[1334–1338] Kemmu Restoration and Rise of the Ashikaga Clan

The year is 1334. In the grand capital of Heian-kyō, which you would know as Kyoto, the air is thick with a fragile hope. Only a year had passed since the imposing military government, the Kamakura Shogunate, which had ruled Japan with an iron grip for nearly 150 years, had been shattered. At the center of this new dawn was Emperor Go-Daigo, a man of immense ambition who had orchestrated this stunning victory from exile. He now sat on the Chrysanthemum Throne not as a figurehead, but as a true sovereign, determined to restore direct imperial rule to the land for the first time in centuries. The warrior clans, the samurai whose swords and loyalty had made this dream a reality, watched and waited. They had bled for their emperor, toppling the powerful Hōjō regents. Now, they expected their reward. Their leader, the charismatic and brilliant general Ashikaga Takauji, had been instrumental in the final victory, and his warriors looked to him as the guarantor of their future prosperity.

Emperor Go-Daigo’s vision for Japan, however, was one rooted in the distant past. He sought to resurrect the elegant, aristocratic court culture of the Heian period, a time from four centuries prior when emperors ruled absolutely and power flowed from poetry and court rank, not from the edge of a sword. He staffed his new government not with the pragmatic, battle-hardened samurai—the *buke*—but with his own court nobles, the *kuge*. These were men of refined taste and ancient lineage, but they understood little of land rights, military organization, or the gritty realities of provincial governance. The Emperor’s new policies, known as the Kemmu Restoration, began to unravel almost as soon as they were woven. He launched grandiose projects, like the construction of a new imperial palace, funded by heavy taxes that burdened the very people he claimed to champion. Most disastrously, his government bungled the monumental task of redistributing lands seized from the defeated Hōjō clan. The warriors who had fought and won found their claims ignored in favor of distant imperial relatives or temples with influence at court. A bitter resentment began to fester within the ranks of the samurai.

No one felt this growing discontent more keenly than Ashikaga Takauji. He was the scion of a prestigious warrior family, a man whose military prowess was matched only by his political acumen. Go-Daigo had showered him with high-ranking court titles, but these were empty honors. The Emperor deliberately kept him and other powerful samurai leaders at a distance from real authority, fearing their influence. Takauji watched as the new administration alienated his followers one by one. Samurai who had risked everything found themselves poorer than before the war. They saw their ancestral lands awarded to courtiers who had never wielded a katana. Takauji became a magnet for these disenfranchised warriors. They came to his residence in Kyoto, their armor still scarred from recent battles, their voices low with complaint. They looked to him not just as a general, but as the protector of their way of life, the *bushidō* code that the emperor’s court seemed to hold in such contempt.

The fragile peace shattered in 1335. A remnant of the defeated Hōjō clan staged a rebellion in the east, retaking the old shogunal capital of Kamakura. The imperial court was thrown into chaos. Emperor Go-Daigo, against the advice of his counselors, had no choice but to turn to the one man who could quell the uprising: Ashikaga Takauji. He granted Takauji the title of Commander-in-Chief and sent him east. Takauji rode out of Kyoto at the head of a massive army, and he crushed the rebellion with swift and brutal efficiency. But standing victorious in the ruins of Kamakura, a thought took root. He had the loyalty of the most powerful warriors in the land. He had proven his military supremacy. Why should he hand this power back to a court that disdained him? In a bold act of defiance, he remained in Kamakura, began rewarding his followers with land on his own authority, and declared himself *shogun*. He had drawn a line in the sand. The Emperor could have his court, but the warriors, and thus Japan, would belong to him.

Emperor Go-Daigo was furious at this betrayal. He declared Takauji a rebel and a traitor to the throne, dispatching a massive army under his most loyal generals, Nitta Yoshisada and Kusunoki Masashige, to destroy him. In early 1336, the two sides clashed. Initially, the imperial forces had the upper hand, overwhelming Takauji's army and forcing him to abandon Kyoto. It seemed the rebellion was over. Takauji, with his forces shattered, was forced into a desperate flight west, seeking refuge on the distant island of Kyushu. For a moment, Go-Daigo’s restoration seemed secure. But the Emperor underestimated Takauji’s resilience and the deep well of samurai discontent he represented. His defeat was not an end, but a strategic retreat.

On Kyushu, far from the reach of the imperial court, Takauji performed a political masterstroke. He rallied local clans who felt ignored by the Emperor and, crucially, he secured the backing of a rival branch of the imperial family who also held a claim to the throne. This gave his rebellion a veneer of legitimacy. He was no longer just a rebel; he was a champion of a rival claimant. Within months, his army was rebuilt, larger and more motivated than before. He was no longer just fighting for himself, but for a new order. In the spring of 1336, Takauji began his thunderous march back east, his banners swelling with thousands of samurai who flocked to his cause. He sailed through the Inland Sea, his fleet growing with every passing island, on a collision course with the imperial capital.

The final, tragic confrontation came at the Battle of Minatogawa, near modern-day Kobe. On one side was Ashikaga Takauji with his overwhelming land and sea forces. On the other, the brilliant imperial loyalist Kusunoki Masashige, a tactical genius who knew the imperial cause was doomed. He had advised Emperor Go-Daigo to abandon Kyoto and retreat, allowing him to harry Takauji’s forces in a guerrilla war. But the court nobles, arrogant and ignorant of military strategy, dismissed his advice as cowardice. Bound by his unwavering loyalty, Masashige obeyed his Emperor’s command to make a stand. He led his small force of around 700 samurai into a battle he knew he could not win. The fighting was ferocious, but the outcome was never in doubt. Encircled and overwhelmed, Masashige and his followers fought to the last man. His final words, a promise to his brother to be reborn seven times to continue fighting for the Emperor, would cement his status as Japan’s ultimate symbol of tragic, selfless loyalty.

The death of Kusunoki Masashige broke the back of the imperial resistance. Ashikaga Takauji marched into Kyoto unopposed. Emperor Go-Daigo was forced to flee the capital once more, taking with him the three sacred treasures of Japan—the mirror, the sword, and the jewel—that symbolized imperial legitimacy. Takauji did not abolish the throne; instead, he controlled it. He captured another retired emperor and forced him to hand over the sacred treasures to a new emperor of his own choosing, Emperor Kōmyō, who came from the rival imperial line. He now had an emperor in Kyoto who would do his bidding. This new court in Kyoto became known as the Northern Court.

But Go-Daigo was not a man to surrender. Having fled Kyoto, he escaped captivity and made his way to the remote, mountainous region of Yoshino, south of the capital. There, he declared that the sacred treasures he had given Takauji’s new emperor were forgeries, and that he, holding the true regalia, was still the one and only legitimate ruler of Japan. He established his own rival court, which became known as the Southern Court. Japan now had two emperors, two courts, and two rival claims to the Chrysanthemum Throne. This schism would tear the country apart, initiating a brutal civil war that would last for nearly sixty years, an era known as the Nanboku-chō, the Period of the Northern and Southern Courts.

In the capital, the Ashikaga victory was complete. In 1338, two years after taking Kyoto, Ashikaga Takauji was officially appointed *Sei-i Taishōgun* by his Northern Court emperor. A new warrior government, the Ashikaga Shogunate, was formally established, an institution that would rule Japan for the next 235 years. Emperor Go-Daigo’s grand Kemmu Restoration, his dream of a return to imperial glory, had lasted less than three years. It had flickered brightly with promise before being extinguished by the very warriors who had first lit its flame. The brief, chaotic, and bloody struggle had ended not with a restoration of the old, but with the creation of a new and enduring age of the samurai.