Almost 1200 years ago, a young man named Tomo no Yoshio¹ awoke from a dream. He had been standing over Heian, the capital city. His left foot was in Sai-ji, the city’s western temple, and his right foot was in To-ji, the eastern temple. The whole of the capital was laid out beneath him.

However, Yoshio, while of noble birth, was far from the capital. His father, Tomo no Kunimichi, had been a part of a conspiracy to assassinate another nobleman and was exiled to Sado, an island just off the coast of Niigata in the Sea of Japan. While Kunimichi would be pardoned and allowed to return to politics, he and his family were stuck starting from the lowest ranks of the court. At the time of the dream, Yoshio was also working for the governor of Sado, far from the capital.

Outenmon — the gate to the palace in Heian (By Wikimedia user KENPEI)

Upon waking, Yoshio immediately told his wife about what he had seen. She laughed and replied, “If you spread your legs that far, you’d pull a muscle.” Yoshio was less than pleased with her flippant response, but he wasn’t deterred. Knowing his employer, the governor of Sado was also a respected diviner, Yoshio went to him for an interpretation. Yoshio retold his dream to the governor and braced himself to be mocked. Instead, the governor gave Yoshio an interpretation. It was a dream of good fortune given to a man of ill fortune. Yoshio would no doubt rise to a position of great power, but his own crime would cause his downfall.

Apparently, Yoshio didn’t worry too much about the last part of the interpretation because he immediately set off for the capital. At first, he found work in the Imperial library, and from there started working up the ranks in the Imperial Court. Using his skills from the library, he took more and more influential positions as a clerk and archivist, but made little headway. After twenty years of work, Yoshio made a breakthrough. He received a position editing the Shoku Nihon Shoki, an important historical text. From there, he was able to regain his father’s land and wealth, which remained confiscated despite being pardoned.

Now armed with a little fame and a little wealth, Yoshio could start to really move up in capital life. He leveraged his new status to become a steward in the Empress’ household. Working directly with a member of the Imperial family was a more lucrative position than record keeping. Over the next 15 years, he worked through the ranks of the Empress’ household until he was the chief steward. He also was given the Imperial rank of Dainagon, one of the top ranks in the court’s hierarchy. Unfortunately for Yoshio, that’s where his climb reached an abrupt halt. There were no open positions above him in the hierarchy, so if he wanted more power, he was going to have to do something drastic.

Early one morning, the Outenmon, the main gate to the Emperor’s palace, started to burn. The people of the capital rushed to put it out, but it was soon engulfed in flames. Smoke filled the city, along with stories about what had happened.