Minamoto no Yoshitsune, the Samurai Who Won the Genpei War and Lost His Brother

Minamoto no Yoritomo turned against his younger half-brother Yoshitsune because Yoshitsune accepted titles from the imperial court without Yoritomo's permission and acted on his own during the war against the Taira clan; when Yoshitsune then showed signs of seeking his own independence, he was declared an enemy of the court and hunted across Japan. The tragedy is that Yoshitsune had just won the war for him. Minamoto no Yoshitsune (c. 1159–1189) was the commander who destroyed the Taira at the battles of Ichi-no-Tani, Yashima and Dan-no-ura, and he is remembered as one of the most famous samurai in Japanese history. His story ended with his forced suicide at the age of about thirty, and the sympathy people felt for him gave Japanese a word for rooting for the underdog.

A boy who survived his father's defeat

Yoshitsune was the ninth son of Minamoto no Yoshitomo, and his mother was Tokiwa Gozen. As a child he was called Ushiwakamaru. He was born just before the Heiji Rebellion of 1160, in which his father and two eldest brothers were killed. The baby survived because his mother fled the capital with him, while his older half-brother Yoritomo was banished to Izu Province.

At about ten he was placed with the monks of Kurama temple in the mountains near Kyoto. There he learned swordsmanship and strategy; according to some legends his teacher was the legendary figure Sōjōbō, and according to others he learned from Kiichi Hōgen, whose book of secret military teachings he stole. He did not want to become a monk. In 1174 he followed a gold merchant who had known his father and moved north to Hiraizumi, where he lived under the protection of Fujiwara no Hidehira, head of the powerful Northern Fujiwara clan.

The meeting with Benkei, between history and legend

Every Japanese child knows the story of how Yoshitsune met Benkei, the giant warrior monk. In the most popular version, Benkei roamed Kyoto at night trying to take a thousand swords from samurai he thought arrogant. After winning 999 swords, he met a young man playing the flute and fought him on Gojō Bridge, and the much smaller youth defeated him. The youth was Yoshitsune, and Benkei became his loyal retainer.

It is a wonderful story, but it should be labelled as legend. The earliest records that mention Benkei were written a century or more after his life, and they say only that he was one of Yoshitsune's retainers and, interestingly, a thin monk. Most of the famous anecdotes come from the Gikeiki, a fourteenth-century work, and because no contemporary records survive, it is hard to know which details are historical. The giant with seven weapons is mostly a creation of storytellers.

Joining the Genpei War

In 1180 Yoritomo, now head of the Minamoto clan, raised an army against the Taira, the clan that dominated the imperial court. Yoshitsune joined him, together with another brother, Noriyori; the brothers had never met before. Yoritomo and Yoshitsune at first had a close relationship that was described as being like father and son.

The war that followed, the Genpei War, made Yoshitsune famous. In early 1184, on Yoritomo's orders, he attacked and killed his cousin Minamoto no Yoshinaka, a rival for leadership of the clan, at the Battle of Awazu. He then defeated the Taira at Ichi-no-Tani, near today's Kobe, in March 1184, and at Yashima on the island of Shikoku in March 1185. A month after Yashima came the final blow.

Dan-no-ura: the last sea battle

The Battle of Dan-no-ura was fought in 1185 in the Kanmon Straits off the southern tip of Honshū, with the Minamoto fleet led by Yoshitsune. The Taira had more ships, knew the local tides and were fighting in their home waters. They also had the young Emperor Antoku, about six years old, and the imperial regalia with them.

The battle began with long-range archery. In the morning the tide favoured the Taira, who tried to surround the Minamoto ships, but in the afternoon it turned against them. A Taira commander, Taguchi Shigeyoshi, whose son was a Minamoto hostage, changed sides, attacked the Taira from behind and revealed which ship carried the emperor. Minamoto archers then targeted the helmsmen and rowers, and the Taira ships drifted out of control.

Seeing the battle lost, many Taira took their own lives. Among them were the child emperor Antoku and his grandmother Taira no Tokiko, widow of the great Taira leader Kiyomori. The Taira tried to throw the imperial regalia into the sea; the sacred jewel was recovered by divers, but many believe the sword was lost. The defeat ended the Taira bid for power, and Yoritomo went on to become the first shogun and set up his military government in Kamakura.

A famous story says Yoshitsune leapt across eight boats in a row to escape a Taira warrior who wanted to drag him into the sea. It is more likely he jumped only one boat and later tellers exaggerated. Another legend says that the heike crabs of the Shimonoseki Straits hold the spirits of the drowned Taira warriors.

From hero to fugitive

After the war, the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa made Yoshitsune governor of Iyo and gave him other titles, but his suspicious brother opposed the honours and cancelled them. While Yoshitsune waited at Koshigoe in 1185 for permission to enter Kamakura, he wrote the "Koshigoe Letter", a final appeal to Yoritomo declaring his loyalty and lamenting that he had not been allowed to answer his slanderers. The letter did not work.

Yoshitsune then obtained imperial permission to join his uncle Minamoto no Yukiie against Yoritomo, and in 1185 he fled Kyoto. His mistress Shizuka Gozen, who was carrying his child, went with him at first but was left behind and captured by Yoritomo's forces. His escape through the Ataka barrier became the subject of the Noh play Ataka, the Kabuki play Kanjinchō and Akira Kurosawa's 1945 film The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail.

The end at Koromogawa

Yoshitsune finally reached Hiraizumi again and the protection of Fujiwara no Hidehira. But after Hidehira died, his son Yasuhira gave in to pressure from Yoritomo and attacked Yoshitsune's residence at Koromogawa in 1189. Yoshitsune's retainers were defeated and he was forced to commit seppuku. His head was preserved in sake and sent to Yoritomo as proof.

According to legend, Benkei stood guard on the bridge before the gate and held off the attackers until he was shot with countless arrows; when the soldiers finally approached, they found that he had died on his feet. This "standing death of Benkei" is one of the most famous images in Japanese storytelling.

Legends that refused to let him die

Many people did not want to accept Yoshitsune's death. Some Ainu accounts say he escaped to Hokkaido. A more fantastic theory claimed that he crossed to the Asian mainland and became Genghis Khan; it was popularised by Suematsu Kenchō in 1879 and was popular in Japan until the mid-twentieth century, when it lost favour. Historians do not take it seriously, but it shows how strongly people wanted the story to continue.

Legacy: the origin of "hōganbiiki"

Yoshitsune is a central figure in the third part of the Tale of the Heike, and the Gikeiki tells the story of his life after the Taira were defeated. Many of these works are legend rather than history; the stories began to appear in the fourteenth century, at first showing him as a sharp-witted commander and later adding romantic tales about his childhood and last years.

His dramatic end created a lasting word. From one of his court titles, Kurō Hōgan, comes the Japanese expression hōganbiiki, sympathy for the tragic hero or the underdog. When Japanese sports fans cheer for the team that is losing, they are, in a small way, still taking Yoshitsune's side against his powerful brother.

Learn with Yoshitsune: English phrases

Phrase	Meaning	Example
to root for the underdog	to support the side expected to lose	Most people root for the underdog.
the tide turned	the situation changed direction	At Dan-no-ura the tide turned in the afternoon.
to fall from grace	to lose a high position or respect	After the war, Yoshitsune fell from grace.
to watch someone's back	to protect someone	Benkei always watched Yoshitsune's back.
to go down fighting	to keep resisting until the end	Benkei went down fighting on the bridge.

Try this: Write three English sentences about a team or person you support, using "to root for the underdog" and "the tide turned".