The Taiheiki (Chronicle of Great Peace)

The monk Kojima and others (disputed) · c. 1370

Overview

Forty books. It covers some fifty years: from Emperor Go-Daigo's plot against the shogunate, through the fall of the Kamakura shogunate, the Kenmu Restoration, Ashikaga Takauji's break and the split into Northern and Southern Courts, and struggles within the shogunate, to Hosokawa Yoriyuki becoming deputy shogun. Strong personalities crowd its pages: Kusunoki Masashige, Nitta Yoshisada, Ashikaga Takauji, Ko no Moronao, Sasaki Doyo. It is written in a vigorous mixed Japanese-Chinese style, citing many Chinese precedents.

Background

In the fourteenth century, as the Kamakura shogunate weakened, Emperor Go-Daigo plotted its overthrow, aiming at direct rule by the emperor. The Kenmu Restoration angered the warriors and collapsed within a few years, and an age of two courts, the Northern in Kyoto and the Southern in Yoshino, lasted nearly sixty years. The tale was written and extended under the Muromachi shogunate, and the "great peace" of its title is said to express the hope that the wars would end.

Highlights

  1. Chihaya CastleHolding out with a handful of men, Kusunoki Masashige toys with the shogunate's great army using straw dummies, boulders and boiling water.Read “The Battle of Chihaya Castle” →
  2. InamuragasakiNitta Yoshisada throws his golden sword into the sea, the tide recedes, and a way into Kamakura opens.Read “Inamuragasaki Becomes a Tidal Flat” →
  3. MinatogawaGoing to a battle he cannot win, Masashige sends his son Masatsura home, and at Minatogawa dies after vowing with his brother Masasue, "May we be born as men seven times to destroy the enemies of the court."Read “Masashige Goes Down to Hyogo and Leaves His Son His Last Instructions” →
  4. The death of Go-DaigoIn the mountains of Yoshino, he dies still hoping to return to Kyoto.Read “The Death of the Former Emperor” →