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'Emperor Go-Daigo' (後醍醐天皇 ''Go-Daigo-tennō'') (November 26, 1288 – September 19, 1339) was the '96th' emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. He reigned from March 29, 1318 to September 18, 1339 (with complications, see below). His personal name was Takaharu (尊治).

Contents

Genealogy

Events of Go-Daigo''-tennō's life

Eras of Go-Daigo''-tennō's reign

In popular culture

References

Notes

Further reading

Genealogy

He was the second son of the Daikakuji-tō emperor, Emperor Go-Uda.

★ First son: Imperial Prince Moriyoshi (or Morinaga) (護良親王)

★ Second son: Imperial Prince Takayoshi (尊良親王)

★ Third son: Imperial Prince Muneyoshi (宗良親王)

★ Fourth son: Imperial Prince Tsunenaga (also Tsuneyoshi) (恒良親王)

★ Fifth son: Imperial Prince Norihito (法仁親王)

★ Sixth son: Imperial Prince Nariyoshi (also Narinaga) (成良親王)

★ Seventh son: Imperial Prince Noriyoshi (義良親王) (Emperor Go-Murakami)

★ Eleventh son: Imperial Prince Kaneyoshi (懐良親王) aka Prince Kanenaga.
Emperor Go-Daigo's ideal was the Engi era (901-923) 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''-tennō's life

In 1318, upon the abdication of the Jimyōin-tō Emperor Hanazono (his second cousin), Emperor Go-Daigo became emperor at the age of 29, in the prime of his 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 (the modern town of Kasagi, Sōraku district, Kyōto Prefecture) and raised an army, but the castle fell to the Bakufu's army the following year, and they enthroned Emperor Kōgon, exiling Emperor Go-Daigo to Oki Province (the Oki Islands in modern-day Shimane Prefecture), the same place to which Emperor Go-Toba was exiled in 1198.
In 1333, Emperor Go-Daigo escaped from Oki with the help of Nawa Nagatoshi and his family, raising an army at Funagami Mountain in Hōki Province (the modern town of Kotoura in Tōhaku District, Tottori Prefecture). Ashikaga Takauji, who had been sent by the Bakufu 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, destroyed the Hōjō clan and captured the Bakufu.
Returning to Kyōto, Emperor Go-Daigo took the throne from Emperor Kōgon and began the Kemmu 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 with the Restoration. Emperor Go-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 restructuring his army in Kyūshū, he again approached Kyōto. Kusunoki Masashige proposed a reconciliation with Ashikaga 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 (湊川の戦い).
When Ashikaga's army entered Kyōto, Emperor Go-Daigo resisted, fleeing to Mount Hiei, but seeking reconciliation, he sent the Sacred Treasures to the Ashikaga side. Takauji enthroned the Jimyōin-tō emperor, Kōmyō, and officially began his shogunate with the enactment of the Kemmu Law Code.
Go-Daigo escaped from the capital, the Sacred Treasures 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 Kyōto 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.
In 1339, he died of an unknown disease.

Eras of Go-Daigo''-tennō's reign

The years of Go-Diago's reign are more specifically identified by more than one era name or ''nengō''. Emperor Go-Daigo's eight era name changes are equalled in number only in the reign of Emperor Go-Hanazono, who also reigned through eight era name changes.
:'Pre''-Nanboku-chō'' court'

★ ''Bumpō'' (1317-1319)

★ ''Gen'ō'' (1319-1321)

★ ''Genkō'' (1321-1324)

★ ''Shōchū'' (1324-1326)

★ ''Karyaku'' (1326-1329)

★ ''Gentoku'' (1329-1331)

★ ''Genkō'' (1331-1334)

★ ''Kemmu'' (1334-1336)
:'''Nanboku-chō'' southern court'

★ Eras as reckoned by legitimate Court (as determined by Meiji rescript)

★ ''Engen'' (1336-1340)
:'''Nanboku-chō'' northern Court'

★ Eras as reckoned by pretender Court (as determined by Meiji rescript)

★ ''Shōkei'' (1332-1338)

★ ''Ryakuō'' (1338-1342)

In popular culture

Emperor Go-Daigo appears in the alternate history novel ''Romanitas'' by Sophia McDougall.

References

Notes

Further reading

★ Titsingh, Isaac, ed. (1834). [Siyun-sai Rin-siyo, 1652] ''Nipon o daï itsi ran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon, tr. par M. Isaac Titsingh avec l'aide de plusieurs interprètes attachés au comptoir hollandais de Nangasaki; ouvrage re., complété et cor. sur l'original japonais-chinois, accompagné de notes et précédé d'un Aperçu d'histoire mythologique du Japon, par M. J. Klaproth. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.--''Two copies of this rare book have now been made available online: (1) from the library of the University of Michigan, digitized January 30, 2007; and (2) from the library of Stanford University, digitized June 23, 2006.'' Click here to read the original text in French.