Attempt by Go-Daigo in 1333-1336 to bring an end to rule by shoguns and to restore imperial rule, which terminated the Kamakura period. By the early 14th century the Kamakura bakufu (military government) of the Hojo family was in disarray: the efforts needed to repel the abortive invasions from the Mongol Empire in 1274 and 1281 had been costly, and the shogun had been unable to reward provincial leaders who had rallied to the banner.
In 1318 Go-Daigo came to the throne from the junior line of
the imperial house, but was reluctant to step down later in
favour of the senior line, and became determined to overthrow the
bakufu. He was sent into exile in 1331, but supporters such as
the provincial warrior Kusunoki Masahige continued the struggle,
and in 1333 the bakufu was destroyed when Ashikaga
Takauji turned against it. Go-Daigo returned to Kyoto
convinced that the days of the shoguns and other usurpers were
over and that the emperors could rule in fact as well as in name
once more. However, his regime had neither the administrative
experience nor the provincial power to deal with the realities of
a warrior-dominated society. Go-Daigo refused to appoint Takauji
shogun even when asked directly in 1335, and when he clashed with
Takauji in 1336 the result was not in doubt. He fled south from
Kyoto to Yoshino, while Takauji established a new bakufu in
Kyoto, known as the Muromachi bakufu, crushed remaining loyalists
in battle near Kobe, and installed a puppet emperor on the
throne. This initiated a schism between two rival branches of the
imperial family which lasted until 1392. Takauji's Ashikaga family ruled as shoguns for the
rest of the Muromachi period. The Kemmu Restoration was a
failure, but it kept alive the ideology of imperial rule, which
finally succeeded in bringing centuries of shogunal rule to an
end in 1868 with the Meiji Restoration.