age. With his name is associated the
origin of the shirabyoshi, or "white measure-markers"--girls clad in
white, who, by posture and gesture, beat time to music, and, in after
ages, became the celebrated geisha of Japan. To the practice of such
arts and accomplishments Michinori devoted a great part of his life,
and when, in 1140, that is to say, sixteen years before the Hogen
disturbance, he received the tonsure, all prospect of an official
career seemed to be closed to him. But the accession of Go-Shirakawa
gave him an opportunity. The Emperor trusted him, and he abused the
trust to the further unhappiness of the nation.

THE HEIJI TUMULT

Go-Shirakawa's son, Morihito, ascended the throne in 1159 and is
known in history as Nijo, the seventy-eighth sovereign of Japan. From
the very outset he resented the ex-Emperor's attempt to interfere in
the administration of affairs, and the two Courts fell into a state
of discord, Fujiwara Shinzei inciting the cloistered Emperor to
assert himself, and two other Fujiwara nobles, Tsunemune and
Korekata, prompting Nijo to resist. These two, observing that another
noble of their clan, Fujiwara Nobuyori; was on bad terms with
Shinzei, approached Nobuyori and proposed a union against their
common enemy. Shinzei had committed one great error; he had alienated
the Minamoto family. In the Hogen struggle, Yoshitomo, the Minamoto
chief, an able captain and a brave soldier, had suggested the
strategy which secured victory for Go-Shirakawa's forces. But in the
subsequent distribution of rewards, Yoshitomo's claims received scant
consideration, his merits being underrated by Shinzei.

This had been followed by a still more painful slight. To Yoshitomo's
formal proposal of a marriage between his daughter and Shinzei's son,
not only had a refusal been given, but also the nuptials of the youth
with the daughter of the Taira chief, Kiyomori, had been subsequently
celebrated with much eclat. In short, Shinzei chose between the two
great military clans, and though such discrimination was neither
inconsistent with the previous practice of the Fujiwara nor
ill-judged so far as the relative strength of the Minamoto and the
Taira was concerned for the moment, it erred egregiously in failing
to recognize that the day had passed when the military clans could be
thus employed as Fujiwara tools. Approached by Nobuyori, Yoshitomo
joined hands with the plotters, and the Minamoto troops, forcing
their way i