Stories of the Japanese 00416 [Late Heian Period] The Hogen Rebellion: The Final Moments of Minamoto no Tametomo

Finally, let us look at what happened to the strongest warrior on the side of the Retired Emperor Sutoku, the master archer Minamoto no Tametomo.
Tametomo was captured in Omi and exiled to Izu Oshima. At this time, Emperor Go-Shirakawa gave the following instruction:
Since he will become an enemy of the court again if he remains fit, dislocate his shoulders.
Because of this, a cruel punishment was carried out in which his shoulder bones were dislocated.
However, Tametomo was not the type of person to be discouraged by such a thing. After his exile, he defeated the forces of Kudo Mochimitsu (?-1180), the lord of Izu who had ordered Tametomo to pay his annual tribute, and went on to occupy Izu Oshima, Miyakejima, Kozushima, Hachijojima, Toshima, Niijima, and Mikurajima one after another.
Due to complaints from Kudo Mochimitsu, a large army was sent to Izu Oshima in the second year of Kao (1170) to hunt down Tametomo, and he finally resigned himself to his fate and took his own life. Up to this point, it is historical fact, not fiction.
Fictional episodes from Izu Oshima include stories such as an arrow shot by Tametomo from Izu Oshima piercing the Zaimokuza coast in Kamakura, and military ships sent to hunt him down being sunk after being pierced by his arrows.
Even after Tametomo died, his popularity did not wane. Rumors of his survival continued to be whispered, and there is even a legend that
he crossed over to the Ryukyu Islands and became the ancestor of the King of Chuzan.
The novel 'Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki,' which was popular in the Edo period, is based on that legend.
In the Edo period, the Owari domain samurai Amano Sadakage (1663-1733) recorded the following episode in his essay 'Shiojiri'.
At that time, the Tokugawa Shogunate was required to offer iron armor to the statue of Tametomo on Hachijojima every May. In the second year of Shotoku (1712), the Shogunate gave the same instruction, but the islanders misunderstood the order,
mistaking it for an instruction to 'bring the statue of Tametomo to Edo,' and 70 islanders loaded the statue onto a boat and headed for Edo.
The sixth shogun, Tokugawa Ienobu, thought that
it was outrageous to move a sacred statue,
but since the islanders had gone to the trouble of bringing it, he decided to have the statue placed inside Edo Castle as it was. The islanders were given rewards and sent back to the island.
However, on the return voyage, the islanders began to suffer from a fever one after another, and they died one by one after returning to the island.
On Hachijojima, over 400 people died from the fever, and it was feared that this was a curse caused by moving the statue of Tametomo. Soon after, even Shogun Ienobu died of illness, and it is said that the vengeful spirit of Tametomo was greatly feared.
Tametomo is still carefully enshrined on Hachijojima today.