The Minamoto Clan was a famous clan of Eastern Island. Not only had the surname "Minamoto" been granted many times to imperial princes and princesses demoted to commoner status, but throughout Eastern Island's two-thousand-year history, more than twenty emperors had bestowed that surname.
Because Eastern Island's emperors deified and glorified themselves, claiming to be descendants of the divine king of Takamagahara and to possess the bloodline of the sun god, they had no surnames, only titles.
Only when members of the imperial family were demoted to subjects were they granted surnames.
The Minamoto Clan... represented their former status as imperial family members.
Minamoto Mitsuyori's father had actually been an imperial prince, but the previous emperor had far too many descendants, and the expenses of every prince and princess were terrifyingly high...
At least, they were too high for the Eastern Island imperial family. Therefore... the previous emperor directly turned eight of his less favored children from imperial family members into court officials and granted them the surname Minamoto.
At this time, the imperial family's authority in Eastern Island had not yet been weakened by the shoguns. It was still an era ruled by imperial nobles. After all, the first shogunate ruled by warriors was the Kamakura Shogunate of the twelfth century. This was only the eighth century, and the founder of the Kamakura Shogunate was also from the Minamoto Clan—the military commander Minamoto no Yoritomo.
At this time, the emperor in Heian-kyo still possessed supreme authority. Thus, even after being demoted to court officials, these subjects with imperial blood still held extremely high status.
However, unlike his other brothers and sisters, Minamoto Mitsuyori's father had not remained in Heian-kyo. After working hard to obtain his own fief, he had left directly... to become a local emperor beyond Heian-kyo.
Yet this