Moriyoshi, then, being choteki, was doomed. Ashikaga, having the imperial order, had the kuan-gun, and was destined to win. The sad fate of the emperors son awakens feelings, and brings tears to the eyes of the Japanese reader even to the present day. He was seized, deposed, sent to Kamakura, and murdered in a subterranean dungeon in the seventh month of the year 1335.
His child in exile, the heart of the emperor relented. The scales fell from his eyes. He saw that he had wrongly suspected his son, and that the real traitor was Ashikaga. The latter, noticing the change that had come over his master, left Kioto secretly, followed by thousands of the disaffected soldiery, and fled to Kamakura, which he had rebuilt, and began to consolidate his forces with a view of again erecting the eastern capital, and seizing the power formerly held by the Hojo.
Nitta had also been accused by Ashikaga, but having cleared himself in a petition to the mikado, he received the imperial commission to chastise his rival. In the campaign which followed, the imperial forces were so hopelessly defeated that the quondam imperial exile now became a fugitive. With his loyal followers he left Kioto, carrying with him the sacred emblems of authority.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
