Emperor Go-Daigo (1288 – 1339) was the 96th emperor of Japan. His father was Emperor Go-Uda. His mother was Fujiwara no Chūshi/Tadako, daughter of Fujiwara no Tadatsugu (Itsutsuji Tadatsugu). His older brother was Emperor Go-Nijō. His personal name was Takaharu. He acceded to the throne upon the abdication of his cousin, Emperor Hanazono in 1318.
Imperial Prince Takaharu’s future as emperor had been decided when he was only a young boy. There had been a succession dispute, which had been brokered by the Kamakura Hōjō regime. The succession dispute centered on the two imperial lineages: Daikakuji-to and Jimyoin-to.
Daikakuji-to was comprised of the descendants of the 90th emperor, Kameyama, who was the son of the 88th emperor, Go-Saga. Both Emperor Kameyama and Go-Uta put great effort into reconstructing Daikaku-ji Temple, where both Emperors established a cloister government after they entered the priesthood.
Jimyoin-to was comprised of the descendants of the 89th emperor, Go-Fukakusa, whose father was also the 88th emperor, Go-Saga. Emperor Go-Horikawa named and lived in the Jimyo-in palace as Sento Imperial Palace; and the retired Emperors Go-Saga and Go-Fukakusa lived there also. Accordingly, the line from Emperor Go-Fukakusa to Emperor Go-Komatsu was called Jimyoin-to.
Emperor Go-Horikawa had been enthroned as emperor under orders of the Kamakura bakufu (“tent government” of the Kamakura shogunate) after the Jōkyū disturbance or Jōkyū War, a struggle for power between the imperial forces and those of the shogunate. It resulted in Go-Toba along with three retired emperors, his sons, being banished to the Oki Islands. It also resulted in a ruling by the bakufu that Jimyoin-to and Daikakuji-to were to share the Imperial Throne on a ten year rotating basis with the cloistered government to continue.
Thus in 1308, when Emperor Go-Nijō died at the age of 23, his younger brother, Takaharu, became Crown Prince and Hanazono became emperor. Ten years later in 1318, Takaharu succeeded Emperor Hanazono, taking the name Go-Daigo. It was understood that Go-Daigo was only to be a titular caretaker emperor until Prince Kuniyoshi, the son of the late Emperor Go-Nijō would be old enough. Go-Daigo’s father, Go-Uda, ruled as cloistered emperor during the first three years of his reign. As a caretaker emperor, the sons of Go-Daigo were automatically precluded from royal succession.
Unlike so many of the preceding emperors who were children when they acceded to the throne, Go-Daigle was a thirty year old adult who had a mind of his own. Go-Daigo planned to rule as emperor and neither to abdicate nor to be a titular emperor.
Go-Daigo began making plans to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate. In the Shochu Incident in 1324, the Rokuhara Tandai (the Kamakura regime’s agency for safety and judicial affairs in Kyoto, i.e., keeping an eye on the emperor) found out about it and disposed of the close vassals of Go-Daigo but the Kamakura regime did not punish Go-Daigo.
Despite this, Go-Daigo continued with his plans. He curried favor with religious leaders and visited temples in northern Kyoto such as Tōfuku-ji and Enryaku-ji, praying for control over the Kanto district, with the excuse that the prayer was for his wife’s easy delivery.
However, by this time there was a major split amongst the aristocrats into the Imperial Faction and the Prince Kuniyoshi Faction that was backed by the Jimyoin-to lineage and the Kamakura bakufu. Prince Kuniyoshi died in 1326 and increasingly there was pressure for Go-Daigo to abdicate.
In 1331, the Genkō Incident changed Go-Daigo’s life forever. A trusted advisor, Yoshida Sadafusa, betrayed his plans to restore the monarchy to the Kamakura shogunate. A force was dispatched to Kyoto to remove Go-Daigo.
Go-Daigo fled Kyoto taking the Sacred Treasures and sought refuge in a secluded monastery, Kasagi. The monastery was attacked by shogunate forces. Go-Daigo’s force of fighting monks and disillusioned clan leaders was defeated. In 1332, Go-Daigo was banished to the Oki Islands, the same place to which Emperor Go-Toba had been exiled after the Jōkyū War. Go-Daigo’s son, Prince Moringa, Akamatsu Norimura (Enshin), and Kusunoki Masashige kept his cause alive by continuing the struggle against the shogunate.
The shogunate then enthroned Emperor Kōgon, who had been designated to succeed to the throne after Prince Kuniyoshi.
In 1333, Go-Daigo escaped and raised an army in Hōki Province.
The Kamakura shogunate sent Ashikaga Takauji after Go-Daigo and his supporters. Ashikaga Takauji was from a distinguished branch of the Minamoto (the Seiwa Genji line, descendants of Emperor Seiwa) and not only was he a leading general but also he was ambitious and wanted to be shogun. Ashikaga Takauji changed sides and joined the emperor fighting the Hōjō, the clan who ruled the Kamakura shogunate. Ashikaga Takauji entered Kyoto and captured the Rokuhara Tandai (secret police of the Kamakura shogunate).
Meanwhile an army headed by Nitta Yoshida was moving on Kamakura. Nitta Yoshida’s forces attacked Kamakura, burnt the city, and the Hōjō leader, Hōjō clan members, and its retainers committed mass suicide, thus ending the Hōjō power and the Kamakura shogunate.
Go-Daigo entered the Palace in July 1333 taking the throne from Emperor Kōgon.
Emperor Go-Daigo now had his opportunity. In what is known as the Kenmu Restoration, he attempted to bring back imperial power and civilian government, after some 150 years of military rule. However, Go-Daigo made some serious mistakes that ultimately proved fatal to his restoration attempts.
He appointed his son to be his successor, excluding the son of his elder brother (the late Emperor Go-Nijo), who was in the direct line of Daikakuji-to. This not only conflicted with the Jimyoin-to lineage but also within the Daikakuji-to lineage.
Go-Daigo failed to reform the ancient shōen system, which provided for tax-exempt estates that was now seriously impoverishing the court. But Go-Daigo had a problem with any such reform, for it was samurai from the tax-exempt manors in the western provinces that had defeated the Kamakura regime.
The minor samurai felt slighted after Go-Daigo favored the court nobles, bureaucrats, and leading samurai. After just a couple of years, Go-Daigo and the nobles had lost most of their samurai support.
Go-Daigo recovered the property of some manors his family had previously lost and used some of these properties to reward Buddhist temples like Tōji and Daitoku-ji for their support. However, he did nothing to protect the rights of the tenants and workers on these lands.
Go-Daigo wanted to re-establish rule over Kamakura and the east of the country without sending a shogun there, so he sent his young son Prince Norinaga (a/k/a Noriyoshi) to Mutsu province and named him Governor-General of the Mutsu and Dewa provinces.
Go-Daigo alienated Ashikaga Takauji when he refused to appoint him seii tai shogun, even after the late regent’s surviving son, Hōjō Tokiyuki, had raised an army to attempt to re-establish the Kamakura shogunate.
Ashikaga Takauji became the leader of the discontented samurai who saw him as the man who could bring back the glory of the shogunate’s heyday. His only obstacle to the shogunate was Prince Morinaga (Moriyoshi).
On the pretext that Prince Morinaga was plotting to seize the throne, Ashikaga Takauji arrested Morinaga and brought him to Kamakura. During the Hojo rebellion, Ashikaga Tadayoshi, Takauji’s brother, beheaded Prince Morinaga before fleeing Kamakura.
Ashikaga Takauji asked Go-Daigo to make him seii tai shogun to quell the Hōjō uprising but Go-Daigo refused. So taking matters into his own hands, Takauji raised an army and defeated the Hōjō. Takauji stayed in Kamakura, rewarded his troops and supporters with booty, and assumed great powers.
Because Ashikaga Takauji had acted without obtaining an imperial edict, Go-Daigo enlisted Nitta Yoshisada and other loyal samurai to attack Kamakura and destroy Ashikaga. However, Nitta Yoshisada was defeated at the Battle of Takenoshita. Takauji gathered new allies under his command. As the great army under Ashikaga marched toward Kyoto, Kusunoki Masashige proposed reconciliation with Takauji, which Go-Daigo rejected. On July 4, 1336, at the decisive Battle of Minatogawa, Ashikaga Takauji’s forces defeated the overmatched imperial forces, where Masashige was killed, and Yoshisada fled to die later in a future battle.
Ashikaga Takauji entered Kyoto and Go-Daigo fled to Mt Hiei. Go-Daigo attempted reconciliation by sending the imperial regalia to Ashikaga. However, Takauji installed Emperor Kōmyō of the Jimyoin-to lineage to replace Go-Daigo.
It turned out that the regalia that Go-Daigo had handed over to Ashikaga were fake. He went to the mountains of Yoshino and set up the Southern Court. Emperor Go-Daigo dispatched his sons and supporters to strategically important places to oppose the Northern Court. Thus, the Northern and Southern Courts Period started with the coexistence of the Kyoto Imperial Court (Northern Court) and the Yoshino Imperial Court (Southern Court) at the same time.
On September 18, 1339, Go-Daigo abdicated in favor of his son Noriyoshi, who would become Emperor Go-Murakami. The following day, September 19, 1339, Go-Daigo died.
Emperor Go-Murakami held a large memorial service for Emperor Go-Daigo at Shogonjodo-ji Temple, the family temple of the Tsumori Family whose members had served as chief priests of the Sumiyoshi Grand Shrine, the family shrine of the Southern Court. Similarly, Ashikaga Takauji constructed Tenryū-ji Temple in Kyoto and dedicated it to the memory of Emperor Go-Daigo.
Go-Daigo’s actions began the Period of Northern and Southern Courts, called Nanboku-chō, in which the Northern Court in Kyoto and the Southern Court in Yoshino fought for almost 60 years.
His reign would be the last time an emperor had any real power until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.
After the Kanmu Restoration was overthrown by Ashikaga Takauji, he began the Ashikaga shogunate, which lasted through the Muromachi Period.
In October, 1926, an imperial prescript was issued and the imperial genealogy was rewritten to change his title from the 95th to the 96th Emperor.