道元論8On Dogen, Part 8
On the midnight of June 1, 1171, the air was thick with a tension that threatened to shatter the very foundations of the era. Taira no Kiyomori (1118–1181), leading a force of several thousand, stood poised to execute the most significant military strike in history: the burning of Mount Hiei. They acted under the orders of Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa (1127–1192), the autocrat of Heian-kyo, and the powerful figures of insei (院政), the cloistered government, who surrounded him. Mount Hiei had long served as the guardian of the underside of the capital’s structure.
However, a clandestine visit to Kiyomori’s residence that night brought a grave revelation concerning the rulers of the insei. In a sudden, decisive pivot, Kiyomori abandoned the assault on the mountain and instead occupied Heian-kyo. There, he seized and immediately executed the aristocrats involved in a conspiracy to trap and annihilate both the Taira and the monks of Mount Hiei. In one stroke, he ground the power of the cloistered government into dust.
To understand the upheaval surrounding the 1170s, one must look beyond the mere presence or absence of historical facts; the true weight lies in the fluid, shifting locus of hegemony. From this vantage point, we see Taira no Kiyomori not merely as the head of a military house, but as a man of singular genius who possessed the rare mettle to navigate and dominate this profoundly difficult era until his final days. He was a singular existence who transformed the very nature of the age.
Let us examine Kiyomori’s movements. By the turbulent 1170s, he was already contemplating the abandonment of Heian-kyo in favor of a new capital. We must consider that the old structure of Heian-kyo, established in 794, had become a zombified accumulation of vested interests. It had carved its history into a remarkably narrow strip of land—a mere fraction of present-day Kyoto—causing power to stagnate and rot.
Kiyomori had shattered these zombified interests through the sheer force of his presence. Yet, even after he had subjugated the dual powers of Heian-kyo’s surface and shadow, the old order did not collapse instantly. While the physical site of the Heian-kyo structure was small, the tentacles of its vested interests stretched in every direction. Consequently, the dismantling of such a structure required a significant temporal delay. Until then, Kiyomori believed that for the warrior class to seize true hegemony and shape the era, they had to remain within Heian-kyo to renovate the old order. However, through his achievements, he became convinced that the age of the samurai had already dawned. With this realization, his philosophy shifted: there was no longer a need to cling to Heian-kyo. Why should a warrior not build a city of his own? This transition—from an obsession with Heian-kyo to a migration beyond it—would become the most vital factor in the authentic arrival of the warrior age.
History teaches us that the optimal solution for sweeping away a decayed structure is to move to a new location. Indeed, before the capital was settled in present-day Kyoto, it had shifted across Nara, Osaka, southern Kyoto, and Omi in Shiga Prefecture. With each relocation, the old order was refreshed, allowing a new order to sprout. Kiyomori was simply following this historical rhythm.
The site Kiyomori chose for his kingdom was Fukuhara, near the harbor of present-day Kobe, slightly removed from Heian-kyo. He began his move to Fukuhara around 1167 or 1168, shortly before the great unrest of the 1170s. At this time, Kiyomori had ascended to the pinnacle of political power, yet he chose to adopt a stance of stepping back from the public stage. This was a calculated move to prepare for a hegemony that would endure for eternity. His departure from Heian-kyo was, in essence, the beginning of a long-term architecture for Taira dominance.
However, the dream of perpetual growth is a phantom. Within the span of a single life, such an illusion may hold, but it cannot be sustained across dozens of generations. The relocation to Fukuhara stands as the symbolic event where Kiyomori failed to see this boundary.
As discussed previously, Kiyomori’s choice of Fukuhara was rooted in the trade routes his father, Taira no Tadamori (1096–1153), and he had mastered, connecting Japan with the Song dynasty through Kyushu. The Taira had already subjugated the pirates of the Seto Inland Sea, ensuring the safety of these maritime arteries. Thus, Fukuhara was the most critical port in the logistics chain that brought goods from Kyushu to Heian-kyo—the final gateway to the capital. During their ascent, the Taira had seized Kanzaki-no-sho in Saga and the Dazaifu in Fukuoka—the entry points for the Song trade—and dominated key maritime points from eastern Okayama to western Hyogo. They had conquered every strategic node of the trade. To circulate goods to the urban centers of Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara, modern-day Kobe was indispensable as the final stronghold. Indeed, the history of Kobe is one of a flourishing trade port, where various vested interests have remained from ancient times to the present.
By controlling Fukuhara, Kiyomori could centralize the terminus of the Song trade and unify all commercial operations. This granted him the power to take the drastic measure of halting supplies to the old powers of Heian-kyo. In other words, by commanding the trade from Fukuhara, Kiyomori acquired a political weapon: the ability to threaten and pressure Heian-kyo without residing within its walls. This was a development of immense significance.
Historically, Heian-kyo was a land incapable of producing its own food or resources, relying entirely on procurement from other regions. It survived by utilizing its geographical position to build diversified trade routes, practicing risk management to endure to this day. However, Kiyomori had already destroyed much of the trade route that Mount Hiei controlled—the path leading from the Sea of Japan through Hokuriku and Lake Biwa. In its place, he established the Seto Inland Sea as the primary artery. If the Taira controlled Fukuhara and, by extension, the volume of goods entering Heian-kyo, the capital’s hegemony would become unsustainable. The last autocrat, Go-Shirakawa, and the aristocrats parasitic to the insei structure would reach their end. This was Kiyomori’s final design.
Kiyomori’s actions were fascinatingly orchestrated. In February 1167, he became the first warrior to ascend to the rank of daijo-daijin (太政大臣), the Grand Minister of State, the highest position in the court. Yet, by May, he abruptly resigned and passed the family headship to his eldest son, Taira no Shigemori (1138–1179). In February 1168, after surviving a life-threatening illness, he made a decision that stunned those around him: he took the tonsure. His entry into the priesthood was facilitated by his former enemy, Mount Hiei. This was possible because the new head of the mountain, Myoun (1115–1184), was a man of modern talent with whom Kiyomori found common ground. By becoming a monk, Kiyomori created the illusion for the rulers of Heian-kyo that the greatest power of the age had retired from the front lines of politics.
But this was merely an illusion. To summarize: in 1168, Kiyomori attained the highest authority, discarded it within three months, passed his lineage to his son, and entered the priesthood. To the world, it appeared a monarch had ended his era. The rulers of Heian-kyo might have seen this as a golden opportunity to reclaim their hegemony. Yet, Taira dominance was maintained through Kiyomori as a nyudo (入道), a lay priest who wields power from behind the scenes. Even from the distance of Fukuhara, Kiyomori’s shadow loomed heavy over the capital. This was the ultimate terror for the rulers of Heian-kyo.
They were forced to confront an invisible shadow day and night, living in a state of perpetual anxiety. Any attempt to interfere with Taira hegemony would bring Kiyomori racing back from nearby Fukuhara to deal with the matter swiftly. He had constructed a sophisticated architecture of governance where he ruled even in his physical absence. I have previously described the surface structure of Heian-kyo and the shadow structure of Mount Hiei; here, the existence of this single warrior, Taira no Kiyomori, emerged as a towering fiction, a concept rising above both structures. Seeing through this collective fantasy is the key. The shared illusion of Heian-kyo was undergoing a transformation.
Kiyomori made Fukuhara his base, ostensibly for convalescence, but the site was chosen for its strategic logic. It allowed him to personally direct the Song trade. As we have seen, the source of the Taira’s meteoric rise was the immense financial power gained by mastering trade with China. Thus, Kiyomori developed the port of Owada-no-tomari adjacent to Fukuhara and lived there to control commerce directly. Furthermore, holding official court titles often meant being consumed by endless rituals and aristocratic socializing, which leads one to lose the ability to perceive the reality of one's own position. Then, as now, without a profound questioning of why one holds a position, there is a high risk of being seduced by superficial splendor and losing oneself in a vortex of desire. Kiyomori, intimately aware of this danger, stepped down from his titles and became a monk—a retired figure who possessed the freedom of extraterritorial power.
Fukuhara, facing the sea, was the perfect location for the Taira, who held maritime supremacy. The region was populated by those who had benefited from the Taira’s suppression of pirates and the opening of the Song trade routes. In a sense, the Taira exercised such absolute influence here that it could be called their own kingdom. From Fukuhara, if unrest broke out in Heian-kyo, they could escape via the sea to Shikoku, Kyushu, or the Chugoku region, or instantaneously summon their subjugated pirates and military forces. In this context, Kiyomori’s actions were intended to create a second capital to decentralize the function of the first, thereby inducing a functional failure in Heian-kyo itself. In other words, he was strangling the life out of Kyoto.
Previously, within Heian-kyo, the Imperial Court stood as the surface capital, while Mount Hiei acted as the shadow capital—a massive, fictional power apparatus. Kiyomori rendered this fiction void by physically shifting the center of gravity. Seizing upon Kiyomori's distance, the rulers of Heian-kyo began plotting to reclaim the Taira's vested interests. The climax, as discussed yesterday, was the insei conspiracy to force a military clash between the Taira and Mount Hiei. However, as noted, even when Taira no Shigemori and Taira no Munemori received these direct orders from Go-Shirakawa, they could not decide for themselves. They flew to Fukuhara to ask Kiyomori to take command. Kiyomori entered Heian-kyo that very day and persuaded Go-Shirakawa the next. It is self-evident that Kiyomori was the true sovereign of the era.
Having swiftly dealt with this conspiracy, Kiyomori navigated the unrest of the 1170s and focused his sights on his final objective. The Taira had already subdued Mount Hiei and purged the anti-Taira factions within the insei. The final target was the dismantling of the insei system itself. In a single generation, Kiyomori was dismantling the surface and shadow of the Heian-kyo structure with terrifying speed.
Thus began the upheaval of early November 1179. A decisive event in this process was the death of Kiyomori’s heir, Taira no Shigemori, in August 1179. Shigemori had maintained a good relationship with Go-Shirakawa—one might even call him pro-insei—and served as the essential buffer between the titan Kiyomori and the Cloistered Emperor. It was because of Shigemori that Kiyomori had not moved directly against Go-Shirakawa. However, with Shigemori’s death, the thread connecting the two most powerful men of the age was severed, and they moved toward a direct collision. I previously defined the Heian-kyo structure as a triangle of “aristocracy, imperial family, Mount Hiei”. Here, it finally becomes clear that Kiyomori was dismantling this triangular structure alone.
For Go-Shirakawa, the Taira’s grip on power was the greatest obstacle to his own autocracy. Once Shigemori, the final link, was gone, he provoked the Taira by seizing Shigemori's estates. Enraged, Kiyomori led thousands of troops from Fukuhara to Heian-kyo. No force could resist them. The Regent Matsudono Motofusa was stripped of his office and exiled; anti-Taira aristocrats within the insei were dismissed; and the autocrat Go-Shirakawa himself was confined to the Toba-den in southern Kyoto. The insei was forcibly suspended.
Because the dictatorial power of the traditional Heian-kyo structure had resided in the insei, its suspension marked the establishment of the first military dictatorship under the Taira. November 1179 was the great turning point—the moment the warrior class finally stood in the position of founding a dictatorial government.
To other rulers, Kiyomori’s forced suspension of the insei appeared as nothing less than the emergence of a total autocrat. Until this point, the power of the era had not been concentrated in a single man. But now, with Go-Shirakawa’s power nullified and Mount Hiei unable to resist, Kiyomori reigned as the de facto supreme monarch of Japan.
The great cataclysm of 1180 began because this state of affairs could not be ignored. Kiyomori, in his state of absolute control, could command everything. Having successfully neutralized his greatest enemy, the insei, he moved to seize the hegemony of the Imperial bloodline. He had his grandson enthroned as Emperor Antoku and, in June 1180, declared the abandonment of Heian-kyo, forcing the relocation of the capital to Fukuhara. The 81st Emperor, Antoku (r. 1181–1185), was of the Imperial line, born to Kiyomori’s daughter.
This may seem complex, but the answer has been written throughout this series. By stopping the 100-year-old insei system—where one intentionally abdicated the throne to rule from the shadows for private gain—Kiyomori was, in terms of political theater, returning actual power to the Emperor. This forcibly ended the long-standing internal struggle between Cloistered Emperors and reigning Emperors. However, one must read the reality beneath this.
In essence, while the insei was suspended under Kiyomori, the system of the insei was inherited by him. He placed an Emperor from his own bloodline on the throne to hold outward power, while he, the warrior, grasped the administration from behind the scenes. It was a reconfiguration of the internal power structure. For this to work, Go-Shirakawa was a hindrance; thus, his confinement under Taira supervision was essential.
In that moment, Kiyomori succeeded in transferring all the authority of Heian-kyo to himself in a single lifetime. He became the era’s supreme fiction, establishing a world where he reigned as the power apparatus itself. It was the heartbeat of a new age—but there was one domain Kiyomori could not see, and it would ultimately prove fatal.
What was this invisible realm that escaped even the seemingly perfect Kiyomori? It was the signal fires rising from the East—a territory the Taira did not master.
Later, the opening of The Tale of the Heike (Heike Monogatari), the classic that passed down the story of the Taira, would capture it thus:
The sound of the Gion Shoja bells echoes the impermanence of all things. The color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure; they are like a dream on a spring night. The mighty fall at last, appearing as nothing more than dust before the wind.
The Taira clan, which reached unprecedented heights of splendor only to vanish within decades, was seen by the people of the time as a living testament to the rise and fall of fortune. The Tale of the Heike elevated this history into a narrative centered on two Buddhist keys: shogyo mujo (諸行無常), the impermanence of all worldly things, and josha hissui (盛者必衰), the inevitable decline of the flourishing.
The rise and fall of the Taira is not merely history; it is a teaching: no matter how great one's power, one cannot defy the laws of nature or the flow of time.
The modern world may seem to be one where dictators with absolute power reign supreme. Yet, however strong they may be, they cannot resist the providence of nature or the passage of time. Their moment of erasure will surely come. Until that time, what will you achieve, and what will you prepare? Ultimately, this leads to the foundational question: for what purpose were you born into this world, and for what reason do you carry your identity? To face this question is to accumulate moral actions day by day.
It should now be becoming clear that this series is not a mere introduction to Japanese history. Through the movements of this era, it is not only power that is being transformed. In response to these shifts, something else began to emerge and change. That was a new form of religion.