Eikyu no goso (永久の強訴)
The Eikyu no goso was a collective petition to the Imperial Court by a few thousand monks at the Kofuku-ji Temple on May 14, 1113, requesting Ensei, a sculptor of Buddhist statues who became a priest at Enryaku-ji Temple and was appointed to the position of the betto (the superior of a temple) of the Kiyomizu-dera Temple, a branch temple of the Kofuku-ji Temple, be dismissed from the position.
Ensei led the construction of Buddhist statues at the Hossho-ji Temple and the Sonsho-ji Temple, and because of this, the aggressive appointment was processed as if it had been a reward for his service to the Cloistered Emperor Shirakawa. The Cloistered Emperor Shirakawa yielded to the petition, and thus the petition was expected to stop; however, monks for the Enryaku-ji Temple took retaliatory action on May 23 because monks for the Kofuku-ji Temple beat the jinin (associates of Shinto shrines) of the Gion-sha Shrine when visiting the capital. They destroyed small and large buildings of the Kiyomizu-dera Temple, carried the mikoshi (portable shrine carried in festivals), and burst into the oidono (kitchen hall), In-Gosho (the imperial palace for retired and cloistered emperors), to demand that the gon shosozu (Junior lesser prelate) Jikkaku should be banished. The governor of Dewa Province, MINAMOTO no Mitsukuni, the governor of Tango Province, TAIRA no Masamori, and Saemon no jo (third-ranked officer of the Left Division of Outer Palace Guards) MINAMOTO no Tameyoshi guarded the dairi (Imperial Palace) and In-Gosho.
The Kofuku-ji Temple was outraged by the Cloistered Emperor Shirakawa's makeshift handling of the situation and acceptance of the request to punish Jikkaku, and submitted to the Emperor the three pleas that Tendai-zasu (head priest of the Tendai sect) Ningo and Head priest of Hossho-ji Temple Kankei be banished; that the Gion-sha Shrine be a subordinate shrine of the Kasuga-taisha Shrine; and that Jikkaku's banishment be halted. To prevent monks from entering the capital, TAIRA no Masamori, TAIRA no Tadamori and MINAMOTO no Shigetoki were deployed to Uji, and MINAMOTO no Mitsukuni and FUJIWARA no Morishige to Nishi-Sakamoto. When both of the sides faced each other in Uji, a deer, which was believed to be a messenger from the deity of the Kasuga-taisha Shrine, appeared in front of them; one solder tried to shoot it and this incident caused the battle to begin, resulting in a large number of casualties among the side of the monks. Masamori, Tadamori and Shigetoki, who were deployed to Uji, were the kebiishi (police and judicial chief), but they were ordered to be deployed by the Cloistered Emperor Shirakawa without an instruction from FUJIWARA no Munetada, the kebiishi no betto (Superintendent of the Imperial Police). This incident showed that the Kebiishicho (Office of Police and Judicial Chief) and various efu (Palace Guards) were losing substance while the In no hokumen (Imperial Palace Guards) were gaining more power.