Wada Yoshimori was appointed samurai-dokoro bettō (head of the Board of Retainers), making him one of the most powerful gokenin leaders in Kamakura—an influence that later alarmed the Hōjō regency and set the stage for the 1213 conflict.
In early 1213, Hōjō Yoshitoki and Hōjō Masako treated the Wada as an internal threat: arrests and humiliations of Wada relatives and the confiscation of some Wada lands escalated tensions toward open fighting.
The Wada Conflict (Wada gassen) broke out in Kamakura as Wada Yoshimori attacked Hōjō targets in an attempt to overturn Hōjō Yoshitoki’s regency dominance; the fighting centered on Kamakura’s main avenues and strongpoints.
Within days, Hōjō forces crushed the uprising; Wada Yoshimori and many supporters were killed, and the Wada were removed as a major political-military faction in the shogunate—an early demonstration of how the Hōjō could eliminate rival gokenin houses.
After the Wada’s fall, other influential warrior houses—especially the Miura—remained among the strongest counterweights to Hōjō regency rule. By the 1240s, factional court politics in Kamakura increasingly polarized around Hōjō-aligned and Miura-aligned blocs.
In 1247, the Hōji Conflict (Hōji kassen) culminated in the destruction of the Miura as a political force; the purge removed one of the last major rival warrior houses and consolidated Hōjō control of Kamakura governance.
Hōjō Tokimune assumed the shikken regency, continuing the tokusō-led Hōjō dominance of the Kamakura shogunate. His tenure later intersected with intensified internal power struggles involving the Adachi and the rise of Taira no Yoritsuna.
The first Mongol invasion reached Hakata Bay in November 1274 (Bun'ei campaign). The massive defensive mobilization and its fiscal strains reshaped Kamakura patronage and factional competition—background conditions that sharpened later elite infighting.
The second invasion (Kōan campaign) lasted from June to August 1281. Continued emergency governance and rewards disputes among gokenin deepened stresses within the Kamakura power structure that the tokusō faction later exploited in internal purges.
With Hōjō Tokimune’s death in 1284, his son Hōjō Sadatoki became shikken while still a child. Senior figures—including Taira no Yoritsuna—gained influence as power brokers, creating conditions for a showdown with the Adachi.
In November 1285, Sadatoki authorized Taira no Yoritsuna to attack the Adachi, leading to the Shimotsuki Incident: Adachi Yasumori was forced to commit suicide; hundreds died; and the Adachi were nearly exterminated—removing a long-standing allied house and shifting the balance of power toward Yoritsuna’s faction.
By the end of 1285, the cumulative elimination of major rival houses—Wada (1213), Miura (1247), and Adachi (1285)—left the Kamakura regime more centralized under the Hōjō tokusō line and its close advisers, but also more faction-ridden and dependent on inner-circle coercion.
Major Clan Conflicts and Purges: Wada, Miura, and Adachi (1213–1285)
