The Isshi Incident

During the reign of Empress Kogyoku in 7th century Japan, two clans — the Soga clan and the Nakatomi clan — were rivals for power. But the Nakatomi clan would ally with the Empress's son, Naka no Oe, and together they would plot one of the most influential assassinations in Japanese history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised, Hey, this
is Danish Shart, host of Noble Blood. A bit of housekeeping.
Thank you so much to everyone who came out on

(00:20):
my tour to see me, to hear me talk about immortality,
a love story, my new book. It was just amazing
getting to meet so many listeners. I just I had
the best time, So thank you so much. If you
want to support the show, there are links in the
episode description to our Patreon, our merch if you want it,
and my books. But again, the best support is just

(00:43):
listening to the show, So thank you so much. One
brief content warning before this episode. This episode does contain
acts of violence and minor descriptions of gore. When Empress

(01:09):
Kokyoku woke on the morning of July tenth, six hundred
and forty five, she had no reason to suspect that
anything was wrong. I imagine she went through her normal
morning routine, had breakfast, got dressed, had some member of
her staff review her schedule. Just another day in the

(01:30):
life of a Japanese empress in the seventh century. The
day's main event was set to take place that afternoon.
It would be a reading of the memorials for the
three Kingdoms of Korea to be presented to the Japanese
Imperial Court. As the Empress departed her chambers for the
palace's main assembly hall, she likely didn't notice these subtle

(01:55):
glances that were being shared between the palace guards as
they locked the gates securely behind her. When she entered
the hall and took her seat before the Imperial Court,
her eyes probably drifted over the room, subconsciously cataloging those
she knew in attendance, And while she likely caught sight

(02:18):
of her son naca Ye, she almost certainly did not
see the discreetly hidden spear that he had taken great
lengths to stow near his seat well before he entered
the hall that day. The Empress may have looked over
to one of her closest advisers, so gonew Erika, and

(02:41):
might have wondered why the typically paranoid man who almost
always carried a sword for once, had come to an
event unarmed. But if the Empress did spare her adviser
a passing thought, it was quickly dismissed as the ceremony's
speaker came forward and began his address to the crowd.

(03:05):
The weighty tenor of the speaker's voice carried across the
hall with ease, and after his opening remarks, the Empress
settled in for what was sure to be another lengthy
court ceremony. Though, as I'm sure you figured out by now,
Empress Kogyoku's afternoon was about to take a rather drastic turn.

(03:31):
It started with a stutter up. Until this point, the
speaker had seemed relatively confident before the crowd, but strangely,
the more he spoke, the more he began to stumble
over his words. Before long, the staccato stop and start
of his speech became almost as distracting as the visibly

(03:55):
shaking hand he used to repeatedly wipe the sweat dripping
from his brow. When asked if something was wrong, the speaker,
who was named Curiyamada, assured the crowd he was merely
nervous to be speaking in front of someone as important
as the Empress, But the panic in his eyes told

(04:16):
a different story, especially when his eyes kept flitting back
to the similarly panicked looking soldiers standing fully armed at
the back of the hall. In truth, the speaker, Curiyamada,
had been approached days earlier by the Empress's son, who

(04:36):
confided in him his plans to use the ceremony to
facilitate the assassination of his political rival Soga no Urica.
The adviser. By some miracle, all the moving parts of
his plot had been going perfectly to plan. The gates

(04:58):
had been locked, the guards had been armed, and at
long last, they were finally entering the hall with express
orders to strike down Soga no Urica. While Kiaramata kept
the hall's attention going with his speech, except when they
were finally faced with the man they were tasked to kill,

(05:22):
the guards froze. Maybe they feared the repercussions of their attack,
or perhaps they had even been hit with a last
minute stroke of humanity. But whatever the reason, as the
speaker Kuriamata stumbled over his words in the final paragraphs
of his speech, the guards could only look at each

(05:44):
other with mounting fear as their plot dissolved before their eyes.
In real time from the audience, the Empress's plotting son,
Nakanoye's eyes shot back and forth between the unmoving guards
and the distressed speaker until finally he decided to take

(06:07):
matters into his own hands. In one fluid movement, Nakanoya
stood from his seat, unsheathed his hidden spear, and launched forward,
striking sogana Orca in the vulnerable flesh between his neck
and shoulder. For a moment, time stood still, until with

(06:29):
a sickening jerk of his arm, nacina Oye wrenched the
weapon from his rival's shoulder, and pandemonium took hold in
the hall. Between horrified gasps and shrieks of terror, the
still conscious sogon To Orika stumbled at the feet of
the Empress in an act of sheer desperation. Moments from death,

(06:54):
he begged the Empress to take action to investigate this
ultimate treachery committed by her son against the Imperial Court.
When the Empress had woken up that morning, there had
been no reason to think it would be anything but
a normal day. But as she cast her eyes upon

(07:15):
the blood stained blade in the palm of her son's hand,
her closest adviser's blood pulling rapidly on her palace floors,
she was suddenly all too aware of the fact that
her following actions would not just spell the fate of
her son and the legacy of her reign, but the

(07:37):
future of her nation as a whole. I'm Dana Schwartz,
and this is noble blood. The event that we know

(07:58):
today as the Ishi Incident has come to serve as
one of the most definitive moments in classical Japanese history.
But what could easily be construed as a petty power
struggle between two men was in fact the culmination of
over a century's worth of political and religious infighting that

(08:20):
was happening within Japan's Imperial court. Within the court, the
primary source of power, of course, came from the emperors
and later empresses who would come to inherit Japan's chrysanthemum throne.
But aside from the imperial family, the sixth and seventh
centuries were defined by the introduction of Buddhism and the

(08:44):
heavy influence of two rival clans, the Nakatomi clan and
the Soga clan. If you choose to visit Japan today,
you would no doubt be greeted with the plethora of
Buddhist iconography that have come to decorate the country through
temples and statues over the past centuries. But before Buddhism

(09:06):
ever came to Japan, Shintoism was the country's primary religion,
and to some things up in the absolute broadest possible terms,
Buddhism focuses primarily on the self and detachment from earthly possessions.
Shintoism is a polytheistic religion which centers on spirits and

(09:28):
deities known as kami. Kami could take the form of
spirits or animals found in nature, but some ancient Japanese
clans often cited kami as the origin of their ancestral lineage.
In the case of the Nakatomi clan, their ancestral ties
to kami made them an indispensable asset to the Imperial

(09:51):
court when performing certain religious rites, which solidified their place
at the side of the imperial family. Naturally, when Buddhism
made its first appearance in Japan in the sixth century,
the Nakatomi clan was more than a little concerned. They
framed their dislike of the new religion by arguing that

(10:14):
it corrupted traditional Japanese values, but more than likely their
primary issue was more political than spiritual in nature. The
introduction of Buddhism made the Nakatomi clan's place in court,
which relied almost entirely on their status within the Shinto religion,

(10:35):
all but obsolete. Meanwhile, the Soga clan were ardent supporters
of this new religion making its way through Japan. Although
these Soga did not have as direct an effect on
court life as the Nakatomi did, their influence came through
their clan's daughters, who they made sure to one way

(10:58):
or another marry into the imperial family. Through these marriages,
the Soga clan inserted themselves in court as global envoys
for the throne, which in turn meant they were likely
the first to hear about the introduction of Buddhism through
their relations with their Chinese and Korean counterparts. Predictably, the

(11:23):
Soga clan were thrilled at the prospect of this new religion.
They saw it as a symbol of progress and globalization.
But similarly to the Nakatomi, they also most likely weren't
so naive as to only align with the theology purely
on a spiritual level. For the Soga clan, the introduction

(11:47):
of Buddhism was a way to pry the Nakatomi away
from the nearly impenetrable space they had held next to
the chrysanthemum throne. If Shintoism no longer had a place
in court, than neither did the Nakatomi. Ultimately, despite the
many objections from the Nakatomi clan, by the seventh century,

(12:11):
Buddhism had fully taken root in Japan and the Soga
clan had all but ousted the Nakatomi from their position
in court. Unsurprisingly, this did not quell the feud between
the two families, especially when in six hundred and forty
three the newly powerful Soga began referring to themselves as

(12:35):
sovereigns and using state resources to erect lavish tombs for themselves.
More importantly, since the death of Japan's first Empress, Emperor
Suiko in six hundred twenty eight, the Soga had been
essentially controlling who ascended the throne, and predictably, their choice

(12:57):
of rulers often skewed or those that they would most
likely be able to control. So, despite what most historians
believe to have been Empress Suiko's wish to have her
successor be a man named Prince Yamashiro, the Soga insisted
that the Empress actually wanted to be followed by a

(13:19):
man that history would come to know as Emperor JOMEI, who,
after his death, once again at the insistence of the
Soga clan, would be succeeded by his wife, Empress Kogyoku.
The Empress at the beginning of this story. There are
a lot of names I know, and it's probably made
even worse because my pronunciation, even though I try my best,

(13:43):
is probably a mess. But if nothing else, just remember
that for the first half of the seventh century, the
Soga clan were the puppet masters of the Japanese Imperial Court,
and the Nakatomi clan were not content to sit idly
by and watched their centuries long political rivals continue to

(14:04):
pull the strings, but given their lesser status at court,
they could do little more than watch as the Soga
clan continued to acquire more power through their ties to
the throne. That was until six hundred and forty three,
when the leader of the Soga clan, Soga Noamishi, ordered

(14:27):
his son to orchestrate an attack on Prince Yamashiro, who
had been the Nakatomi clan's choice to succeed Emperor Swiko
nearly twenty years prior. Bestowing honorary titles in constructing tombs
was one thing, but the assassination proved to be the

(14:47):
final straw for the Nakatomi clan. For decades, they had
silently succumbed to the lesser court life after the introduction
of Buddhism, but the unti death of Prince Yamashiro installed
a sentiment within the Nakatomi clan which would be echoed

(15:07):
in the events that were to follow. If you wanted
something done, you had to do it yourself. By the
summer of six hundred and forty five, tensions within the
Nakatomi clan were reaching a boiling point. In the wake
of Prince Yamashiro's death, the Nakatomi were itching to take

(15:29):
revenge against their long standing political rivals, and in July
of that year, it appeared that they would finally be
given their chance for a vengeance. Together, nakano Oya, who
was the Empress's son and the head of the Nakatomi
clan Nakatomi Kamatari, began planning the assassination of the man

(15:53):
who had killed Prince Yamashiro. This legitimate claimant to the throne.
The assassin was Soga no Uruka, the Empress's key adviser.
The formal court ceremony for the reading of the memorials
of the three Kingdoms of Korea provided the perfect backdrop

(16:13):
for their revenge. Together, the two powerful men enlisted the
help of Nacanoea's kinsmen Kuriamata, who was set to be
the speaker at the ceremony. The plan was simple. On
the day of the ceremony, palace guards under the control
of the Nakatomie would ensure Soga no Rika arrived at

(16:35):
the hall unarmed. After securing all the exits, the guards
would arm themselves and then wait for Kuryamada to begin
his speech, so that Uruka and the rest of the
Soga clan would remain distracted until they could go in
for the kill. Though we all know the saying about

(16:57):
best laid plans, before we continue, I think it might
be worthwhile to note that the majority of what we
know about the Isshi incident, and specifically the source that
I am citing the majority of this story from, is
from an English translation of an eighth century Japanese text

(17:17):
known as the Nikon Shoki, which in addition to reading
more like a clunky historical diary than the typical narrative
format that we've come to expect from historical texts in
the West, has some let's say, awkward and possibly overexaggerated
quotes thrown into its accounts. This isn't to say that

(17:41):
the events recounted aren't true, but between the shifts in
language that have no doubt occurred since the eighth century
and the inherently questionable translations that have stemmed from them
since then, I think it's best to take what direct
quotes that I might repeat here with a grain of salt.

(18:02):
But back to our story. The day of the ceremony, Nacanoye,
the son of the Empress, walked into the chamber and
took his seat, subtly checking to make sure the spear
that he had hidden near by remained well concealed and
within his grasp as he watched his mother take her

(18:22):
seat before the crowd. Elsewhere, the Nakatomie guards were sealing
each of the twelve exits before moving to quietly arm
themselves for the gruesome task they had in store, gathering
the swords and bows and arrows laid out for them
at the sound of Kuryamata's speech beginning, another conspirator from

(18:46):
the Nakatomi clan rushed forward to hurry the men along, saying, up, up,
make haste to slay him. At the sound of the
hall's door opening, I imagine Nacanoye did his best not
to look back and watch his guards quietly filing into
the room. At long last, after not only weeks of planning,

(19:09):
but decades of political power struggle, the end of the
Saga clan was within reach, until, of course, it wasn't.
In exchange for their services, nacanoy and Nakatomi Kamatari made
sure to offer the palace guards a handsome reward, but

(19:30):
in the end it appeared that no amount of money
would tempt the guards into taking the life of one
of the Empress's closest advisers, not even at the request
of her son. With the speaker nervous and his decorum
slipping almost as rapidly as the end of his speech

(19:51):
was approaching, nacanoy took his hidden spear and rose to
enact the retribution that no one else wood. With a
determined cry and a swing of his blade, the hall
descended into chaos. Screams of fear and outrage poured from

(20:11):
those of the Soga clan left standing, but they did
nothing to staunch the gaping wound left in Soga Noorka's
neck and shoulder. The man's robes darkened from the free
flowing blood running down his chest, but somehow Orka remained conscious.

(20:32):
Using what was left of his energy, Soga Noorka dragged
himself in front of the Empress and begged quote, she
who occupies the dignitary is the child of Heaven. I,
her servant, am conscious of no crime, and I beseech
her to deign to make examination into this end quote.

(20:57):
In her shock, Empress Kagyoku shifted her gaze from the
dying Iroka to her son, saying, I know not what
has been done? What is the meaning of this? To this,
Nakanoe bowed at his mother's feet and defended his actions
by presenting them as for the good of the throne

(21:20):
to the Empress. Though his words carried little weight. His
attack in the end may not have been strong enough
to actually end Irika's life in one fail swoop. But
the moment he had stood and raised his spear, the
Empress knew that her son had all but ended her reign.

(21:41):
Without another word, Empress Kugyoku stood from her seat, and,
with one final look cast between the two men, left
the hall and secured what was left of sagun no
Irka's fate. Because when the door closed behind her, the

(22:01):
Empress no doubt heard the flurry of rising panic as
her son and his men wasted no time in finishing
what they had started and actually killing the man they
had intended to kill. In the aftermath of Sogonoorka's assassination,

(22:25):
life in the Imperial court shifted almost overnight. This in
large part has to do with this period in Japanese
history's perspective on the sanctity of the chrysanthemum throne. In
the eyes of the public, the throne was seen as
a position meant to be pure and untouched by quote pollution,

(22:47):
whether it be spiritual or physical. But in act such
as the brutal murder of Soganoorka in front of the
Empress herself would have been considered pollution of the utmost degree,
which was why within two days of the attack, Empress
Kogyoku abdicated the throne from the outside. The obvious choice

(23:12):
for Kuyoki's successor would be her son Nakanoi, but the
head of the Nakatomi and Nakanoe's co conspirator, Nakatomi Kamatari,
managed to convince the young prince that it would be
more beneficial for his political career should he wait to
take the throne, not so soon after facilitating an attack

(23:35):
within the empirical court. It was with this in mind
that Empress Kogyoku's brother ascended the throne, becoming Emperor Shuitoku. Meanwhile,
outside the imperial court, the Soga clan was floundering in
the fallout of Irika's death. In the days following his assassination,

(23:56):
members of the Nakatomi clan took it upon themselves to
lay waste to the rest of the Soga clan, and
their leader, who was Uruka's father, Soga non Amishi, knew
that it was only a matter of time before they
came for him as well. In the grief of his
son's assassination and the inevitable destruction of his family line,

(24:21):
Soga no Amishi ultimately decided to take his life into
his own hands only a day after his son's murder,
with the threat of the Nakatomi clan looming heavily over
his head. On July eleventh, six hundred and forty five,
Amishi calmly set fire to his home and locked himself inside,

(24:44):
effectively drawing a definitive and dramatic end to the reign
of the Soga clan. That was the gruesome story of

(25:07):
the Yeshi incident. But stick around after the sponsor break
to hear a little more about Empress Kogyoku after her abdication.
It stands to reason that Empress Kogyoku's story would end

(25:29):
with her reign in July of six hundred forty five,
and in a way it did, but not entirely. Let
me explain. The reign of Empress Kogyoku may have ended
with the Yishi incident, but following the death of her
initial successor, her brother a decade later, Empress Kugyoku would
once again ascend to the Japanese imperial throne, only this

(25:54):
time under the name Empress Saime. Who doesn't love a
good rebrand. Empress Saime's second reign was marked with much
less political turmoil than her first, and this one only
ended at her death in six hundred and sixty one.
This time, she was finally succeeded by her son, the

(26:15):
assassin Nakanoe, who became Emperor Tenji, and after over fifteen
years since conspiring together to create the Yeshi Incident, Tenji
would award his close political adviser Nakatomi Kamatari with his
own clan name, making him Fujiwara no Kamatari, head of

(26:37):
the new Fujiwara clan. The Fujiwaras would go on to
hold power within the Imperial court from the seventh century
well into the eighteen hundreds, and to this day are
considered to be one of the most powerful ancient families
in classical Japanese history. It's strange to end the episode

(26:59):
on this note because I want to make clear I
don't think assassinations and murder are good ideas, but in
this one specific case, it did really work out for
the people who planned it. Noble Blood is a production

(27:26):
of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble
Blood is hosted by me Danish Swartz. Additional writing and
researching done by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wickma Hayward, Courtney Sunder,
and Laurie Goodman. The show is produced by rima Il Kaali,
with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Manky,

(27:48):
Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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