High Middle Ages · East Asia · Politics

1196

Minamoto Yoritomo consolidates the Kamakura shogunate

1196

With the rival Taira clan annihilated and his own brilliant brother Yoshitsune hunted to death on suspicion of disloyalty, the shogun Yoritomo governed Japan from his austere coastal headquarters at Kamakura rather than the perfumed, ceremonial imperial court at Kyoto. The warrior government he built - spare, disciplined, deeply suspicious of courtly elegance - would outlast its founder by a century and a half and redefine Japanese political culture permanently.