In 1332, Emperor Go-Daigo, captured at Mount Kasagi, was to be exiled to Oki.
Kojima Bingo Saburo Takanori, a warrior of Bizen, led his kinsmen to ambush the escort and rescue the emperor, but they took a different road and he failed. Wishing at least to let the emperor know his loyalty, he slipped secretly into the lodging at Innosho in Mimasaka, shaved the bark of a cherry tree in the garden, and wrote a Chinese poem of ten characters on it:
"Heaven does not abandon Goujian; the time will not lack a Fan Li." (Heaven will not forsake Goujian; when the time comes, a loyal retainer like Fan Li may appear.)
Goujian was a king of Yue in China's Spring and Autumn period who, defeated and humiliated by King Fuchai of Wu, at last destroyed Wu with the help of his loyal retainer Fan Li. The next morning the guards saw the characters but could not understand them; but the emperor, seeing them, understood their meaning and is said to have smiled.
The emperor lived in a temporary palace at the provincial temple of Dogo, on the Oki islands. Island life was lonely, and he lamented, "Whenever I think of the capital, I have no place to rest."
In the intercalary second month of 1333, when word came that armies had risen against the shogunate across the land, the emperor secretly escaped from Oki. He hid in the bottom of a fishing boat, covered with a load of fish, and eluded the pursuing ships. Landing in Hoki, he was welcomed by Nawa Nagatoshi, a powerful local lord, who built a stronghold on Mount Senjo, and from there the emperor issued edicts calling the whole country to overthrow the shogunate.
So the emperor returned to the capital, and the Kenmu Restoration began.