The oldest Royal family in the world (8) 2016/06/10
Gotoba 82nd Emperor was born in1180 and died in 1239. He was at the position of Emperor from 1183 to 1198, namely at his age of 4 to 19.
It was the time of famous Gennpei battle which was the battle between Heike and Genji, both were representatives of newly coming Samurai powers. Heike took 81st Emperor Antoku to his side. Against Heike, Genji made 4 years old child 82nd Emperor, Gotoba. Genji won the battle and established a new government in 1983 at Kamakura, 400 km east of old capital Kyoto.
It was the first time in Japanese history to have Samurai government instead of Emperors and their surrounding nobles.
Gotoba stayed in Kyoto and cooperated smoothly with new Kamakura government. However third General of Genji was assassinated and taken away the power by Hojo family. After the incident, Gotoba , who already retired but kept a power, would not trust in Kamakura government anymore and finally opened the fire against Kamakura .
It was the first battle for Samurais to fight against Emperor’ s sacred authority. Therefore there were some who did not fight willingly against Emperor, however Kamakura finally won the battle by overwhelming fighting powers.
After the lost of the battle, Gotoba retired-Emperor was exiled to Oki island, while another retired-Emperor was also exiled to Sado island. In other word, Samurais hesitated to kill Emperors even after the battle.
Gotoba was the Emperor between the transition time from Noble’s government to Samurai’s government. Beside such political movement, Gotoba showed enthusiasm in organizing traditional Japanese songs and made a famous anthology ( New Kokinnshu) and also made himself an excellent poet.
Ｇｏｔｏｂａ ｒｅｔｉｒｅｄ－Ｅｍｐｅｒｏｒ
