Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/40

 money. Very soon, however, discovering the danger to which he exposed himself by exalting Takauji, he tried to avert it by encouraging the latter's rivals. Thus the situation became again pregnant with elements of disquiet: the Court nobles against the military; the southern generals, represented by the renowned Kusunoki Masashige and Nitta Yoshisada, against the northern, represented by Ashikaga Takauji; the partisans of the Hōjō watching for an opportunity to restore the fallen fortunes of the clan, and Prince Morinaga, though distrusted by the sovereign holding command of the Imperial forces. The Hōjō commenced the campaign. Saionji Kunimune, whose family no longer supplied Imperial consorts and Prime Ministers, as it had done in the Hōjō days, planned to poison the Emperor at a banquet. The plot was discovered, and in the confusion that ensued, Prince Morinaga thought that he saw an opportunity to overthrow the Ashikaga. But the Emperor willingly denounced his son, and handed him over to Takauji, who imprisoned him in Kamakura, where he perished miserably. Shortly afterwards, the Hōjō partisans attacked Kamakura and recovered possession of it. Takauji was in Kyōtō at the time. Disregarding the Emperor's reluctance to commission him, he moved against the Hōjō and re-captured Kamakura. Undoubtedly in taking that step he had resolved to free himself from Court control. Thus, when the Emperor summoned him to