The first year of Chogen (1028).
When the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune broke out in Boso, the court began selecting a commander for its subjugation.
The candidates named included Minamoto no Yorinobu, Taira no Masasuke, Taira no Naokata, and Nakahara no Nariyuki. Minister of the Right Fujiwara no Sanesuke pushed for Minamoto no Yorinobu. Regent Fujiwara no Yorimichi, by contrast, pushed for Taira no Naokata.
Naokata was a central military noble descended from Taira no Sadamori, the man who had struck down Taira no Masakado. His father, Taira no Koretoki, was also a warrior well known in the capital, and the family, while serving the court, held a base in the east as well. Naokata himself was tied to Sagami and Izu, and later sources describe him as a man who kept a residence at Kamakura.
Tadatsune, the target of subjugation, was likewise Kanmu Taira. But the two men belonged to different lines. Tadatsune descended from Taira no Yoshifumi; Naokata from Taira no Sadamori.
In other words, beneath the public framework of court versus rebel, the war that began in 1028 also carried a struggle for supremacy in Bando between the Yoshifumi and Sadamori lines.
For Naokata, subduing Tadatsune was both a major undertaking and a golden opportunity to put down a rival family his own line had contended with for generations, extending the Sadamori Taira’s reach across Bando.
But Tadatsune would not fall.
Roughly two years after departing Kyoto in the eighth month of 1028, the court finally recalled Naokata.
And once his successor, Minamoto no Yorinobu, became commander, Tadatsune — who had already been seeking peace since the year before — surrendered to Yorinobu’s army without a great decisive battle.
Looking only at the outcome, Naokata appears to be a man who suffered a major failure in the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune.
But tracing Japanese history afterward, Naokata left an entirely different, and far more striking, mark elsewhere.
Naokata welcomed Minamoto no Yorinobu‘s son, Minamoto no Yoriyoshi, as his son-in-law.
From that daughter came
Minamoto no Yoshiie, Minamoto no Yoshitsuna, and Minamoto no Yoshimitsu.
Later sources further record that Naokata handed his own residence at Kamakura over to Yoriyoshi.
The man who could not defeat Taira no Tadatsune became, as it turned out, the figure connecting the Kawachi Genji’s advance into the east with the history of “Kamakura” itself.
His birth and death years are unknown — even so, he was “a warrior of illustrious lineage”
Taira no Naokata’s birth and death years cannot be established from reliable sources.
A biographical account has no need to fill this gap with a guess.
What can be said with confidence is that Naokata was a military noble belonging to the line of Taira no Sadamori.
His father was Taira no Koretoki.
Koretoki, too, was a warrior active in the capital, serving in posts including Vice Governor of Hitachi.
In the third year of Tengyo (940), Taira no Sadamori, together with Fujiwara no Hidesato and others, struck down Taira no Masakado (Hidesato is covered in this article and Masakado’s rebellion in this article — both Japanese only).
For his achievement in subduing Masakado, Sadamori rose to Senior Fifth Rank, Upper Grade, and then to Junior Fourth Rank, Lower Grade, and his descendants grew into central military nobles serving the court in Kyoto.
Naokata stood within that very lineage.
According to the Ichihara Historical Museum, his father Koretoki, though a grandson of Sadamori, was also adopted as Sadamori’s own son, and Naokata is likewise positioned as a leading figure of the Sadamori-line Taira.
The “warriors” of this era differed considerably from the daimyo of the later Sengoku period.
In the capital, they served the emperor, retired emperors, and the regental house, taking on guard duty, the pursuit of criminals, and the suppression of rebellions as needed. At the same time, they served as provincial governors or held land and private bonds of lord and vassal in the east, cultivating military strength of their own.
In other words, they held a face serving the court in the capital and a face controlling land and arms in the provinces at the same time.
Naokata was the very embodiment of this type.
This is exactly why the court chose Naokata for the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune. It was never simply because he excelled with bow and horse. It was because he possessed both a rank he could put to use in Kyoto and a base from which he could mobilize troops in the east — that Naokata was entrusted with a subjugation campaign on a national scale.
Heir to the “Sadamori line” that struck down Masakado
What matters for understanding Naokata is
his family’s own history: “we are the branch of the Taira that struck down Taira no Masakado.”
Taira no Masakado and Taira no Sadamori were both Kanmu Taira.
When Masakado rose in rebellion in the east, Sadamori, together with Fujiwara no Hidesato and others, struck him down.
Afterward, Sadamori’s descendants advanced into Kyoto, developing into a house that carried the court’s military strength.
In Bando, meanwhile, the descendants of Taira no Yoshifumi extended their own power.
Yoshifumi’s grandson was Taira no Tadatsune.
In other words, seen through genealogy, the conflict of 1028 takes the shape of
the Sadamori line, Taira no Naokata, against the Yoshifumi line, Taira no Tadatsune.
And these two lines had not suddenly begun contending with each other in 1028.
A rivalry with the Yoshifumi line continuing since their ancestors’ own generation
Taira no Tadatsune’s father was Taira no Tadayori.
Naokata’s family and Tadayori’s family were already at odds by the end of the tenth century.
In the first year of Kanna (985), Tadayori and his younger brother Tadamitsu clashed with Sadamori’s younger brother, Taira no Shigemori.
A Council of State edict preserved in the Zoku Sajosho shows that when Shigemori attempted to dedicate 600 scrolls of the Great Wisdom Sutra to Enryaku-ji Temple, his conflict with Tadayori and Tadamitsu became a serious matter, to the point that an order for their subjugation was issued.
Further, by Tadatsune’s own generation, the Konjaku Monogatarishu even preserves a tale in which a man of the Sadamori-line Hitachi Taira is regarded as “an ancestral enemy.”
Land. Standing within the provincial government. Ties to local warriors. Connections to the court and its senior nobles.
The various branches of the Taira who had advanced into Bando had been contesting these very things for generations.
Which is why, when Tadatsune clashed with a provincial governor in 1028, it presented Naokata with an enormous opportunity.
Because it let him use the court’s own official authority as “commander of subjugation” to bring down a rival family his own ancestors had contended with.
The Ichihara Historical Museum likewise frames the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune as carrying, beneath the surface of court versus rebel, a struggle for supremacy within the Taira between the Sadamori and Yoshifumi lines.
A warrior of Kyoto who also held power in Sagami and Izu
Naokata was never a warrior who lived only in the capital.
He held a power base in Sagami and Izu as well.
And what matters most is Kamakura.
The Ichihara Historical Museum notes that a provincial base was essential for a central military noble to maintain his power, and introduces Naokata as a man who held influence in Sagami and Izu and kept a residence at Kamakura.
This “Kamakura” would later make Naokata’s name far more significant in Japanese history than it might otherwise have been.
This is more than 150 years before Minamoto no Yoritomo entered Kamakura in 1180.
Kamakura was not yet a shogunal town.
Even so, it faced Sagami Bay, connected onward to the Miura Peninsula and Boso, and was not far removed from the Tokaido road.
For anyone holding a military foothold in the east, it was an important place.
Naokata’s family was already bound to this region long before Minamoto no Yoritomo ever appeared.
1028 — the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune breaks out
The first year of Chogen (1028).
Taira no Tadatsune, the greatest warrior in all of Boso, clashed with the provincial governor’s side in Awa Province.
The Governor of Awa, Koretada, burned to death.
Tadatsune went on to seize the Kazusa provincial headquarters, taking the Vice Governor of Kazusa, Agatainukai no Tamemasa, and his family into custody as well.
On June 5, the court decided to subjugate Tadatsune and his son Tsunemasa.
The question was who to entrust with the subjugation.
On June 21, candidates were discussed at court.
The names raised were
Minamoto no Yorinobu, Taira no Masasuke, Taira no Naokata, and Nakahara no Nariyuki.
Minister of the Right Fujiwara no Sanesuke pushed for Minamoto no Yorinobu.
But Regent Fujiwara no Yorimichi pushed for Taira no Naokata.
In the end, Taira no Naokata and Nakahara no Nariyuki were chosen as commanders.
Why Naokata, and not Yorinobu?
This is one of the most fascinating points in Naokata’s own story.
Looking back, it can seem as though it would have been better to send Minamoto no Yorinobu from the very start.
Indeed, it was Yorinobu who eventually brought Tadatsune to surrender.
Even so, the man chosen in 1028 was Naokata.
Naokata was a military noble active in Kyoto, while also holding a base in Sagami and Izu.
He was also a leading figure of the Sadamori-line Taira, a family already at odds with Tadatsune’s own.
Naokata’s father Koretoki and others would also deepen their involvement in the subjugation.
In other words, from the court’s own perspective, he was
“a battle-tested warrior of the same Taira lineage as Tadatsune, who also held power in the east.”
There was a real advantage for Naokata himself as well.
Defeating Tadatsune would bring reward from the court.
And putting down the Yoshifumi line would strengthen the Sadamori line’s influence across southern Kanto.
The rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune was, for Naokata, also an opportunity to expand his own family’s power significantly.
August 5 — departing Kyoto with 200 troops
Even once chosen as commander, Naokata did not depart at once.
Negotiations within the court continued over the conditions and provisions needed for the campaign.
Then, on August 5, in the first year of Chogen (1028).
Taira no Naokata and Nakahara no Nariyuki departed Kyoto.
The troops they led from the center numbered 200.
Of course, 200 men alone were never going to subdue the whole of Boso.
Once in the east, they could mobilize local governors and warriors.
Even so, from here Naokata would head toward the subjugation of Tadatsune as the central figure of the expeditionary force.
Even his father Koretoki went to Kazusa — a subjugation mustering the whole Sadamori Taira
The following year, the second year of Chogen (1029).
The court further strengthened its subjugation effort.
In the second month, it ordered the provinces of the Tokai, Tosan, and Hokuriku circuits to assist in subduing Tadatsune.
And on the twenty-third of the same month.
Naokata’s father, Taira no Koretoki, departed Kyoto as the new Vice Governor of Kazusa.
The commander, Naokata, took charge of military operations, while his own father became governor of Kazusa, the very center of the rebellion.
An extraordinary arrangement.
Warriors close to the Sadamori line were positioned across the east as well.
Rather than simply subduing Tadatsune alone,
a structure was being built in which the Sadamori-line Taira and their allied forces would suppress the Yoshifumi-line Taira as a whole.
Research by the Iwate Prefectural Board of Education likewise confirms that, in the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune, arrangements such as Naokata serving as commander and his father Koretoki as Vice Governor of Kazusa mobilized the Sadamori-line Taira as a whole.
Yet he could not capture Tadatsune
Naokata appeared to begin the campaign from an overwhelmingly favorable position.
He held the court’s own edict of subjugation.
He could issue orders for cooperation to the provinces.
His father was Vice Governor of Kazusa. His enemy Tadatsune was “an enemy of the court.”
Even so, the war did not end.
Tadatsune’s roots ran deep across Kazusa and Shimosa.
He knew the land. He held the local relationships. He could withdraw into the mountains and evade the subjugation army.
Naokata’s side, by contrast, was an expeditionary force. Moving an army required provisions. It required horses too.
The longer the war dragged on, the more supplies had to be requisitioned from the local population.
As a result, the subjugation campaign itself devastated Boso.
June 1029 — barely a year in, “replacing Naokata” becomes a topic
The sixth month of the second year of Chogen (1029).
The court judged Tadatsune’s “violence to have reached its very peak” and issued a further edict of subjugation.
Yet around this same time, the recall of Taira no Naokata had already come up as a topic at court.
Not even a year had passed since Naokata departed Kyoto.
The subjugation was proceeding that far short of expectations.
His co-commander Nakahara no Nariyuki, too, showed a reluctant attitude and was relieved of duty in the twelfth month of that year.
From here, the full weight of subduing Tadatsune fell on Naokata alone.
Even so, he could not capture Tadatsune.
The subjugation army consumes Boso from within
In the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune, the explanation “Tadatsune ran wild and ravaged Boso” alone is not enough.
Requisitions by the subjugation army itself placed an enormous burden on the region as well.
Keeping an army in the field for years required food.
It required fodder for horses. Weapons and ships. Lodging.
Not all of this cost could be carried in from Kyoto.
It was requisitioned locally.
Later records show that Kazusa was severely worn down by the prolonged requisitions of Naokata’s subjugation army.
According to figures reported from Kazusa Province after the rebellion, the province’s paddy fields — once totaling more than 22,980 cho — had fallen, by the war’s final stage, to only a little over 18 cho under cultivation.
By simple calculation, roughly 0.08%.
These figures cannot simply be read as modern agricultural statistics.
Even so, it is clear that people at the time understood the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune as “a war severe enough to ruin an entire province.”
Naokata, unable to defeat Tadatsune, increasingly found himself bearing responsibility for prolonging that very war.
1030 — the Governor of Awa flees
The twenty-seventh day of the third month, in the third year of Chogen (1030).
Tadatsune’s side advanced into Awa Province once again.
Unable to resist, the Governor of Awa, Fujiwara no Mitsunari, left behind his official seal and the keys to the provincial granary and fled back to Kyoto.
Roughly two years since the rebellion began.
Even with the court mobilizing the provinces and sending Naokata’s own father to Kazusa, Tadatsune’s side still had strength enough to drive a governor from his own province.
This was a serious blow to Naokata.
Naokata requests a fourth edict of subjugation
In the fifth month of that same year.
Naokata requested from the court a fourth edict of subjugation.
He hoped to have Tadatsune’s subjugation ordered once more, in a stronger form.
But Regent Fujiwara no Yorimichi did not grant it.
Tadatsune’s forces were dwindling, and word had already reached Kyoto that Tadatsune had taken religious vows.
A document submitted in the sixth month by Naokata, his father Koretoki, and the others also made clear that Tadatsune’s side wished for peace.
The war had moved from the stage of defeating Tadatsune by force into the stage of how to bring it to an end.
And on July 8, in the third year of Chogen (1030), the court reached its decision.
Recall Taira no Naokata.
Naokata’s work as commander was over.
Why did Naokata fail? — “he was weak” alone does not explain it
Naokata could neither kill nor capture Tadatsune.
Roughly two years into the subjugation, carrying the court’s own edict, receiving the cooperation of the provinces, and even sending his father Koretoki as Vice Governor of Kazusa, the matter was still unresolved.
That said, dismissing this with the single line “Naokata was weak as a commander” misses the true nature of this war.
Tadatsune was a local power who had put down deep roots in Kazusa and Shimosa over many years, while the subjugation army was a force that had come in from outside. Tadatsune’s side could resist by withdrawing into the mountains and shifting bases. The longer the subjugation army stayed, the more provisions it had to draw from the local area, and that requisitioning further exhausted Boso.
What is more, Tadatsune and Naokata belonged to separate branches of the same Kanmu Taira line. For Tadatsune, surrendering to Naokata carried the weight not just of submitting to the court, but of bowing to the Sadamori line his family had contended with since their ancestors’ own generation.
The geography of the battlefield, supply lines, ties to local society, and the pride of rival families.
Naokata faced problems that skill with a sword alone could never resolve.
And in the ninth month of 1030, the man chosen as the new commander was Minamoto no Yorinobu — the very man Sanesuke had pushed for back in 1028.
Once Minamoto no Yorinobu became commander, Tadatsune surrendered without a fight
Minamoto no Yorinobu was, at the time, Governor of Kai.
And he had already held a bond of lord and vassal with Tadatsune, predating the rebellion.
The fourth month of the fourth year of Chogen (1031).
Tadatsune, accompanied by his two sons and three retainers, presented himself before Yorinobu in Kai.
No large-scale battle ever took place.
This was his surrender.
Tadatsune, whom Naokata had pursued for roughly two years without ever capturing, submitted to Yorinobu without crossing a single blade.
Looking only at this result,
Naokata’s failure and Yorinobu’s success stand in unmistakably sharp contrast.
That said, by the time Yorinobu took command, Tadatsune’s side was already exhausted, and had been seeking peace since the year before.
Yorinobu, a man who had already held ties with Tadatsune, appeared exactly then.
For Tadatsune, Yorinobu was “a man to whom surrender was possible.”
Even so, Naokata did not vanish
Here is where Taira no Naokata becomes truly interesting as a figure.
He had failed in a major campaign of subjugation.
But that did not mean Naokata simply vanished from history.
Later sources record him as “Taira no Ason Naokata, Governor of Kozuke.”
In other words, even after his failure in the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune, he retained real standing as a military noble.
And Naokata went on to form an unexpected bond with the very Kawachi Genji house that had ended the rebellion in his place.
Through marriage.
The man Naokata singled out — Minamoto no Yoriyoshi
Minamoto no Yorinobu had a son named Yoriyoshi.
Born in the second year of Eien (988).
A Kawachi Genji warrior who would later fight the Abe clan in the Former Nine Years’ War.
In the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune too, Yoriyoshi is said to have gone down to the east following his father Yorinobu.
And the later war chronicle the Mutsu Waki preserves a genuinely fascinating scene involving Naokata and Yoriyoshi.
The setting was during Yoriyoshi’s service to Prince Koichijoin.
Yoriyoshi excelled with bow and horse, and showed extraordinary skill in hunting as well.
Naokata, watching his mounted archery, was struck with admiration.
Naokata declared himself “the descendant of a great commander,” from a house that had always valued martial skill, and then
praised Yoriyoshi to the effect that
he had never seen a man handle a bow so masterfully.
And then he offered to give Yoriyoshi his own daughter as a wife.
This is the famous scene, preserved in the Mutsu Waki, of “one warrior recognizing another.” The Mutsu Waki states plainly that Naokata, deeply impressed by Yoriyoshi’s mounted archery, took him as his son-in-law.
A famous scene preserved in the Mutsu Waki — “I want this man for a son-in-law”
This scene from the Mutsu Waki is one of the most genuinely human moments in the whole account of Taira no Naokata.
Naokata watched Yoriyoshi’s mounted archery and was astonished by his skill. He explained that he himself, as the descendant of a great commander, had always valued martial skill, yet had never seen anyone handle a bow so masterfully — and offered his own daughter as Yoriyoshi’s wife.
A military noble, singling out a young warrior with his own eyes and choosing him as a son-in-law.
The Mutsu Waki is, of course, a source with literary embellishment. Even so, that Yoriyoshi took Naokata’s daughter as his wife can also be confirmed from other sources, including the later Chugaisho.
This marriage was never simply a family matter.
It bound together, through marriage, two of the leading military noble houses of the age — the Sadamori-line Taira and the Kawachi Genji.
In the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune, Yorinobu succeeded where Naokata had come before him. This did not mean Naokata went on hostile to the Yorinobu family. If anything, Naokata came to hold the next generation, Yoriyoshi, in high regard, and drew him into his own house.
In the world of the warrior, the map of power was never decided by battlefield victory and defeat alone. Marriage was a crucial political tool for carrying bloodline, land, and connections forward into the next generation.
The son Naokata’s daughter bore — “Hachiman Taro” Yoshiie
This marriage would leave an enormous mark on Japanese history.
Minamoto no Yoriyoshi and Naokata’s daughter had children together.
Their eldest son was Minamoto no Yoshiie.
Born in the third year of Chōryaku (1039).
Later known as Hachiman Taro Yoshiie.
He fought the Abe clan alongside his father Yoriyoshi in the Former Nine Years’ War, and advanced into Oshu again in the Later Three Years’ War.
He won overwhelming renown among the warriors of the east, earning the title
“the greatest warrior under heaven.”
That Yoshiie’s mother was Taira no Naokata’s daughter can be confirmed across multiple sources and reference works.
Not just Yoshiie — the line continues through Yoshitsuna and Yoshimitsu
Naokata’s daughter and Yoriyoshi had younger sons as well as Yoshiie.
Minamoto no Yoshitsuna and Minamoto no Yoshimitsu.
Yoshimitsu became known as “Shinra Saburo Yoshimitsu,” and his descendants would spread out as the Kai Genji.
A line that, in later generations, connects on to the Takeda and Satake clans.
In other words, Naokata, as a maternal grandfather, left an enormous bloodline stretching across the warrior society of later generations.
The grandsons of the very commander who could not defeat Taira no Tadatsune went on to move the whole later course of warrior history.
And “Kamakura” passes to the Kawachi Genji — a great gift recorded by later sources
There is one story that no account of Taira no Naokata can leave out.
Kamakura.
The later Shirin Saiyosho records that Naokata handed his residence at Kamakura over to his son-in-law, Minamoto no Yoriyoshi.
Through this, it is said, Kamakura became “land handed down within the Genji house.”
The Shirin Saiyosho is a source from the Nanboku-cho period, compiled roughly 300 years after the time of Naokata and Yoriyoshi. So the fine details — such as “Naokata legally handed over the whole of Kamakura in the 1030s” — cannot be treated as eleventh-century contemporary fact.
Even so, there is no need to dismiss this tradition outright either.
That Yoriyoshi was Naokata’s son-in-law can be confirmed from other sources. Some scholarship also holds that the tradition of a Kamakura residence passing from Naokata to Yoriyoshi carries a genuine historical basis. The city of Kamakura itself introduces this tradition when explaining how the Genji became tied to Kamakura even before Yoritomo’s own time.
And in the sixth year of Kohei (1063), Yoriyoshi invited the deity of Iwashimizu Hachimangu Shrine to Yui, in Kamakura. This became the origin of the later Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine.
The Kamakura said to have passed from Naokata, and the Hachiman shrine Yoriyoshi built there.
“The Genji’s Kamakura” was never born suddenly in the twelfth century. It rested on the connections and memories of warriors accumulated ever since the eleventh.
From Naokata to Yoriyoshi, and on to Yoritomo
This flow of “Kamakura” is genuinely fascinating.
Taira no Naokata
↓
son-in-law Minamoto no Yoriyoshi
↓
the Kawachi Genji
↓
Minamoto no Yoshitomo
↓
Minamoto no Yoritomo.
The tie to Kamakura is told along this very line.
The fourth year of Jisho (1180).
Defeated at the Battle of Ishibashiyama, Yoritomo fled to Boso, and once he had regrouped, entered Kamakura.
Yoritomo’s reasons for choosing Kamakura were manifold — terrain, transportation, ties to the eastern warriors.
One part of that background was a Genji tradition holding that “Kamakura was the land of our ancestors.”
And at the beginning of that tradition stands Taira no Naokata.
The city of Kamakura’s own materials likewise introduce the tradition that, through the transfer of Naokata’s residence to Yoriyoshi, Kamakura became “land handed down within the Genji house.”
What “the defeated man” of the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune left behind
Naokata’s own greatest military assignment can hardly be called a success.
He failed to capture Taira no Tadatsune, and was recalled from his post roughly two years later.
What is more, his successor, Minamoto no Yorinobu, brought Tadatsune to surrender with barely any fighting at all.
For a commander, this should have been a humiliating conclusion.
Yet seen across the long span of history, Naokata’s true value is not decided by that alone.
Naokata took Minamoto no Yoriyoshi as his son-in-law.
His daughter bore Yoshiie and the others.
And he is said to have passed his Kamakura residence on to Yoriyoshi as well.
In other words, what Naokata had held —
the blood of the Sadamori-line Taira, connections in the east, ties to Sagami, and the stronghold of Kamakura itself —
flowed into the Kawachi Genji.
From the Taira to the Genji — an age in which the leading role in the warrior world shifted hands
The tenth century, when Taira no Masakado‘s rebellion came to its end.
The greatest martial renown in the world of arms belonged to Taira no Sadamori and Fujiwara no Hidesato, the men who had struck down Masakado.
Naokata belonged to the generation that inherited that Sadamori-line Taira legacy.
But by the eleventh century, the Kawachi Genji began to extend their own reach into this space.
Minamoto no Yoriyoshi.
Minamoto no Yoshiie.
They forged bonds of lord and vassal with the warriors of the east, one after another, and through the Former and Later Three Years’ Wars, strengthened their own standing as “the chieftains of the Genji.”
In this process, even what Taira no Naokata’s own house had held was carried forward into the Kawachi Genji.
Which is why Naokata’s life was never a simple case of “the Taira lost, and the Genji won.”
Bloodlines mixed through marriage, land changed hands, connections were inherited — and through all of this, the very map of warrior power was reshaped.
Naokata’s blood was no longer “outside the Genji”
Through his daughter’s marriage to Yoriyoshi, the blood of the Sadamori-line Taira entered directly into the Kawachi Genji.
Her children were Yoshiie, Yoshitsuna, and Yoshimitsu.
This is exactly why the mid-Heian period should not be viewed only through the later image of “Genji against Taira.”
The warrior world of the eleventh century was never a world neatly split into two opposing camps of Genji and Taira. They sometimes fought, sometimes shared the court’s own military duties, and sometimes bound themselves together through marriage.
The house of Naokata, which pursued Tadatsune, and the house of Yorinobu, which brought the rebellion to its end, became a single family in the next generation.
And Naokata’s own grandson through his daughter, Yoshiie, left a formidable reputation among the warriors of the east through the Former and Later Three Years’ Wars.
The “reputation to unite the warriors of Bando” that Naokata himself never gained in the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune grew instead, ironically, on the Kawachi Genji side — through the generation of Yoshiie, his own grandson through his daughter.
He cannot simply end as “the commander who could not defeat Tadatsune”
Much about Taira no Naokata’s life remains unclear.
Neither his birth year nor his death year is settled.
The details of his later years are nowhere near as richly documented as those of Fujiwara no Michinaga or Minamoto no Yoshiie.
Even so, Naokata’s life from 1028 onward captures, in condensed form, the very moment Japanese warrior society was transforming.
Born as an heir to the Sadamori-line Taira, the house that struck down Masakado.
In the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune, he carried the court’s own authority into the east.
Even his father Koretoki supported the campaign as Vice Governor of Kazusa.
Even so, he could not defeat Tadatsune, and was relieved of his command.
Minamoto no Yorinobu, in his place, brought the rebellion to its end.
And Naokata took Yorinobu’s son, Yoriyoshi, as his own son-in-law.
His daughter bore Yoshiie, Yoshitsuna, Yoshimitsu, and others.
His Kamakura residence, too, is said to have passed to Yoriyoshi.
Part of the eastern base held by this illustrious house of the Taira was carried forward, through marriage, into the Kawachi Genji.
And roughly 150 years later.
Minamoto no Yoritomo entered Kamakura and united the warriors of the east.
Tracing history backward from Yoritomo’s own age, one finds Yoriyoshi along the way.
One finds Yoshiie.
And as Yoshiie’s own maternal grandfather, one finds Taira no Naokata.
The man who never emerged as the victor in the rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune never became the leading figure of history in his own generation.
But the blood and the eastern base that Naokata carried into the Kawachi Genji were, without question, inherited into the age of the warrior that followed.
(The rebellion of Taira no Tadatsune is available in English here, and a full profile of Taira no Tadatsune himself here.)
