When Minamoto Yoritomo was 13, he was a part of an unsuccessful uprising where his father was killed, and Minamoto himself was captured. His captors were kind to him, and he had quite a lot of freedom for a prisoner. When he was released, he met his soon-to-be wife, who played an important role in Minamoto’s rise to power. Minamoto was the founder of political system of the ‘shogunate’ or ‘bakufu’. This system was in place until 1868. A shogunate is ruled by one ‘feudal lord’, in this case Minamoto Yoritomo. He introduced the idea of Shogu’s, and brought forward the idea of the less powerful ‘Shogu’ being in charge of small areas of land. Minamoto Yoritomo ruled from 1192 to 1199. He was jealous of his younger, half brother Yoshitsune because
