al force.

Yet no other plan of operations suggested itself to the Kamakura
strategists. Yoshitsune was not consulted. He remained in Kyoto
instead of repairing to Kamakura, and he thereby roused the suspicion
of Yoritomo, who began to see in him a second Yoshinaka. Hence, in
presenting a list of names for reward in connexion with the campaign
against the "Morning Sun shogun," Yoritomo made no mention of
Yoshitsune, and the brilliant soldier would have remained entirely
without recognition had not the cloistered Emperor specially
appointed him to the post of kebiishi. Thus, when the largely
augmented Minamoto force began to move westward from Harima in
October, 1184, under the command of Noriyori, no part was assigned to
Yoshitsune. He remained unemployed in Kyoto.

Noriyori pushed westward steadily, but not without difficulty. He
halted for a time in the province of Suwo, and finally, in March,
1185, five months after moving out of Harima, he contrived to
transfer the main part of his force across Shimonoseki Strait and to
marshall them in Bungo in the north of Kyushu. The position then was
this: first, a Taira army strongly posted at Yashima in Sanuki
(Shikoku), due east of Noriyori's van in Bungo, and threatening his
line of communications throughout its entire length from Harima to
the Strait of Shimonoseki; secondly, another Taira army strongly
posted on Hikoshima, an island west of Shimonoseki Strait, which army
menaced the communications between Noriyori's van across the water in
Bungo and his advanced base in Suwo, and thirdly, the command of the
whole Inland Sea in the hands of the Taira.

Evidently, in such conditions, no advance into Kyushu could be made
by Noriyori without inviting capital risks. The key of the situation
for the Minamoto was to wrest the command of the sea from the Taira
and to drive them from Shikoku preparatory to the final assault upon
Kyushu. This was recognized after a time, and Kajiwara Kagetoki
received orders to collect or construct a fleet with all possible
expedition, which orders he applied himself to carry out at Watanabe,
in Settsu, near the eastern entrance to the Inland Sea. In justice to
Yoritomo's strategy it must be noted that these orders were given
almost simultaneously with the departure of the Minamoto army
westward from Harima, so that by the time of Noriyori's arrival in
Bungo, the military governor, Kagetoki, had got together some four
hundred vessels at Watanabe