Kamakura Period

By the 12th century, a large military class of nobility—the samurai (warrior-knights) and their retainers—had come into existence. The power of the central government and the Fujiwara family was in decline. During 1156–85, a series of wars among the most powerful samurai left Minamoto Yoritomo, a lord from Kamakura, near Tokyo Bay, in control of the country. He took the title of shogun (military governor). The emperor, in Kyoto, retained his title but held no power. Japan became a feudal society in which the shogun's power was based on the personal loyalty of lesser lords, or vassals, who gave their support in exchange for land, the right to collect taxes, or other privileges. Meanwhile, various new Buddhist sects of Japanese origin were spreading among the people.

With an attack by a Mongol reconnaissance force of some 25,000 men in 1274, Japan was threatened with invasion for the first time in its history. The Japanese repelled the attack, but in 1281 Kublai Khan, Mongol ruler of China, sent an even greater invasion force of about 150,000 men. Before all his forces could be landed, a typhoon struck, destroying much of the invasion fleet and ending the Mongol threat. The Japanese called the typhoon kamikaze, or “divine wind.”

In 1333 the Kamakura shogunate was overthrown by the emperor. There followed a period of civil war between the imperial government and a new shogunate established by the Ashikaga family at Kyoto in 1338. By 1392 the Ashikaga shogunate had defeated the imperial government.