Kamakura shogunate

The Kamakura shogunate was the military government that ruled Japan from 1185 to 1333, established by Minamoto no Yoritomo after his victory over the Taira in the Genpei War. Yoritomo governed from the eastern city of Kamakura, leaving the emperor and his court at Kyoto as figureheads, and appointed shugo and jitō to control the provinces. The shoguns came from the Minamoto clan until 1226, then from the Fujiwara until 1252, and finally from the imperial family; real power passed after 1203 to the Hōjō regents, who made the office of shikken hereditary. The shogunate survived the Jōkyū War of 1221, when the retired emperor Go-Toba tried to overthrow it, and repelled the Mongol invasions of 1274 and 1281 with the help of storms later called kamikaze. Defence spending and the need to reward samurai strained the regime, and Emperor Go-Daigo's Kenmu Restoration brought it down in 1333. Its institutions, including the warrior code and the division of power between shogun and regent, shaped Japanese government for centuries.