The Japanese emperor Daigo II (1288-1339) attempted to restore the power of the throne upon the destruction of the country's first military government, or shogunate, in 1333.

Since the establishment of a centralized state in Japan under the influence of Chinese civilization in the 7th century, the Japanese sovereigns had gradually lost power. During most of the 10th and 11th centuries the Fujiwara family dominated the court at Kyoto as imperial regents. At the end of the 11th century and during the first half of the 12th, retired (or cloistered) emperors reasserted the authority of the imperial family in court politics. Yet, even as they did so, real power in Japan was shifting from the courtier class of Kyoto to an emergent warrior class in the provinces. This shift was climaxed by the founding of a shogunate by the warrior clan of Minamoto at Kamakura in the eastern provinces...