Tomoe Gozen: From Kiso to Awazu

Yoshinaka grew up in the Kiso mountains beside his milk-brother Imai Kanehira. When he went to war, the Heike says, he brought two women from Shinano, Tomoe and Yamabuki; Tomoe is the one who became famous. Today Tokuon-ji, the family temple of the Kiso clan, holds graves traditionally linked to Yoshinaka, Kanehira and Tomoe. It is the best place to start the story at its roots.

Visitor guidance: Tokuon-ji is a temple in Kiso, Nagano; the graves are in the grounds.

In 1183 Yoshinaka marched against the Taira army of Taira no Koremori, with his uncle Yukiie, Tomoe Gozen and his four chief retainers. At night his men released a herd of oxen with lit torches tied to their horns down the pass into the Taira ranks. The pass lies between Tsubata in Ishikawa and Oyabe in Toyama; Kurikara prefectural park is said to hold a Tomoe mound.

Location precision: The battle spread across the Kurikara area; no single spot is identified.

Beaten at the Uji River, Yoshinaka tried to flee Kyoto, taking the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa with him. In the Heike, Tomoe follows him out of that defeat; in the later Genpei Jōsuiki she also duels Hatakeyama Shigetada here. From here the Heike story turns toward Awazu, where Yoshinaka made his last stand.

Location precision: The sources name the river, not a spot on its banks; the pin marks Uji Bridge.

Visitor guidance: Walk the river banks in Uji, south of Kyoto.

At Awazu on 21 February 1184, Yoshinaka told Tomoe to flee: he wanted to die with his foster brother. She refused until he insisted, then offered one last service, and beheaded the enemy champion Honda no Morishige. Yoshinaka's horse then became mired in a paddy field, and he was killed there, in what is now part of Ōtsu.

Location precision: The battlefield near Awazu in Ōtsu is not marked; the pin falls in the Awazu area.

Gichū-ji in Ōtsu holds Yoshinaka's grave, and the poet Matsuo Bashō was buried beside it. Temple tradition says Tomoe came here as a nun and set up a hermitage she called the hermitage of the nameless woman. It is temple tradition rather than history, and its precincts have been a National Historic Site since 1967.

Visitor guidance: A temple in Ōtsu, Shiga, with Yoshinaka's grave in the grounds.

Other traditions send Tomoe north. One says she escaped to Fukumitsu in Toyama and became a nun, and that her grave lies in Nanto, though purported graves are claimed in several other places. In Tomoe-zuka Park a mound is said to cover her remains, and a memorial is held on 22 October, her traditional death day. This is local tradition, not documented history.

Location precision: Several places claim her grave, and her later life is uncertain.

Visitor guidance: A public park in Nanto, Toyama.