Fujiwara No Michinaga - Later Years

Later Years

Michinaga exercised such powers even after he formally retired from public life in 1019. He continued to direct the affairs of his son and successor, Fujiwara no Yorimichi.

Michinaga is popularly known as the Mido Kampaku, implying that he had usurped the full power of a kampaku without necessarily calling himself that, though he retained the title sesshō regent in a short term from 1016 till 1017. In 1017, he gave this office to his heir Yorimichi. Soon afterwards, a series of emperors started to retire to a monastery early in life, and put their young sons on the throne to run the country from behind the scenes. As it turned out, this tactic briefly allowed the emperors to wrestle power back from the Fujiwara clan, only to see it fall to the Taira warrior clan instead.

Read more about this topic:  Fujiwara No Michinaga

Famous quotes containing the word years:

    Jim Wilson: Cops have no friends. Nobody likes a cop. On either side of the law. Nobody.
    Captain Brawley: Is that what you want? People to like you? Then you’re in the wrong business and you ought to get out.
    Jim Wilson: It’s the only job I know. Has been for eleven years now.
    Captain Brawley: Then make up your mind to be a cop. Not a gangster with a badge.
    —A.I. (Albert Isaac)

    He took control of me for forty-five minutes. This time I’ll have control over him for the rest of his life. If he gets out fifteen years from now, I’ll know. I’ll check on him every three months through police computers. If he makes one mistake he’s going down again. I’ll make sure. I’m his worst enemy now.
    Elizabeth Wilson, U.S. crime victim. As quoted in People magazine, p. 88 (May 31, 1993)