Emperor Go-Daigo

Timeline

1. 1331–1333Kyoto · KyotoIn 1331 Go-Daigo's plot to overthrow the shogunate was discovered, and the Genkō Disturbance he launched failed; he was captured by the Kamakura shogunate and exiled to Oki. In 1333 Takauji, Kusunoki Masashige, and others rose in response, and the shogunate's general Ashikaga Takauji (Takauji's father) defected, the Kamakura shogunate fell, and the emperor returned to Kyoto—known to history as the Kenmu Restoration.
2. 1333–1336Kyoto · KyotoThe emperor implemented the Kenmu Restoration, intending to abolish the shogunate system, reward merit and punish crimes, and reorganize land and labor services; but unfair rewards and punishments and fiscal exhaustion aroused samurai discontent. After Takauji pacified the rebellion of Prince Morinaga, the Naidaijin, in 1335, his power grew; in 1336 he broke with the emperor and defeated the loyalist forces of Kusunoki Masashige and others at Minatogawa.
3. 1336–1339Yoshino · YoshinoIn 1336 the emperor fled to Yoshino with the Three Sacred Treasures, establishing the Southern Court, which confronted the Northern Court's Emperor Kōmyō installed by Takauji, opening the era of the Northern and Southern Courts. The emperor died of illness at Yoshino in 1339, leaving an edict that the son of Prince Morinaga should inherit the Southern Court's legitimate line; the loyalist ideal became an important source of later reverence-for-the-emperor thought.