On the midnight of June 1, 1171, the air was thick with a tension that threatened to shatter the very foundations of the era. Taira no Kiyomori (1118–1181), leading a force of several thousand, stood poised to execute the most significant military strike in history: the burning of Mount Hiei. They acted under the orders of Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa (1127–1192), the autocrat of Heian-kyo, and the powerful figures of the Insei (cloistered government) who surrounded him. Mount Hiei had long served as the guardian of the underside of the capital’s structure.
However, a clandestine visit to Kiyomori’s residence that night brought a grave revelation concerning the rulers of the Insei. In a sudden, decisive pivot, Kiyomori abandoned the assault on the mountain and instead occupied Heian-kyo. There, he seized and immediately executed the aristocrats involved in a conspiracy to trap and annihilate both the Taira and the monks of Mount Hiei. In one stroke, he ground the power of the cloistered government into dust.
To understand the upheaval surrounding the 1170s, one must look beyond the mere presence or absence of historical facts; the true weight lies in the fluid, shifting locus of hegemony. From this vantage point, we see Taira no Kiyomori not merely as the head of a military house, but as a man of singular genius who possessed the rare mettle to navigate and dominate this profoundly difficult era until his final days. He was a singular existence who transformed the very nature of the age.
Let us examine Kiyomori’s movements. By the turbulent 1170s, he was already contemplating the abandonment of Heian-kyo in favor of a new capital. We must consider that the old structure of Heian-kyo, established in 794, had become a zombified accumulation of vested interests. It had carved its history into a remarkably narrow strip of land—a mere fraction of present-day Kyoto—causing power to stagnate and rot.
Kiyomori had shattered these zombified interests through the sheer force of his presence. Yet, even after he had subjugated the dual powers of Heian-kyo’s surface and shadow, the old order did not collapse instantly. While the physical site of the Heian-kyo structure was small, the tentacles of its vested interests stretched in every direction. Consequently, the dismantling of such a structure required a significant temporal delay. Until then, Kiyomori believed that for the warrior class to seize true hegemony and shape the era, they had to remain within Heian-kyo to renovate the old order. However, through his achievements, he became convinced that the age of the samurai had already dawned. With this realization, his philosophy shifted: there was no longer a need to cling to Heian-kyo. Why should a warrior not build a city of his own? This transition—from an obsession with Heian-kyo to a migration beyond it—would become the most vital factor in the authentic arrival of the warrior age.
History teaches us that the optimal solution for sweeping away a decayed structure is to move to a new location. Indeed, before the capital was settled in present-day Kyoto, it had shifted across Nara, Osaka, southern Kyoto, and Omi in Shiga Prefecture. With each relocation, the old order was refreshed, allowing a new order to sprout. Kiyomori was simply following this historical rhythm.