nto the Sanjo palace, set fire to the edifice and killed
Shinzei (1159). The Taira chief, Kiyomori, happened to be then absent
in Kumano, and Yoshitomo's plan was to attack him on his way back to
Kyoto before the Taira forces had mustered. But just as Fujiwara
Yorinaga had wrecked his cause in the Hogen tumult by ignoring
Minamoto Tametomo's advice, so in the Heiji disturbance, Fujiwara
Nobuyori courted defeat by rejecting Minamoto Yoshitomo's strategy.
The Taira, thus accorded leisure to assemble their troops, won such a
signal victory that during many years the Minamoto disappeared almost
completely from the political stage, and the Taira held the empire in
the hollow of their hands.

Japanese historians regard Fujiwara Shinzei as chiefly responsible
for these untoward events. Shinzei's record shows him to have been
cruel, jealous, and self-seeking, but it has to be admitted that the
conditions of the time were calculated to educate men of his type, as
is shown by the story of the Hogen insurrection. For when Sutoku's
partisans assembled at the palace of Shirakawa, Minamoto Tametomo
addressed them thus: "I fought twenty battles and two hundred minor
engagements to win Kyushu, and I say that when an enemy is
outnumbered, its best plan is a night attack. If we fire the
Takamatsu palace on three sides to-night and assault it from the
fourth, the foe will surely be broken. I see on the other side only
one man worthy to be called an enemy. It is my brother Yoshitomo, and
with a single arrow I can lay him low. As for Taira Kiyomori, he will
fall if I do but shake the sleeve of my armour. Before dawn we shall
be victors."

Fujiwara Yorinaga's reply to this counsel was: "Tametomo's method of
fighting is rustic. There are here two Emperors competing for the
throne, and the combat must be conducted in a fair and dignified
manner." To such silliness the Minamoto hero made apt answer. "War,"
he said, "is not an affair of official ceremony and decorum. Its
management were better left to the bushi whose business it is. My
brother Yoshitomo has eyes to see an opportunity. To-night, he will
attack us.". It is true that Tametomo afterwards refrained from
taking his brother's life, but the above proves that he would not
have exercised any such forbearance had victory been attainable by
ruthlessness. History does not often repeat itself so exactly as it
did in these Hogen and Heiji struggles. Fujiwara Yorinaga's refusal
to follow Tam