Yoshinaka, puffed up by his rapid success, and disregarding the paramount position of Yoritomo, assumed the superintendence of the government and had himself appointed _sei-i-shōgun_,(118) which was the highest military title then bestowed upon a subject. He even went so far as to antagonize Yoritomo and undertook to pluck the fruits of the military movements which had brought about this revolution of the government. Yoritomo at once despatched Yoshitsuné at the head of his army to Kyōto to put down this most unexpected and unnatural defection. He met Yoshinaka’s army near lake Biwa and inflicted upon it a severe defeat. Overwhelmed with shame and knowing that he deserved no consideration at the hands of his outraged relatives, Yoshinaka committed suicide. Yoshitsuné then followed the fugitive court. He destroyed the Taira palace at Hyōgo, and then crossed over to Sanuki, whither the court had fled. Alarmed by the swift vengeance which was pursuing them, Munemori together with the emperor and his mother and all the court hastily embarked for what they hoped might be an asylum in the island of Kyūshū. They were pursued by the Minamoto army in the junks which had brought them to Sanuki. They were overtaken at Dan-no-ura not far from the village of Shimonoseki, in the narrow straits at the western extremity of the Inland sea. The naval battle which here took place is the most famous in the annals of the Japanese empire. According to the _Nihon-Gwaishi_ the Taira fleet consisted of five hundred junks, and the Minamoto of seven hundred. The vessels of the Taira were encumbered by many women and children of the escaping families, which put them at a great disadvantage. The young emperor, with his mother and grandmother, were also the precious freight of this fugitive fleet. Of course, at this early date the vessels which contended were unlike the monstrous men-of-war which now make naval warfare so stupendous a game. They were not even to be compared with the vessels which made up the Spanish Armada in A.D. 1588, or the ships in which the gallant British sailors repulsed them. Cannon were no part of their armament. The men fought with bows and arrows, and with spears and swords. It was, however, a terrible hand-to-hand fight between men who felt that their all was at stake. Story-tellers draw from this battle some of their most lurid narratives, and artists have depicted it with realistic horrors. The grandmother of the emperor, the widow of Kiyomori, seeing that escape was impossible, took the boy emperor in her arms, and in spite of the remonstrances of her daughter, who was the boy’s mother, she plunged into the sea, and both were drowned.