōgen Disturbance (Hōgen no ran), one of the bloodiest and bitterest in Japanese history, and emerged victorious, partly because of the defection of Tameyoshi’s son, Yoshitomo.
Dissatisfied with his share of the spoils, Yoshitomo took advantage of Kiyomori’s absence from the capital during the winter of 1159–60 to seize power, an act that precipitated the Heiji Disturbance. Although taken by surprise, Kiyomori gathered what forces he could muster and advanced in a series of daring, cleverly executed maneuvers. Victorious, he returned to the capital and annihilated his enemies, allowing only Yoshitomo’s two infant sons to live, a leniency he later regretted.
Due to his status as the head of the sole remaining warrior clan, it allowed Kiyomori to gain control over the Imperial army and police. This led Kiyomori to establish the foundation of a samurai government.
He put himself to be the guardian of Emperor Nijō and was also appointed to betto (a chief official of the retired emperor's office) of Go-shirakawa-incho (the Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa's Office), creating a situation where Kiyomori worked for both the Emperor and the retired Emperor. He also arranged a marriage between Go-Shirakawa and his sister in law, Shigeko (Tokiko’s sister) and later a marriage between his daughter, Moriko, to the kanpaku, Fujiwara no Motozane, to establish a firm and close relationship with a sekkan (court noble) family. This arrangement allowed him to establish a strong political system.
Because Emperor Rokujō, the successor to Emperor Nijō, was still young, Motozane took political leadership as regent, and Kiyomori was promoted to Dainagon (Chief of the Counsellor of State) and assisted Motozane. Kiyomori then pushed Norihito, Shigeko’s son, to become crown prince and he became Naidaijin (Minister of the Center) and eventually rose to become the first courtier of a warrior family to be appointed Daijō-daijin (Chancellor of the Realm), the chief minister of the government and the de facto administrator of the imperial government. In 1168, he forced Rokujō to abdicate in favour of Norihito, who later became Emperor Takakura, and in 1171, arranged marriage between the new emperor and his daughter, Tokuko.
However, many of the courtiers from traditional (non-warrior) noble families were less than pleased with both Kiyomori's attainment of power, and how he comported himself with regard to other high ranking courtiers. This include Go-Shirakawa.
In July, 1177, the Shishigatani Incident occurred. The occurrence of incident was revealed by the betrayal of Tada Yukitsuna, and this made Kiyomori plan to remove vassals of the Cloistered Emperor in the cloister government. As a result, Fujiwara no Moromitsu was executed, Fujiwara no Narichika was deported to Bizen no kuni (Bizen Province) (where he did not received any food and died). Kiyomori, however, did not charge Go-Shirakawa.
In 1179, Go-Shirakawa seized shiteki-keryo (the land for official hereditary Court nobles) and Echizen no kuni (Echizen Province)without consulting Kiyomori. Furthermore, the Cloistered Emperor appointed 8-year-old Matsudono Moroie to be Gon-chunagon (Deputy Middle Counselor) instead of 20-year-old Motomichi (whose wife was Kiyomori's daughter, Hiroko). As a result of this appointment, it became clear that the Matsudono family would succeed the sekkan family post.
Kiyomori, finally becoming furious about Go-Shirakawa's moves that had ignored him, led an army to the capital, this was the so-called Jisho-sannen no seihen (the Coup in 1179: the third year of the Jisho era); Kiyomori fired all 39 court nobles and Imperial vassals (8 aristocrats and a total of 31 tenjo-bito (high-ranking courtiers allowed into the Imperial Palace), zuryu (a provincial governor), and kebiishi (police and judicial chiefs) who were considered to be anti-Taira clan, including kanpaku Motofusa, Gon-chunagon Moroie, and Fujiwara no Moronaga, and replaced them with court nobles who were pro-Taira clan. Go-Shirakawa was afraid of Kiyomori's move and therefore asked to be forgiven, but Kiyomori never forgave him and confined him in the Toba-dono palace. The Go-Shirakawa insei came to a complete end there.
Finally, in 1180 Kiyomori forced Emperor Takakura to abdicate and give the throne to his two years old son, Tokihito, who then became Emperor Antoku. Exercising power through his grandson, Kiyomori moved the capital from Kyoto to his own city of Fukuhara (modern Kōbe), which provided ready access to the Inland Sea and the rich trade routes with China.
With the exertion of Taira power and wealth and Kiyomori's new monopoly on authority, many of his allies, most of the provincial samurai, and even members of his own clan turned against him. The first wave of resistance against the Taira clan's tyranny was the rise of an army led by Mochihito, the second son of Go-Shirakawa, backed by one of Kiyomori’s trusted chieftains, Minamoto no Yorimasa, but the rebellion was easily crushed. Yorimasa was executed, but Mochihito managed to flee.
Mochihito managed to gain support from Minamoto no Yoritomo, Yoshitomo’s son who had been spared in his youth and then seized the opportunity to raise a revolt, in which he gained the support of many warriors in the outlying provinces. Meanwhile, temples also started to show an anti-Taira clan trend even at Enryaku-ji Temple (at that time, the temple had their own army) and this created a situation where Kiyomori was surrounded by powerful temples.
An army was dispatched from the capital to quell the rebellion, but the Taira forces, weakened by many years of luxurious living, were no match for the frontier troops and were immediately defeated. Turning over all government administration to his son, Munemori, Kiyomori devoted himself to building a new army, but before the task could be accomplished, he died in Kujo-kawaraguchi at the age of 64 due to fever.
In 1185, 4 years after Kiyomori’s death, Yoritomo annihilated the last of the Taira clan, including the emperor Antoku, and established the first shogunate government; the Kamakura shogunate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taira_no_Kiyomori
https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/person/TAIRA no Kiyomori.html (The chronology and events are fine, but the date is not accurate. It seems whoever wrote this, has "translated" the Japanese date directly into Christian date without proper conversion).
Fiction recommendation:
Novel: Yoshikawa Eiji's "
Shin Heike Monogatari" (English translation by Fuki Wooyenaka Uramatsu: (2002)
The Heike Story: A Modern Translation of the Classic Tale of Love and War. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8048-3318-9)
Film: 2012 NHK Taiga drama "
Taira no Kiyomori" (if you've never watched Taiga before, I suggest to skip the first 10 episodes. Taiga never changes the actors of the main characters throughout the series. It's a bit hard to stomach a 27 years old Matsuyama Kenichi plays 12 years old Kiyomori or 27 years old Matsuda Shota plays 7 years old Masahito (later Emperor Go-Shirakawa)).