Emperor Go-Daigo


Emperor Go-Daigo was the 96th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. He successfully overthrew the Kamakura shogunate in 1333 and established the short lived Kenmu Restoration to bring the Imperial House back into power. This was to be the last time the emperor had any power until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The Kenmu restoration was in turn overthrown by Ashikaga Takauji in 1336, ushering in the Ashikaga shogunate, and split the imperial family into two opposing factions between the Ashikaga backed Northern Court situated in Kyoto and the Southern Court based in Yoshino led by Go-Daigo and his later successors.
This 14th-century sovereign personally chose his posthumous name after the 9th-century Emperor Daigo and go-, translates as "later", and he is thus sometimes called the "Later Emperor Daigo", or, in some older sources, "Daigo, the second" or as "Daigo II".

Biography

Before his ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne, his personal name was Takaharu-shinnō.
He was the second son of the Daikakuji-tō emperor, Emperor Go-Uda. His mother was Fujiwara no Chūshi/Tadako, daughter of Fujiwara no Tadatsugu . She became Nyoin called Dantenmon-in. His older brother was Emperor Go-Nijō.
Emperor Go-Daigo's ideal was the Engi era during the reign of Emperor Daigo, a period of direct imperial rule. An emperor's posthumous name was normally chosen after his death, but Emperor Go-Daigo chose his personally during his lifetime, to share it with Emperor Daigo.

Events of Go-Daigo's life

In 1324, with the discovery of Emperor Go-Daigo's plans to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate, the Rokuhara Tandai disposed of his close associate Hino Suketomo in the Shōchū Incident.
In the Genkō Incident of 1331, Emperor Go-Daigo's plans were again discovered, this time by a betrayal by his close associate Yoshida Sadafusa. He quickly hid the Sacred Treasures in a secluded castle in Kasagiyama and raised an army, but the castle fell to the shogunate's army the following year, and they enthroned Emperor Kōgon, exiling Daigo to Oki Province, the same place to which Emperor Go-Toba had been exiled after the Jōkyū War of 1221.
In 1333, Emperor Go-Daigo escaped from Oki with the help of Nawa Nagatoshi and his family, raising an army at Senjo Mountain in Hōki Province. Ashikaga Takauji, who had been sent by the shogunate to find and destroy this army, sided with the emperor and captured the Rokuhara Tandai. Immediately following this, Nitta Yoshisada, who had raised an army in the east, laid siege to Kamakura. When the city finally fell to Nitta, Hōjō Takatoki, the shogunal regent, fled to Tōshō temple, where he and his entire family committed suicide. This ended Hōjō power and paved the way for a new military regime.
Upon his triumphal return to Kyoto, Daigo took the throne from Emperor Kōgon and began the Kenmu Restoration. The Restoration was ostensibly a revival of the older ways, but, in fact, the emperor had his eye set on an imperial dictatorship like that of the emperor of China. He wanted to imitate the Chinese in all their ways and become the most powerful ruler in the East. Impatient reforms, litigation over land rights, rewards, and the exclusion of the samurai from the political order caused much complaining, and his political order began to fall apart. In 1335, Ashikaga Takauji, who had travelled to eastern Japan without obtaining an imperial edict in order to suppress the Nakasendai Rebellion, became disaffected. Daigo ordered Nitta Yoshisada to track down and destroy Ashikaga. Ashikaga defeated Nitta Yoshisada at the Battle of Takenoshita, Hakone. Kusunoki Masashige and Kitabatake Akiie, in communication with Kyoto, smashed the Ashikaga army. Takauji fled to Kyūshū, but the following year, after reassembling his army, he again approached Kyōto. Kusunoki Masashige proposed a reconciliation with Takauji to the emperor, but Go-Daigo rejected this. He ordered Masashige and Yoshisada to destroy Takauji. Kusunoki's army was defeated at the Battle of Minatogawa.
When Ashikaga's army entered Kyōto, Emperor Go-Daigo resisted, fleeing to Mount Hiei, but seeking reconciliation, he sent the imperial regalia to the Ashikaga side. Takauji enthroned the Jimyōin-tō emperor, Kōmyō, and officially began his shogunate with the enactment of the Kenmu Law Code.
Go-Daigo escaped from the capital in January 1337, the regalia that he had handed over to the Ashikaga being counterfeit, and set up the Southern Court among the mountains of Yoshino, beginning the Period of Northern and Southern Courts in which the Northern Dynasty in Kyoto and the Southern Dynasty in Yoshino faced off against each other.
Emperor Go-Daigo ordered Imperial Prince Kaneyoshi to Kyūshū and Nitta Yoshisada and Imperial Prince Tsuneyoshi to Hokuriku, and so forth, dispatching his sons all over, so that they could oppose the Northern Court.
The actual site of Go-Daigo's grave is settled. This emperor is traditionally venerated at a memorial Shinto shrine at Nara.
The Imperial Household Agency designates this location as Go-Daigo's mausoleum. It is formally named Tō-no-o no misasagi.

Genealogy

Consorts and children

: Saionji Kishi later Empress Dowager Go-Kyōgoku-in, Saionji Sanekane's daughter
Empress : Imperial Princess Junshi later Empress Dowager Shin-Muromachi-in, Emperor Go-Fushimi’s daughter
Nyōgo: Fujiwara no Eishi also Anfuku-dono, Nijō Michihira’s daughter
Court lady: Fujiwara no Chikako also Chūnagon-tenji, Itsutsuji Munechika's daughter
Lady-in-waiting: Dainagon'nosuke, Kitabatake Moroshige's daughter
Lady-in-waiting: Shin-Ansatsu-tenji, Jimyoin Yasufuji's daughter
Lady-in-waiting: Sochi-no-suke
Court lady: Koto no Naishi, Saionji Tsunafusa's daughter
Court lady: Shōshō no Naishi, Sugawara no Arinaka's daughter
Court lady: Fujiwara no Renshi later Empress Dowager Shin-Taikenmon-in, Ano Kinkado's daughter
Court lady: Minamoto no Chikako, Kitabatake Morochika's daughter
Court lady: Fujiwara no Ishi/Tameko, Nijō Tameyo's daughter
Nyōgo: Fujiwara no Jisshi. Tōin Saneo's daughter
Court lady: Fujiwara no Shushi/Moriko, daughter of Tōin Saneyasu
Princess: Imperial Princess Kenshi later Empress Dowager Shōkeimon'in, Emperor Kameyama’s daughter
Court lady: Fujiwara Michiko also Gon-no-Dainagon no Sammi no Tsubone later Reisho-in, Nijō Tamemichi's daughter
Court lady: Ichijō no Tsubone later Yūgimon'in, Saionji Sanetoshi's daughter
Court lady: Shōnagon no Naishi, Shijō Takasuke's daughter
Nyōgo: Dainagon-no-tsubone, Ogimachi Saneakira's daughter
Nyōgo: Saemon-no-kami-no-tsubone, Nijō Tametada's daughter
Court lady: Gon-no-Chūnagon no Tsubone, Sanjō Kinyasu's daughter
Nyōgo: Yoshida Sadafusa's daughter
Nyōgo: Bōmon-no-tsubone, Bomon Kiyotada's daughter
Nyōgo: Horikawa Mototomo's daughter
Nyōgo: Minamoto-no-Yasuko also Asukai-no-tsubone later Enseimon'in Harima, Minamoto-no-Yasutoki's daughter
Nyōgo: Wakamizu-no-tsubone, Minamoto-no-Yasutoki's daughter
Nyōgo: Horiguchi Sadayoshi's daughter
Court lady: Konoe no Tsubone later Shōkunmon'in
Go-Daigo had some other princesses from some court ladies.

Kugyō

Kugyō is a collective term for the very few most powerful men attached to the court of the Emperor of Japan in pre-Meiji eras. Even during those years in which the court's actual influence outside the palace walls was minimal, the hierarchic organization persisted.
In general, this elite group included only three to four men at a time. These were hereditary courtiers whose experience and background would have brought them to the pinnacle of a life's career. During Go-Daigo's reign, this apex of the Daijō-kan included:
The years of Go-Daigo's reign are more specifically identified by more than one era name or nengō. Emperor Go-Daigo's eight era name changes are mirrored in number only in the reign of Emperor Go-Hanazono, who also reigned through eight era name changes.
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Emperor Go-Daigo appears in the alternate history novel Romanitas by Sophia McDougall.