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 519, The Low Conquers the High, part two.

Last week was all about the great clans brought low by the period of civil war known as the Sengoku-Jidai, or era of warring states.

Today is about the reverse, clans which rose from comparative obscurity to power, prestige, and greatness during the turbulence of war.

In other words, today is about the flip side of that term, Gekokujo, the low conquers the high, that is so often associated with this age.

And I can't think of a better place to start that conversation than with one of the most powerful families to emerge from the age of civil war, the Mordi clan.

Now, the Mordi have a pretty elite genealogy. They would claim descent from

O'e no Hiromoto, a rather fascinating figure from the early age of samurai politics. O'e was an

aristocrat of Kyoto, descended from a long line of aristocrats who had served the imperial

government under various emperors.

However, Hiramoto himself is notable for turning his back, in a sense, on that tradition.

In 1184, he received an invitation from one Minamoto no Yoritomo to travel to Kamakura in the remote east of Japan.

Yoritomo was, of course, on his way to taking the title of Shogun and setting up Japan's

first warrior government, the Kamakura Bakfu.

There was just one problem.

...