Hello, the episode you're about to listen to is part of a multi-part series introducing an overview

of Japanese history.

This is a repeat of one of the original projects the History of Japan podcast was built on,

and is intended to serve as an update and supplement to these original works.

After 10 years, my hope is to return to this approach and to do it a little bit better,

given the skills that I have improved in the intervening years.

If you haven't been doing so already, you should listen to these episodes sequentially,

starting with episode 501.

Without any further ado, enjoy the episode.

Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 506, The Peaceful City.

The last few episodes have been, politically speaking, a tale of one step forward and two steps back for Japan's ruling emperors.

On the one hand, in the century and a half since the 645 coup d'etat against the Soga clan and the start of the Taika reforms, the rulers of the country had done a pretty good job

constructing a far more centralized state than had previously existed, and at beginning the process of creating

a Chinese-style government bureaucracy, complete with a Chinese-style capital city, to go along with it.

On the other hand, the constant divisions within the imperial family, and battles between the

emperors and their most powerful subordinate clans had not exactly stopped.

Indeed, in a certain sense, now that the government was stronger than ever, there was kind of more to fight for.

Indeed, by the final years of what became known as the Nara period, based on the name of the city used as the capital at that time,

the emperor had been largely subjugated

by the powerful Fujiwara family, which had placed a puppet ruler from a more complacent

line of the imperial family on the throne. However, the emperors were not done vying for power,

and here we come to one of those historical figures who just so happened to be at the right place at the right time.

...