* Image is for illustrative purposes only.Miura Yoshimura
三浦義村
The scheming Sagami warrior who navigated Kamakura's power struggles as head of the Miura clan
Description
Life
Miura Yoshimura (d. 1239) headed the powerful Miura clan of Sagami Province and, alongside his father Miura Yoshizumi, fought in the Genpei War and the Oshu Campaign. After succeeding to clan leadership, he consistently sided with the Hojo in the internal power struggles of the Kamakura shogunate, skillfully surviving the era's factional politics as one of its most influential gokenin.
A Schemer Who Survived the Politics of Kamakura
When Kajiwara Kagetoki fell from grace in 1200, Yoshimura joined the coalition of powerful gokenin that petitioned for his banishment. In the 1213 Wada Rebellion, though his own kinsman Wada Yoshimori sought his support in taking up arms, Yoshimura instead sided with Hojo Yoshitoki and helped suppress the uprising. This readiness to shift allegiance earned him a reputation as a master schemer, later immortalized in the saying "the dogs of Miura devour their friends."
The Jokyu War and Final Years
During the 1221 Jokyu War, he received a letter from his brother Miura Taneyoshi, then in Kyoto, urging him to join the retired Emperor Go-Toba's side, but he rejected it and went to Yoshitoki instead, marching on Kyoto as one of the commanders of the shogunate's Tokaido army. After the war he remained in Kyoto to handle the settlement, contributing to the shogunate's consolidation of authority over the capital. He retained a position second only to the Hojo as a member of the Council of State (Hyojoshu) until his death in 1239.