Queen Uno no Sarara (鸕野讚良皇后)

Uno no Sarara was the daughter of Naka no Ōe, aka Tenji Tennō, and Wochi no Iratsume. Wochi no Iratsume was the daughter of Soga no Kurayamada no Ishikawa no Maro, who had supported Naka no Ōe in the overthrow of Soga no Iruka and Soga no Emishi during the Isshi Incident. Royal Princess Uno no Sarara and her sister, Royal Princess Ōta, were both married off to Naka no Ōe’s brother, Ōama, who would later become Temmu Tennō. Together they would have one son, Royal Prince Kusakabe.

Uno no Sarara was clearly devoted to Ōama and his cause. She left with him to go to Yoshino and then hurried away when they left Yoshino to rally forces in the East for the Jinshin no Ran. She is said to have been heavily involved in prayers to the deity of Ise Shrine, Amaterasu, and appears to have played a hand in many areas of governance. When she grew ill, Ōama had Yakushiji, the temple of the Medicine Buddha, dedicated in her honor.

When Ōama passed away, Uno no Sarara was in charge of the government, and seemed poised to place her son, Crown Prince Kusakabe on the throne.

Crown Prince Kusakabe (草壁皇太子)

Son of Ōama and Uno no Sarara, he was born in 662 and he was made Crown Prince in 681. He was married to Royal Princess Abe, herself a daughter of Naka no Ōe and Mehi no Iratsume, another daughter of Soga no Ishikawa no Maro and sister to Uno no Sarara—so technically Abe was Kusakabe’s aunt, though she was only about a year older than he was. And since they had different mothers that was considered far enough apart to not count as incest. Crown Prince Kusakabe also had a young son, born around 683, known as Prince Karu.

Kusakabe is said to have been operating as the Crown Prince, meaning he would have been heavily involved in the government in preparation for eventually ascending the throne. That said, there were several matters to consider. One of them was the construction of a new palace. The Fujiwara Capital and its palace would have been under construction, and with the building of the mausoleum, the temporary and eventual interment of Ōama, and the construction still to be done on the palace, it seems that they postponed his ascension for several years.

That said, there were also a few other sons of Ōama who might have had a claim on the throne, should they decide to press it.

Royal Prince Takechi (高市皇子)

Royal Prince Takechi was Ōama’s eldest son. He had been present with the troops during the Jinshin no Ran, and appears to have been a favorite of his father’s. That said, Takechi did not have as illustrious a pedigree as his younger half-brother, as Takechi’s mother was the daughter of Munakata no Kimi no Tokusen. The Munakata were a powerful family from northwest Kyushu, overseeing the Munakata shrine and associated cultic sites, including Okinoshima, in the middle of the Genkai Sea, which is still considered particularly sacred, today. Nonetheless, his mother was not of royal blood, and as such Prince Takechi only had royal blood through his paternal line.

Royal Prince Ōtsu (大津皇子)

Royal Prince Ōtsu was technically the third eldest son of Ōama, and his mother was the Royal Princess Ōta, elder sister to Uno no Sarara. Ōtsu was born only a year after his brother, and his mother was technically senior to Uno no Sarara. Unfortunately, Ōta passed away before Naka no Ōe and the events that put Ōama on the throne, so she was never formally a queen. Ōtsu is also specifically called for and mentioned during the events of the Jinshin no Ran, though he likely was not old enough to do much at the time. In the Kaifusō, a book of Sinitic style poetry, we are told that he was best friends with Royal Prince Kawashima (川島皇子), who was actually one of the sons of Naka no Ōe, so technically more like an uncle.

Kusakabe, Ōtsu, and Takechi are often mentioned together in the Chronicles, in that order. They were clearly favorites of Ōama, and all three were part of the Yoshino conference where they all pledged to work together for the good of the State. However, Ōama’s body was hardly cold before word got out that a group of about thirty nobles was supporting a different son to become the next sovereign, rather than Crown Prince Kusakabe.

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is episode 147: Here We Go Again

Iki no Hakatoko looked around the spacious room and recognized many of the faces he saw there. There were various nobles from around the court present. All of them were familiar, even if they were not the closest of acquaintances—they ran in similar circles and were connected to each other over various political positions. Some were connected by marriage, some were just allies, and others were almost rivals—but they were all there for a common cause.
The open chamber had been buzzing as all of those elites of Yamato talked about why they might have gathered. Of course, the big news was the death of the sovereign. Ohoama had passed away, and the court was formally in mourning. And yet the government seemed stable.    The Queen was at the helm, guiding t he government, and her son was beside her as the Crown Prince. So what was everyone doing here, gathering for what they could only assume were… other options?
Finally, the buzzing started to die down as the doors to the chamber were closed and guards posted. And then, the host for the discussion arrived, as Royal Prince Ohotsu stepped out and greeted all of his soon-to-be co-conspirators….

This episode, at long last, we are about to dive into a new reign. And if you haven’t picked up by now, this, the end of the 7th century, was a turbulent time. Although the court had been instituting reforms to be more like the courts on the continent—and it wasn’t like Ohoama died without any heir whatsoever—things were still unstable. I know, shocker, right? So what happened?
Let’s go over the history some, and the main players, and then we can see what happened and the aftermath. Before that, however, let’s talk about what we might expect to have happened, if everything had worked like clockwork.
While Ohoama passed away in 686, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t made any plans. His wife and Queen, Uno no Sarara, was deeply entrenched in governmental affairs, and their son, Prince Kusakabe, had been named Crown Prince in 681. This meant that both were in positions of significant power within the current government. All things being equal, and assuming a Confucian model, one would expect that upon Ohoama’s passing, Kusakabe would step up and take the reins of the government, ascending to the throne as the new ruler. Uno would oversee the transition and take her place as the Queen Mother, remaining in the palace and helping to shepherd the new rule, while one of Kusakabe’s wives—probably Abe-hime, who, like her half-sister Uno, was also a daughter of Naka no Oe—would become his queen.
And yet that is not what happened. Prince Kusakabe does not show up in our list of sovereigns, and we are told he never ascended the throne. Instead, his mother, Uno no Sarara, came to power. So what exactly happened? Why would she not have handed over power to her only son and set him up on the throne? To understand all of that, I think there are several things we need to discuss, first of them being just how tenuous and fragile transitions like this were.
If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you might be nodding in agreement with this statement: for more than a century, at this point, whatever high-minded ideals the rulers of Yamato may have espoused, their path to the throne had been covered in blood. Let’s roll back to the events of 587. We talked about this in Episode 91, when the Soga and Mononobe families had each lined up behind different aspirants to the royal throne. The Mononobe were a powerful family, known to be warriors for the throne, and the head of the Mononobe, the Ohomuraji, Moriya, was one of the most influential people at court. However, in recent years, the Soga family had been on the rise. Soga no Iname had married his daughters to members of the royal family, and he and his son, Umako, were known as the Ohoomi. The Mononobe were not having it with these uppity newcomers, but the Soga seem to have built their power, anyway, likely using their connections to the continent to do so. In a series of succession disputes, the Soga came out on top, defeating the Mononobe and eventually killing Moriya. It was a bloody fight, but eventually the Soga’s royal relatives won out.
This brought Hasebe Wakasasagi, aka Sushun Tennou, to the throne. For a time, Wakasasagi and Soga no Umako ruled the land, but eventually Wakasasagi grew suspicious of Umako—perhaps jealous of his power. He considered taking him out, but Umako caught wind and had the sovereign assassinated, instead. Umako then put his own niece, Kashikiya Hime, on the throne, where most know her as Suiko Tennou.
Kashikiya was no stranger to the court, having served as the wife of her own half-brother, Nunakura, aka Bidatsu Tennou. Kashikya is thought to have been a compromise candidate, chosen specifically to avert any further power struggles. Certainly, Umako did not want a repeat performance of what had just happened with Wakasasagi. And though she reigned, power was apparently shared between Soga no Umako, Kashikiya Hime, and Kashikiya Hime’s nephew—Umako’s grandnephew—Crown Prince Umayado, aka the legendary Shotoku Taishi.
By all rights, it seemed like things should have gone smoothly. Umako, the eldest, would pass away to be succeeded by his niece, and it would make sense that after Kashikiya Hime’s passing, Umayado would assume the throne. Instead, Umayado would be the first to pass, creating uncertainty as to the future of the throne. Then Umako would follow several years later. Finally, Suiko would pass away soon thereafter.
So, in about six years the three most powerful people in court all passed away. Soga no Umako’s son, Soga no Emishi, was still coming out from under his father’s shadow. Furthermore, it was not clear who should sit the throne—should it be Prince Yamashiro no Oe, the son of the Crown Prince, Umayado? After all, his father would have likely inherited the throne and then it would have no doubt been passed to him. And yet, there was another contender: Prince Tamura. Ultimately Soga no Emishi backed Prince Tamura, a man with ties to Nunakura through both his father and mother, and yet who was not truly a royal prince in that his own parents had never held the throne. Then again, neither had Umayado.
Eventually, Prince Yamashiro no Oe would back down from his claim to avoid bloodshed—and yet blood would be shed anyway. When Prince Tamura died, in an apparent bid to keep Soga power and quash any resistance before it started up, Soga no Emishi had Tamura’s wife, Takara hime, aka Kougyoku Tennou, installed—but Prince Yamashiro no Ohoe was still alive, and his heirs were still out there. Soga no Emishi appeared to be content, but his son and heir, Soga no Iruka, was not. And when his father was ill and Iruka had a free hand, he ordered the destruction of Prince Yamashiro no Oe, presumably to avoid a future challenge to the throne and thus to the Soga family’s hold on power.
This move shocked many, and rather than preventing conflict, it seems to have stirred up ill feelings against the Soga for their heavy hand in the politics of the period. This would lead Prince Naka no Ohoe and several co-conspirators to rise up, killing Soga no Iruka in court, and then attacking his father, Soga no Emishi, in their home. See episode 106 for more on that, known as the Isshi Incident. Naka no Ohoe and his supporters would take their place in the court, but Naka no Ohoe would not ascend to the throne, himself – at least not yet. Instead, he took the position of Crown Prince, and his uncle, Prince Karu,aka Kotoku Tennou, took the throne.
However, that still left a loose end. Prince Furubito no Oe, who had appeared to be the favorite for the throne under the Soga, was still alive. Furubito no Oe was the son of Tamura and a Soga consort—Hotei no Iratsume, the daughter of Soga no Umako. Although the Chronicles do not mention it, he seems to have been well placed to be Crown Prince in place of Naka no Oe, especially in a Soga dominated court. Without that backing, however, his claim may not have been quite so strong. He had gone into exile in Yoshino, but opponents of Naka no Oe’s faction and their bloody coup began to use him as a rallying point. It is unclear if Prince Furubito himself had any ambitions, but the fact remained that he was a threat, nonetheless, and Prince Naka no Oe had him taken out.
By controlling things from behind the throne, Prince Naka no Oe seems to have been able to keep things fairly stable. When his uncle Karu passed away, the throne went back to his mother, who is known as Saimei Tennou in her second reign, but Naka no Oe was still in a place of considerable power, and the continuity likely helped keep things on track. Then Takara Hime passed away in the midst of a national crisis—the mobilization to support Baekje against the Silla-Tang alliance. That military effort turned out to be less than successful, but by that point, there does not seem to have been much question over who was in charge – it was finally Naka no Oe’s turn to take the throne, and he did, as Tenji Tennou.
And so it wasn’t until Naka no Oe’s own death that we again see major violence. Naka no Oe’s brother, Ohoama, is said to have been the Crown Prince, but then Naka no Oe’s son, Ohotomo, came of age. He was made the Dajo Daijin and supported by the most powerful nobles in court.   It is clear that there were divergent factions within the court itself, though, with some supporting Ohotomo and others supporting Ohoama. In the midst of this, Ohoama chose to bow out, at least while his brother Naka no Oe was still on the throne. However, Ohotomo and his supporters could not leave Ohoama out there as a loose end. They knew that he still had a claim and supporters, and they started to make plans to move against him after Naka no Oe’s death. They were too slow, however—Ohoama caught word and moved against the court, instead. In a bloody struggle that upended the politics of the court one more time, Ohoama came to the throne. That struggle, the Jinshin no Ran, was covered in detail in episodes 129 to 132.
So if we look back we can see that for all of the thoughts of inheritance and legitimacy, most of those who had ascended the throne had done so by eliminating their rivals—either before or just after they assumed the royal mantle. As such, this is something that Ohoama was, himself, quite concerned about, and he took several steps to try to avoid a repeat of this scenario.
First, and perhaps somewhat confusingly, he ensured that those in positions of authority in the government were largely tied by blood to the royal family. The royal and non-royal princes were all nominally related in one way, shape, or form. If nothing else this meant that the nobility— those elites without direct blood ties to the throne—were not, themselves, gaining the kind of power and authority that had previously been given out to families like the Ohotomo, the Mononobe, and the Soga. We don’t even hear that much about the relatives of Nakatomi no Kamatari, who had achieved such heights under Naka no Oe that he had become the Naidaijin, the great minister of the interior.
One might think that this system still had issues, however. After all, each princely line had their own tie to a previous sovereign, and we’ve certainly seen times where a sovereign came in out of left field, with a nominal, but hardly convincing, connection to the throne. This is particularly true in a time when succession was still not necessarily a strictly patrilineal custom; where it was not unusual for a senior family member to take up the mantle of leadership, rather than just the first-born son of the current ruler.
And that seems to be why Ohoama also held the Yoshino conference with his immediate family members in 679. This included his Queen Consort, Uno; the Royal Prince Kusakabe, the Royal Prince Ohotsu, the Royal Prince Takechi, the Royal Prince Kawashima, the Royal Prince Osakabe, and the Royal Prince Shiki. These were sons of both Ohoama and Naka no Oe, but they were all considered to be loyal insiders of the royal family. Ohoama had them swear to work together and to protect one another. And yet, as we shall see, that promise does not seem to have survived Ohoama himself.
So let’s talk about some of these characters, now that we are here at another question of succession.
We’ll start with the Queen herself, Uno no Sarara. Uno was born in 645, the daughter of Naka no Oe and a consort, Wochi no Iratsume, daughter of Soga no Yamada no Ishikawa no Maro. Ishikawa no Maro had been a powerful ally of Naka no Oe, assisting with the overthrow of his own uncle and cousin, Soga no Emishi and Soga no Iruka. In turn, he seems to have become the head of the Soga family. Despite the rhetoric that the Soga family was destroyed, it was more that the power of Emishi and Iruka was broken. Ishikawa no Maro had parlayed his assistance into another means to access power at the court, and married his own daughter to Naka no Oe. That worked until it didn’t—enemies in court slandered Ishikawa no Maro and Naka no Oe had him killed in 649.
Wochi no Iratsume would have three children with Naka no Oe. The eldest was Princess Ota, followed by Princess Uno, and finally Prince Takeru. There is a theory that she died in 651, giving birth to Prince Takeru. Prince Takeru himself would only survive a short while passing away in 658. He was only seven years old.
Both Princess Ohota and Princess Uno were married off to their uncle, Prince Ohoama. Princess Ohota was the elder of the two, and bore Princess Ohoku and Prince Ohotsu, whom we’ll discuss in a bit. However, Princess Ohota passed away in 667, during the reign of Naka no Oe, and so did not play as big a role in the politics of the day as her younger sister.
Uno, on the other hand, appears to have been Ohoama’s ride-or-die. They were married when she was only thirteen years old, and she followed him when he and Naka no Oe went to Kyushu to oversee the war on the peninsula. It was there that she gave birth to her first and only son in 662. She left the court behind to follow Ohoama to Yoshino, along with their son, Prince Kusakabe. She then followed Ohoama on his lightning blitz through the mountains over to the east. It is said that while he went on to the front, she maintained a place in the relative safety of the land of Mie. From there she likely organized the rearguard and would have been involved with the back-end logistics. She is also said to have made particular entreaties to the deities of Ise shrine, and may have had a hand in raising the Shrine to greater prominence during the reign of Ohoama and later.
A key note is the fact that, when Ohoama became ill, and could not effectively manage the affairs of state, Uno stepped in and made sure that things continued to operate. And so, when Ohoama finally passed away, his projects were not simply left hanging—his queen and consort, Uno no Sarara, was there to see that everything remained on track.
As queen, Uno’s son, Prince Kusakabe, was the favorite to succeed his father. In fact, in 681, he was named Crown Prince at the age of 19. Kusakabe had even married his own aunt, Princess Abe—his mother’s half-sister. Princess Abe was another daughter of Naka no Oe and a Soga related consort; in this case it was Wochi no Iratsume’s younger sister, Mehi no Iratsume—sometimes called Sakurai no Iratsume. I should note that Princess Abe was only about 20 years old in 681, only a year older than the Crown Prince, so it isn’t like there was a huge age gap between them, even if he was technically marrying his own aunt. Still, they had already had a child between them the year before, in 680—this was Princess Hidaka or Niimi. Two years later, in 683, they had another child, Prince Karu, and later we know that they had a third child, Princess Kibi. This is all a pretty good start for a future sovereign, and Kusakabe seems to have been on track to succeed his father.
By all rights, it seems that Kusakabe should have stepped up in 686 to take the throne, but that was not to be. Instead, his mother, Queen Uno no Sarara, would retain her place at the head of the government. It is possible that this was meant to be merely temporary —there were still many things to be taken care of. With Ohoama’s death there were numerous rituals having to do with his interment, and the Crown Prince, Kusakabe, appears to have been integral to those events. Whereas we may have previously seen powerful nobles step up, with the increased influence of Confucianism, it makes sense that a son would be responsible for ensuring that things were taken care of.   There was also the issue of a new palace that would need to be built, and the court would need to prepare for the various enthronement ceremonies. After all, Naka no Oe himself wasn’t formally enthroned for three years into his supposed reign. And just like his grandfather, as Crown Prince, Kusakabe maintained a powerful portfolio at the court that would still allow him to have a heavy hand on the rudder of the ship of state. In fact, had things gone differently, then the Chroniclers may have simply counted these early years as part of Kusakabe’s reign, as they had done with Naka no Oe.
And all that would have been great—except that, despite all those nice family agreements at Yoshino, there were others who seem to have had designs on the throne.
The first claim that likely could have been made was by Prince Takechi. Prince Takechi—written as Takaichi, like the district of the same name—was technically the eldest son of Ohoama. He had been called to Ohoama’s side during the Jinshin no Ran, and given nominal control over the troops waiting to cross the pass from Ohowari into Afumi. This was likely more of a sinecure, however; Prince Takechi was still quite young, and while the position would no doubt teach him much about organization and leadership, I certainly hope that there were more experienced individuals assisting him.
However, for all of that, Prince Takechi had a major strike against him In the form of his parentage. Although he was Ohoama’s eldest son, his mother was not a royal princess. Instead she was Amago no Iratsume, the daughter of the powerful head of the Munakata family, Munakata no Tokusen.
Munakata was a powerful area on the northwest coast of Tsukushi—modern Kyushu. It is famous for the three Munakata shrines. The outer, or Hetsu, shrine is on the land, but the middle shrine is on the island of Ohoshima, 11 kilometers from the Hetsu shrine. Then the Oki, or deep sea, shrine is on the aptly named Okinoshima, another 49 kilometers past that, out in the middle of the Genkai Sea, the body of water between Kyushu, Tsushima, and the Korean peninsula. Even today, Okinoshima is considered a sacred place, and has never been developed: even today, only those closely associated with the shrine are allowed to set foot there. Because of that we can see something remarkable, as Okinoshima was held as sacred for hundreds of years, during which time, offerings were regularly made to the kami there, presumably for safe passage across the waters. These offerings have accumulated over the centuries and serve as a fascinating glimpse back into the history of the shrine and of the relations between the archipelago and the peninsula.
The land of Munakata—and by extension the rulers, or Kimi—appear to have had not inconsiderable influence over the trade back and forth across the ocean to the continent. This is further corroborated by the wealth left at Okinoshima and elsewhere, as well as by large kofun nearby, thought to be those of the ruling family of the area. This would have no doubt been a powerful and prestigious family to be allied with, especially in Ohoama’s role as a Prince. However, despite all of that, they were not, ultimately, a royal family.   That would seem to have made Prince Takechi ineligible to take the throne—at least without some serious backing and perhaps a little re-working of his parentage.
And this brings us to the third eldest son of Ohoama: Prince Ohotsu. Unlike Prince Takechi, Prince Ohotsu was the son of a royal princess—Princess Ohota. In fact, not only was she a royal princess, but she was the sister to Queen Uno. And Prince Ohotsu was born only a year later than Prince Kusakabe. Furthermore, during the Jinshin no Ran, Prince Ohotsu was called to Ohoama’s side, along with his half-brother, Prince Takechi, and he is specifically mentioned in that role, despite the fact that he was still too young to have played much of a role. Like Prince Kusakabe, Prince Ohotsu was in his early twenties.
So if we put Kusakabe and Ohotsu side-by-side, we can see that they have a lot of similar qualifications. Both were the sons of Ohoama by daughters of Naka no Oe, giving them double-royal lineages. Their mothers were even full sisters, so they were both great-grandsons of Soga no Ishikawa no Maro, for whatever that means. Kusakabe was older by a day, but Ohotsu’s mother was the eldest of the two sisters. But for the fact that his mother had passed away, she could possibly have been declared Queen, and Ohotsu might have ended up as Crown Prince, instead of Kusakabe. Even if something had simply befallen Kusakabe, Ohotsu likely would have been able to step in, especially since Kusakabe had no full-blooded siblings, himself.
The reign of Ohoama is replete with examples of Kusakabe, Ohotsu, and Takechi often acting together or being given honors together. While it is always clear to rank them in that order, it is also clear that all three seemed to hold a place of high esteem.   What we don’t seem to see is any ill will between them—but then again, the Chronicles rarely give much attention to anyone who is not the sovereign except to mention them in passing.
As such, we get only a simple sentence in the record, dated barely two weeks after Ohoama’s passing, that Prince Ohotsu conspired against the Crown Prince, which is to say, Prince Kusakabe. As is so frustratingly often the case we aren’t told how he was conspiring. Clearly, it refers to succession and we can see that it wouldn’t take much for Ohotsu to gather support and place himself on the throne—had that occurred, we likely would see some differences in the Chronicles as well.
However, as it stood, the conspiracy came to naught. We are told that about one more week later, after the temporary interment of Ohoama’s body and the many, many days spent eulogizing him and those around him—seriously, the Chronicles go into way too much detail, which is great for giving us a lot of details on people in the court and their court ranks, but otherwise is mostly paragraphs of names of individuals who were likely important enough for the Chroniclers to ensure that they got at least a mention.
It was after that was finished that we are told that Prince Ohotsu’s conspiracy was discovered. He had the support of some thirty nobles, including a priest from Silla and the famous Iki no Muraji no Hakatoko—the one who had written the detailed account of the embassy that had been held under arrest by the Tang court, which we talked about back in Episode 123. The point is these were people with some amount of clout and who moved in important circles, and for thirty of them to be in Ohotsu’s camp might not seem like much, but that doesn’t begin to illuminate all of the people that they would have brought with them to the party. Furthermore, once they went public, who knows how many others might have joined them.
Fortunately for Kusakabe—and unfortunately for Ohotsu—the would-be conspiracy was quashed and quashed hard. We are told that it was discovered on the second day of the tenth month of 686—less than 30 days after Ohoama’s death—and the Queen herself, Uno no Sarara, stepped in and had Ohotsu executed at his own mansion in Wosada. She then issued a royal decree, stating to everyone that Ohotsu had committed treason, and that the punishment for treason was death. She also stated that those who had assisted him were also guilty, and should likewise receive the same sentence, except that she was going to be merciful. And so she ended up pardoning Prince Ohotsu’s co-conspirators. The only exceptions were Toki no Michidzukuri, who was banished to Idzu, and the Silla priest, who was exiled to a temple in Hida. While we aren’t told what roles they played, those two apparently were considered more complicit than the others.
A few days later, Prince Ohotsu’s sister, Princess Oku, was recalled from her position as the shrine princess of Ise. It is unclear if this is related, but it seems relevant given the proximity of the two events.
There is one other thing I should likely mention, and that seems to come from the Kaifuso. The Kaifuso is a collection of continental style poetry from the 8th century, similar to the Man’yoshu, but with a different focus. In both works they often given some description of the authors of the poems, which provide us more information on the people of the time. For instance, the Kaifuso speaks favorably of Prince Ohotomo, Ohoama’s rival in the Jinshin no Ran, and seems more than a little sympathetic towards him and his cause, compared to the way he is treated in the Nihon Shoki’s main narrative. In regards to our current point in the narrative and the treason of Prince Ohotsu the Kaifuso tells us that Prince Ohotsu was ratted out to the Queen by none other than his best friend, Prince Kawashima. Prince Kawashima was another one of the princes who had been called to Yoshino and who had pledged to work together. He was not Ohotsu’s brother or even half-brother, however, as Kawashima was the son of Naka no Oe. He was actually a good deal older than Ohoama’s actual sons, but apparently trusted by Ohoama at the same time. The Kaifuso also seems to tell us that Kawashima was rewarded for his efforts by the court.
The only problem is that the Nihon Shoki, our primary source, tells us none of this. Not only is Prince Kawashima not mentioned in regards to the plot, neither is he mentioned as having received any kind of reward or gift by the court. That doesn’t mean the Kaifuso is wrong, but it does raise the question.
Similarly, it is just as easy to suggest that the Nihon Shoki itself may be covering up what actually happened. After all, we only have one side of the story. What if there wasn’t a conspiracy? Or what if the conspiracy were of the Queen’s making, instead. Prince Ohotsu was clearly popular, and had a reasonable claim to the throne. That was a threat to her own son’s eventual ascension. It is possible that the Queen, Uno no Sarara, saw a threat and decided to do away with it, herself, keeping her own son’s hands relatively clean in the process.
Whatever the truth, we likely will never know, and so this is all we have to go on. Whether it was an actual conspiracy or just the paranoid concerns of a queen and mother, it is clear that it was not yet enough to have an heir named—there was always the possibility for these things to go sideways and for someone else to jump in with a claim of their own.
For all of that, while it seems that Prince Kusakabe was intended to ascend to the throne, for one reason or another, that was delayed. For some three years, as we’ve mentioned, Kusakabe and his mother ruled as Queen and Crown Prince, perhaps just because they were handling Ohoama’s burial and the creation of a new palace from which Kusakabe himself could then reign. Unfortunately, it seems that time accomplished what Prince Ohotsu and his conspirators could not, and in 689, Prince Kusakabe passed away. Shortly thereafter, the Queen, Uno no Sarara, ascended to the throne herself. This appears to have been because Kusakabe’s own son and heir, Royal Prince Karu, was only about 6 years old, having been born in 683, and his daughter was only 9. So rather than giving up the throne to some other woman’s child, Uno no Sarara took the throne for herself. She is remembered, today, as Jitou Tennou.
Jitou Tennou continued to work the initiatives that had been pushed forward during the reign of her husband. These were projects that she herself was quite familiar with, and in fact, many of the projects are sometimes thought to have been hers, with attribution given to her husband just to give it a greater air of legitimacy. Ultimately, however, she would oversee some quite formidable changes, even if many of them started in the previous reign or not.
And so begins the last reign of the Nihon Shoki, covering the years 686 to 697. The Nihon Shoki itself wouldn’t be complete and presented to the court for another 23 years or so, and yet this is where they chose to leave off. Perhaps that is because of when it was started, or they just didn’t have all the records ready for anything beyond. They clearly had to end somewhere, after all. And given that both Ohoama and Uno had such a hand in many of the changes, perhaps it just made sense to end here. Much of what would come would set the tone for centuries to come.
There is one more thing that I want to address in all of this. We’ve talked about the lineages of the various individuals, who trace their lineages back to either powerful noble families, like the Soga, or to specific sovereigns. There is a tendancy by some to talk about Ohoama having started what some would call the Temmu Dynasty. The idea being that Ohoama’s offspring would continue to reign for a time, displacing the offspring of his brother, Naka no Oe. Then, at a later date, Naka no Oe’s line would reassert itself.
This seems to be pretty clear cut from a strictly patrilineal viewpoint of royal succession, but I think it ignores a lot about the cultural aspects of the time. For one thing, descent was about both the father AND the mother, and too often people discount the mother’s influence, when, in fact, the mother most likely had more influence in the raising of children than did a royal father. After all, we don’t exactly get a lot of anecdotes about sovereigns spending quality time with their children—and I don’t think calling them to help you on campaign counts. To be fair we get hardly any anecdotes about children. But we also see that sovereigns were having multiple children with multiple consorts. Naka no Oe is said to have had about 14 children—possibly more. I count 17 children for Ohoama. And we see the ages spread out across the sovereigns’ lifetimes, with some children being born at a point that they had not even attained the age of majority by the time their father passed away. Put another way, look at how Prince Kusakabe was able to marry his own aunt, who was only a year older than he was. Clearly there was a bit of an age difference between siblings. I don’t imagine that they were being raised by their father, necessarily, but probably by their mothers and the servants at the palace, generally.
I would also point out that Ohoama included both his own children as well as children of his brother in the Yoshino conference, further indicating that he did not have any specific intention to entirely shut out the his brother’s line.
And then there is Uno no Sarara. She was Ohoama’s spouse, but also the daughter of Naka no Oe. Are we to think that she stopped being her father’s daughter because she married someone?
That doesn’t mean that labels might not be helpful in some ways, but I just don’t want to over emphasize the familial or dynastic connections. Brothers regularly turned on each other, and blood ties were no guarantee of cordial relations. In fact, only maternal siblings—those with the same mother—were actually considered true siblings in most cases. That’s how they justified so much of what we would consider incest in the royal family in the first place.
So while I do think that Ohoama and Uno tweaked the system set up by Naka no Oe and made their own impression on Yamato and, by extension, Japanese culture, I just don’t want to read too much into the lineages. The stories of politics and royal succession are often much more involved and complex.
And hopefully, we’ll get to see how complex as we continue on down this path. For now, I think I’m going to leave it here, and so, until next time, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.
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Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast.
And that’s all for now. Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.

References

Bentley, John R. (2025). Nihon Shoki: The Chronicles of Japan. ISBN 979-8-218634-67-4 pb
Aston, W. G. (1972). Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-80480984-4.

Queen Uno no Sarara (鸕野讚良皇后)

Crown Prince Kusakabe (草壁皇太子)

Royal Prince Takechi (高市皇子)

Royal Prince Ōtsu (大津皇子)

Rough Transcript

References