Tsunekiyo’s Execution and Kiyohira’s Entry into the Kiyohara Household

In 1062 the forces of Minamoto no Yoriyoshi and their Kiyohara allies defeated the Abe in the Earlier Nine Years’ War of 1051–1062. Fujiwara no Tsunekiyo, who had fought on the Abe side and married a daughter of Abe no Yoritoki, was executed. Their son Kiyohira survived; contemporary-style age reckoning made him seven.

Kiyohira’s mother subsequently married Kiyohara no Takesada, a son of the allied commander Takenori, and took Kiyohira into the Kiyohara household. Takesada must be distinguished from his brother Takehira, who participated in later fighting. The remarriage connected the surviving child to the victorious house while leaving him descended from the Abe through his mother and the Fujiwara through his father.

The new household included Sanehira, Takesada’s son by another mother, and later Iehira, Kiyohira’s maternal half-brother. Disputes among these men led to the Later Three Years’ War of 1083–1087. Kiyohira’s family incorporation after 1062 thus explains the kinship structure of the later contest. It does not supply a record of his private childhood memories or prove what his mother felt when she remarried.