Genmei's Succession and the Move to Heijō-kyō

Monmu died in 707. His son Obito was a child and did not immediately succeed. Princess Abe, Monmu's mother and a daughter of Tenji, became Empress Genmei. The transfer preserved the ruling line through an adult sovereign whose reign could hold the court together until the next generation was ready. It was a new accession, not a continuation of Monmu's personal government.

Fujiwara-kyō had served Jitō, Monmu and Genmei, but in 708 the court ordered a capital farther north. The choice involved terrain, roads, water, ritual orientation and room for a larger planned city. Fuhito was a leading minister within the government, yet the evidence does not make him sole designer or turn the move into a private family project.

Genmei's accession also changed relationships close to the throne. Agatainukai no Michiyo had served successive sovereigns and connected children from an earlier royal marriage to Fuhito's household. In 708 Genmei granted her the name Tachibana as a personal honor. Michiyo's sons adopted that name only in 736. The distinction keeps a sovereign's specific reward separate from a later hereditary branch.

The court entered Heijō-kyō in 710. Palaces and avenues made government visible, but construction did not stop when the ruler arrived. Provincial workers supplied labor, while taxes and transport fed the building effort. A later record of exhausted workers fleeing in 711 shows that the capital's ordered plan rested on coercion and unfinished work.

Heijō-kyō became the setting for ministries, ceremonies, aristocratic residences, temples and markets. Fuhito's family temple was moved and renamed Kōfuku-ji, tying household patronage to the new city. The capital did not freeze court politics: succession crises and rival households continued. What changed was the spatial framework through which the court governed and displayed itself.

Monmu's death and an unfinished succession

Monmu had received the throne from Jitō in 697 and governed from Fujiwara-kyō while the Taihō Code entered use. His death in 707 created a succession problem because his son Obito was still young. The court could preserve the same dynastic line by placing an adult relative on the throne until the prince matured.

Princess Abe became Empress Genmei. She was Monmu's mother and a daughter of Emperor Tenji. Her accession was therefore both a generational return and a bridge forward to Obito, the future Shōmu. Describing her as a placeholder would erase the decisions made during her reign, including the move that established the Nara capital.

The government she inherited included Fuhito as a rising senior minister and Michiyo as an experienced woman of the royal household. Their marriage connected court service, children and property, but their actions remained distinct. Succession, household recognition and capital building met in the same reign without proving a single private design.

Ordering and building Heijō-kyō

In 708 Genmei's government issued the decision to construct a new capital. Heijō lay north of Fujiwara and offered a larger setting for a rectangular city organized by major avenues and a palace sector. Planning adapted continental capital forms while responding to local topography and existing routes.

Construction required more than a plan. Workers cleared and leveled ground, cut roads, raised walls and halls, transported timber and tiles, and supplied food to the labor force. Provincial mobilization brought people and resources to a court project whose costs were distributed far beyond the future city.

Within the same year, Genmei granted Michiyo the name Tachibana. The award recognized her service and standing in the royal household. It did not by itself establish the later Tachibana lineage: her sons Katsuragi and Sai took the name only in 736 after leaving the imperial register. The event retains this act as evidence of how the new reign rewarded service, not as an explanation for urban policy.

The court moved in 710 before the capital was complete. The transfer carried the sovereign, offices, records, officials and ceremonial life from Fujiwara to Heijō. Construction continued, and a 711 notice about workers fleeing exhaustion exposes the pressure beneath the formal opening.

Government occupies a new landscape

Heijō Palace became the center of enthronements, New Year audiences, administration and reception. Its halls and compounds arranged rank in space: approaching the sovereign, entering an office and residing near the palace all expressed political position. Current reconstructions at the archaeological site interpret that system rather than preserving an untouched ancient city.

Fuhito remained a leading minister and tied his household to the capital through residence, marriage and religious patronage. Kōfuku-ji's institutional history associates him with moving and renaming the family temple in 710. The attribution is important, while later buildings and later Fujiwara dominance should not be projected unchanged onto the first year in Nara.

Genmei's reign continued beyond the move. She later abdicated to her daughter Genshō, and Obito eventually became Emperor Shōmu. The capital provided a durable setting for those transitions without deciding them automatically. A planned city could concentrate government while remaining a field of negotiation among rulers, ministers, court women and religious institutions.

The Nara capital and the people who made it

Heijō-kyō framed most of the eighth century's court history. Its plan gathered palace government, elite households, markets and expanding temples in one landscape. Even when the court moved temporarily in later decades, Nara remained a central administrative and religious memory.

The city also makes state capacity visible through labor. Orders had to be converted into materials, transport, rations and human work. The costs recorded after the move prevent the capital from appearing as a completed diagram created without resistance or hardship.

For Genmei, the event demonstrates sovereign action in her own reign. For Michiyo, it preserves ranked household service and a personal royal grant within the formation of the new court. For Fuhito, it shows influence exercised as one minister among institutions and collaborators. Their connections mattered, but the capital was built by a government and workforce larger than any one household.