Who's Your Daddy: Japan's Seiwa-Genji Bloodline

I have something like thirty-four cousins. (Don’t ask me to name them all.) My memories of them are varied and numerous: the loud, swirling Christmas parties at my Uncle Vinny’s; road trips to visit far-flung family in Chicago, Texas and Colorado; and one massive family reunion that probably took more planning than a space shuttle launch.

Growing up I thought an extended family could hardly be any larger. My own kids have eleven cousins. Not a bad tally these days.

We have nothing on the old Japanese emperors.

The 1,000-Year Road to Matsumoto

This week I was researching the six clans who ruled Matsumoto Castle. (There are worse ways to make a hundred bucks I suppose.) In between yelling at my kids to stop yelling I perused Wikipedia; I ran some Japanese-language content through google translate; I put all the sexy basics into short, non-plagiarized form; I added a few shots from my smartphone; and voila, the people paying me were once again happy.

I wouldn’t call my writing highfalutin. I wouldn’t even call it writing. But I do make it a point to be more or less sober when I make my final edits for these commissioned pieces. That means some of my material (and some of my sarcasm) won’t make the final, pseudo-professional cut.

It will, however, make it here.

Lucky you, you made it here too.

Of the six clans to rule Matsumoto Castle:

• the first one didn’t last fifteen years,
• three others barely lasted five,
• one, the Toda clan, showed up twice, and
• the Mizunos lied about where they were from.

In all, twenty-three lords ruled Matsumoto from 1590 to 1869. Of those 23:

• Two had chika in their names
• Three had nao
• Four had yasu, including two named Yasunaga
• Five lords had masa in their names
• Seven had tada, including all six lords of the Mizuno clan (two of those were named Tadamoto)
• All nine lords of the Toda clan’s second reign had names starting with Mitsu (Mitsuchika, Mitsuo, Mitsuyasu, Mitsumasa, Mitsuyoshi, Mitsuyuki, Mitsutsura, Mitsutsune, & Mitsuhisa)

Trying to make sense of all this was enough to go spend a hundred dollars on aspirin (though ten dollars’ worth of decent Japanese sake works just as well). Instead I put on my headphones, cranked some white noise to drown out the kids, and dove into the history of these clans and the lords with the overlapping names.

I no longer think my family was all that big.

Holy households!...

Kanmu was Japan’s fiftieth emperor, ruling from 787 to 806. How much time he spent ruling is up for debate considering he had thirty-two children from sixteen empresses and consorts. What is known is that once the imperial stork began dropping grandkids on the palace Kanmu decided that Christmas was getting completely out of hand (to say nothing of the never-ending birthday parties) and decreed that family members not eligible to succeed to the throne would have to take their balloons and mistletoe elsewhere.

To soften the blow ousted family members were given cupcakes and the honorary family name of Taira, written 平, which means 'flat'. Why Kanmu used such an uninspiring character is a mystery to me. Maybe it was a sort of subliminal plea to the ousted, as this character is also the first half of heiwa (平和), meaning 'peace'.

So it was that Kanmu’s grandchildren became the first members of the Taira, a clan that would remain close to the center of imperial power even if they were no longer invited to the annual backyard barbecue.

Their lasting influence was so great in fact that in 1180, Taira Kiyomori was able to install his two-year-old grandson on the throne, pronouncing him Emperor Antoku. This move thoroughly pissed off the members of another clan, the Minamoto of Seiwa.

Another Code Name for ‘Too Many’

Kanmu's idea of booting excess children and grandchildren out of the palace was destined to become tradition. Emperor Saga, Kanmu’s grandson and Japan’s 52nd Emperor, had forty-nine children, making it impossible for him to walk three steps across the royal floor without stepping on a Lego or a toy helicopter. In time he sent a bunch of them packing, bestowing the surname Minamoto on them as the guards tossed them and their goddam Legos out the front door.

As subsequent emperors kicked their kids out of the house more Minamoto clans emerged. Before long it had become impossible to find the right Minamoto in the phone book and all the wrong people kept getting invited to the imperial Easter Egg hunt.

The solution was simple: take the Chinese character for Minamoto (源) and combine it with a character signifying family (氏) to create the word Genji (源氏). Add this to the name of the emperor who had kicked half his family out of the palace and you have a name for said family.

Thus the Minamotos kicked out by Emperor Saga were referred to as the Saga-Genji clan. The black sheep of Emperor Ninmyo's family would become the Ninmyo-Genji. Then came the Junna-Genji and the Motoku-Genji clans.

This did nothing to lessen everyone's bitterness at getting the boot, but at least now everyone knew who was bitter at who.

Like the emperors themselves, these bitter bloodlines would wallow in the seldom-read pages of Japanese history. Except for one.

Sei-What?

Minamoto Tsunemoto was the grandson of Seiwa, Japan’s 56th Emperor. As the progenitor of the Seiwa-Genji bloodline, he would father the greatest extended clan Japan would ever see, with the most powerful and important figures in Japanese history.

Clans claiming blood of the Seiwa-Genji line included:

• the Minamoto rulers of the Kamakura Era
• the Ashikaga successors to the Minamoto shogunate
• Japan’s unifying force and ruling family for over 250 years, the Tokugawa shogunate

It was this same Seiwa-Genji Minamoto clan that got royally pissed when Taira Kiyomori sat Baby Antoku, diapers and all, up on the chrysanthemum throne. Immediately the Minamoto clan went to war with the Taira. After five years of fighting the Minamoto disposed of the Taira, ushering in the Kamakura Era and establishing themselves as the military rulers of Japan, which in their minds was sure to at least get them into the imperial Halloween costume party.

Eventually, it got them much more.

Like my own grandparents sitting atop a family tree gone berserk, Emperor Seiwa looks down upon an impressive legacy that reaches all the way to Matsumoto castle, through the clans that ruled there.

石川氏―1590-1613 -- The first clan to occupy Matsumoto Castle was the Ishikawa clan. As descendants of the Seiwa-Genji Minamoto, their lineage consisted of two branches. One branch settled in Mikawa, in present-day Aichi, and would serve the Tokugawa clan before switching their loyalty to Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Matsumoto Castle was a mere fort when Toyotomi entrusted Ishikawa Kazumasa with control of the area. Ishikawa immediately expanded the stronghold by building most of the structures we see today.

小笠原氏―1613-1617 -- Beginning in the early 14th Century, the Ogasawara clan ruled Shinano for approximately two hundred and fifty years. They are descendants of the Seiwa-Genji bloodline by way of the Takeda clan, which descended from the Minamoto clan of Emperor Seiwa. After losing then regaining control of the area through the latter half of the 16th Century they became the second family to rule from Matsumoto Castle.

戸田氏―1617-1633 -- This was the first reign of the Toda clan, which originated in Mikawa, near present-day Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture. The Toda clan claims descendance from the Matsudaira clan, part of the Seiwa-Genji bloodline.

松平氏―1633-1638 -- The Matsudaira clan originated in Matsudaira village in Mikawa, in proximity to the home of the Toda clan. Tokugawa Ieyasu, credited with unifying all of Japan at the dawn of the 17th Century, was born into the Matsudaira clan.

Naomasa, the sole Matsudaira to rule from Matsumoto Castle, built the Tsukimi-yagura, the moon-viewing tower, in anticipation of a visit by the shogun – a visit that ultimately never happened.

堀田氏―1638-1642 -- The lineage of the Hotta clan is unclear, but records indicate they were from the Mikawa area, and so could have been related to the Matsudaira clan, giving them claim to the Seiwa-Genji heritage.

水野氏―1642-1725 -- For a time the Mizuno clan claimed Seiwa-Genji blood but history would eventually out them as descendants of the Taira clan. This makes them the only clan not of Minamoto descent to rule Matsumoto Castle.

I give them props not only for gaining control of this historically Seiwa-Genji-dominated domain but being able to hang out here for over 80 years.

戸田氏―1725-1869 -- The second reign of the Toda clan. Not only was this the longest period of control over Matsumoto Castle by one clan, it may have gone on much longer but for the Meiji Restoration of 1868 which ended the era of the rule of the shogun and the feudal system that had been in place for centuries.

If you're dying for more on the ruling clans of Matsumoto Castle, check out the piece that started all this nonsense at Visit Matsumoto.

A few more likes over there will encourage them to keep paying me for this stuff..