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Hello and welcome to the History of Japan Podcast, episode 283 Rags to Riches Part 1.

This week, I want to concentrate on the story of a single clan in Japan's Sengoku period, one that grew from small and rather insignificant roots to be one of the major regional players in Japanese politics. More significantly, they were also the last clan annihilated prior to Toyotomi Hideyoshi's reunification of Japan.

They were the last holdouts against the rule of the peasant-turned-warlord-turned-s supreme leader.

This week, and for the next two weeks after, I want to talk about the latter Hojo clan.

First and most confusingly, the latter Hojo are totally unrelated to the earlier Hojo clan.

The first Hojo were an eastern clan based in the Kanto, the broad plains centered on what is now Tokyo. They rose to prominence because of their decision to ally

themselves to Minamoto Noori Tomo, the man who would become the leader of Japan's first

warrior government.

Based out of the Minamoto capital in Kamakura, about 50 kilometers or just over 30 miles south

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