Kemmu restoration

The nihongo|Kemmu Restoration|建武の新政|Kenmu no shinsei was a period of Japanese history that occurred from 1333 to 1336. ["Kemmu" refers to the Japanese era name after "Genkō" during the Period of Northern and Southern Courts. The "Kemmu" era is understood to have spanned the years 1334 through 1336 before "Engen", as time was reckoned in the "Nanboku-cho" Southern Court; and concurrently, the "Kemmu" era is said to have spanned the years 1334 through 1338 before "Ryakuō", as time was reckoned in the "Nanboku-cho" Northern Court.] It marks the three year period between the fall of the Kamakura shogunate and the rise of the Ashikaga shogunate, when Emperor Go-Daigo attempted to re-establish Imperial control by overthrowing the "bakufu".

Kemmu Restoration in fiction

In the alternate history novel "Romanitas" by Sophia McDougall, the Kemmu Restoration becomes as major an event in Japanese, or 'Nionian' history, as the Meiji Restoration in reality. In that continuity, the Emperor Go-Daigo had (surreptitiously) acquired gunpowder technology from a still-extant (and ascendant) Roman Empire, and laid the groundwork for Nionia to challenge Rome for global supremacy in the centuries to come.

Notes

References

* Titsingh, Isaac, ed. (1834). [Siyun-sai Rin-siyo, 1652] , "Nipon o daï itsi ran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon, tr. par M. Isaac Titsingh avec l'aide de plusieurs interprètes attachés au comptoir hollandais de Nangasaki; ouvrage re., complété et cor. sur l'original japonais-chinois, accompagné de notes et précédé d'un Aperçu d'histoire mythologique du Japon, par M. J. Klaproth." Paris. ["Two digitized examples of this rare book have now been made available online: (1) from the library of the University of Michigan, digitized January 30, 2007; and (2) from the library of Stanford University, digitized June 23, 2006."]

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