dren. The feud ran so deep that even Yoriie's wife and his son Ichiman were murdered. Yoriie was blamed for losing the support of the Hiki clan and banished to the Izu Peninsula as a monk, where he was confined in exile in a small hall at Shuzenji Temple. Less than a year later, on July 10, 1204, a group of assassins allegedly sent by Hojo Tokimasa, an uncle, and his own mother, Masako, slipped into the Shuzenji Temple and murdered the Kamakura Shogun. Leadership of the shogunate fell to Yoriie's younger brother and Yoritomo's only surviving son, the four-year-old boy Sanetomo. Minamoto Sanetomo was anointed the third Kamakura Shogun in 1205, ruling under the regency of the Hojo clan, who quietly manipulated events from the background. Almost immediately after the young Sanetomo had been designated the new shogun, Hojo Tokimasa and his family began carefully advancing plans for his eventual removal. On January 27, 1219, the eighteen-year-old Shogun Sanetomo made a ceremonial visit to Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu Shrine near his family manor overlooking the city of Kamakura. A local priest named Kugyo, Shogun Yoriie's son and Sanetomo's own nephew, suddenly sprang from behind a large gingko tree and assassinated the young shogun. Sanetomo's murder was no simple incident and certainly no accident. Kugyo, encouraged by Hojo informants, long believed Sanetomo to be responsible for his father's death and killed the young shogun in revenge. In the final act of this terrible drama, Hojo samurai murdered Kugyo in retaliation for the death of their leader. The tragic deaths of Sanetomo and his nephew, Kugyo, ended Minamoto Yoritomo's family line. The numerous quarrels over supremacy between the Kamakura bakufu and the imperial court in Heian-kyo finally came to head in 1221, when Emperor Go-Toba tried to reclaim political power through an abortive attack on the Regent Hojo Yo*censored*oki. The Hojo clan saw this as a direct threat to not only their ow...
