The cause of Yoritomo's death.
The cause of his death has been thought as a mysterious death. Because an article about Yoritomo's death wasn't written in the history book 'Azuma Kagami' that was edited by Kamakura shogunate government officially. A lot of drama was written about his mysterious death. This play, 'The Death of Yoritomo' is one of them. Yoritomo's death was officially explained as the result that he fell from his horse. When he comes back from a completion ceremony of a bridge, his horse acts violently, and he fell from the horse. He got a concussion of the brain or a cerebral hemorrhalitis then. Shogun is the leader of the warrior's class, so people thinks it is an unlikely matter. And a lot of reason that he fell from the horse was thought. One of them is the most common, the ghost of the former emperor Antoku appears on to surprise Yoritomo. Antoku, a grandchild of Taira-no Kiyomori, was killed at the battle of Dannoura when he was 7. The battle of Dannoura is the final battle between Genji -Minamoto clan and Heike-Tira clan in 1185. Heike clan was extinct then. The next theory is about the ghost of Yoshitsune who was Yoritomo's younger brother. The ghost of Yoshitsune also appears on to surprise Yoritomo. Yoshitsune was the most able commander of Genji clan, and Yoritomo was afraid of Yoshitsune because Yoshitsune was getting a good reputation increasingly more than Yoritomo at that time. After Yoshitsune finished the extinction of Heike clan, Yoritomo cornered Yoshitsune and killed in 1189. The other theory is about Yoritomo's lovers. It doesn't relate to the horse. One night, Yoritomo disguises himself into a woman to visit to his lover. The guard finds Yoritomo as a suspicious man, and slashes him wrongly. The author, Mayama Seika wrote this drama that was based to the theory. It is unlikely very much, but it has been being thought as one of the theory of the cause of Yoritomo's death for long years. Thus it isn't an original idea of Mayama only. It means there were really many lovers of Yoritomo. When Yoriie became the second shogun, he was 17. This drama is about the matter that might have happened in 1201. As Yoriie got an illness in 1203, Lady Masako made him abdicate the shogun's rank to give his younger brother Senman. Then Sennen becomes the third shogun Sanetomo, he was 12. And Yoriie was confined to the temple Shuzenji. As I mentioned before, 'Azuma Kagaki' is the official history book of Kamakura shogunate government, and it says Yoriie died by his illness. But it is Japanese historians' common awareness that Yoriie was killed. Shigeyasu's family, Hatakeyama clan was extinct in 1205. Hojo Tokimasa, Lady Masako's father ordered to kill both of Yoriie and Hatakeyama clan. Of course the agreement of Lady Masako was necessary to kill them. The same year in 1205, Tokimasa tries to kill the third shogun Sanetomo. But Tokimasa fails it, and he was confined to Izu as a priest. At that time Sanetomo could survive, but at the result he also was killed in 1219. The legitimacy by blood of Genji clan had stopped when Sanetomo was killed. At the ending of this drama, Yoriie is crying lonely. Everyone who was around him expected him to be a genius, but he wasn't a genius from any angle. He needed to be recognized by his mother Lady Masako and other people who had the power. He couldn't have endured of the stress to be as a son of Lady Masako rather than to be as the second shogun. Yoriie had been being thought having a mental illness. I have no idea to say about Yoriie, because I can't find where his mind was. But I think he was just a mediocre young man. Yoritomo made the extinction of Heike clan in order to make that result that all of legitimate Genji clan was killed finally. Yoriie might have had known it. Yoriie had been crying at the ending of this drama, but I think it wasn't for himself only. He cries because the extinction of Genji clan will come soon.
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