In 1331, when the plot to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate leaked out, Emperor Go-Daigo secretly fled the capital and shut himself up on Mount Kasagi in Yamashiro. Mount Kasagi, with its piled boulders and great cliff carving of Maitreya, had long been a holy mountain.
One night the emperor had a dream. In front of the Shishinden hall stood a great evergreen tree, its branches growing especially thick toward the south. Beneath it the ministers and officials stood in order of rank, but the seat of honor facing south was still empty. As the emperor wondered at this, two boys appeared and said, "There is nowhere under heaven for you to hide. But on the south side of that tree there is a throne. Sit there," and they rose into the sky.
Waking, the emperor thought, "'Tree' with 'south' beside it makes the character kusu, camphor tree. Does this dream mean I should rely on someone named Kusu?" When he asked the temple monks, they said, "West of Mount Kongo in Kawachi there is one Kusunoki Tamon-hyoe Masashige, skilled in the way of bow and arrow." The emperor summoned Masashige at once.
Masashige came and said, "Even if all the warriors of the land were joined into one, they could not match the might of Kamakura. But with stratagems, deceiving the enemy is easy. In war, a single victory or defeat does not matter. As long as you hear that Masashige alone is still alive, believe that your fortune will open at last." Having spoken so reassuringly, he returned to Kawachi.
But Mount Kasagi was surrounded by the shogunate's great army. On a night of fierce wind and rain, the enemy set fires, and the castle fell. The emperor wandered in the mountains with a few attendants, was captured, and the next year was exiled to Oki.