Battle of Awazu

What Happened

On 4 March 1184, Minamoto no Yoshinaka (源義仲, みなもとのよしなか) was killed at Awazu, near the shore of Lake Biwa in the province of Ōmi, at the site of modern Ōtsu. He had been driven out of Kyoto and was riding east with a small band of retainers when the army of his cousin Minamoto no Noriyori (源範頼, みなもとののりより) caught him. Noriyori's force numbered in the thousands; Yoshinaka's numbered a few dozen at most.

Yoshinaka's foster brother Imai Kanehira (今井兼平, いまいかねひら) and the warrior Tomoe Gozen (巴御前, ともえごぜん) were among those who stayed with him. The rearguard fought long enough to hold the pursuit back, but the position could not be held. Yoshinaka's horse became mired in a flooded paddy field, and he was struck dead by an arrow. Kanehira, seeing his lord fall and unwilling to be taken, is said to have ridden his horse into the water and died with his sword held in his mouth.

Background

The battle belongs to the Genpei War (源平合戦, げんぺいかっせん), the five-year struggle between the Minamoto and Taira clans that ended with the Minamoto destroying Taira power and founding the Kamakura shogunate. By early 1184 the Taira had already been pushed out of the capital, and the war had turned into a quarrel inside the Minamoto family itself.

Yoshinaka was a Minamoto cousin who had marched into Kyoto in 1183 and taken the city. He then fell out with his relatives. In late 1183 he attacked the Hōjūjiden (法住寺殿, ほうじゅうじでん), the palace complex of the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa (後白河, ごしらかわ), burned it, and took Go-Shirakawa into custody. That act turned the rest of the clan against him. His cousins Yoritomo (頼朝, よりとも), Noriyori and Yoshitsune (義経, よしつね) sent armies west, and Yoshinaka was forced out of the capital. Awazu was the last engagement of that pursuit, fought in the first year of the Genryaku era (元暦, げんりゃく), during the Heian period.

Why It Mattered

Yoshinaka's death removed the last internal rival to Minamoto no Yoritomo's leadership of the clan. With Yoshinaka gone, the Minamoto armies could turn their full strength against the Taira, which they did within weeks at the Battle of Ichi-no-Tani. Yoritomo's path to the shogunate ran through a family cleared of competitors, and Awazu cleared it.

The battle also fixed Yoshinaka's reputation in Japanese memory. He is remembered less as the man who burned a retired emperor's palace than as the tragic general who died in a paddy field with a handful of loyal men, and the episode became one of the set pieces of the Heike Monogatari (平家物語, へいけものがたり), the great war chronicle that shaped how later centuries imagined the Genpei War. Tomoe Gozen's stand at Awazu made her the most famous woman warrior in Japanese literature.

The Name in Japanese

The battle is written 粟津の戦い and read あわづのたたかい (Awazu no Tatakai).

• 粟 — read awa here. It means "millet," the grain. The character is a compound of 西 (west) and 米 (rice).
• 津 — read zu here (a voicing of tsu). It means "harbour," "port," or "ford," a landing place on a river or lake shore. Combined, 粟津 is a place name: a millet landing, a shore on Lake Biwa.
• の — the possessive particle, written in hiragana. It links the place name to the noun that follows, roughly "of."
• 戦 — read tataka here, from 戦い tatakai, "battle" or "fight." On its own the character also reads sen in compounds such as 戦争 sensō, "war."
• い — hiragana, completing the noun 戦い.

So the whole name is literally "the battle of Awazu." Note the spelling: the kana writes づ (zu with a voicing mark on つ), not ず. The two are pronounced the same in modern standard Japanese, but づ preserves the older form of the word and is standard in place names of this type.

Key Figures

Minamoto no Yoshinaka (源義仲, みなもとのよしなか) — Minamoto commander, cousin of Yoritomo. Took Kyoto in 1183, burned the Hōjūjiden and detained the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa, was driven from the capital, and was killed at Awazu on 4 March 1184.

Imai Kanehira (今井兼平, いまいかねひら) — Yoshinaka's foster brother and closest retainer. Fought the rearguard action at Awazu and died there with Yoshinaka.

Tomoe Gozen (巴御前, ともえごぜん) — A woman warrior in Yoshinaka's service, present at Awazu and remembered in the Heike Monogatari for her fighting in the final pursuit.

Minamoto no Noriyori (源範頼, みなもとののりより) — Yoshinaka's cousin, commander of the pursuing army at Awazu.