During the transition from slave tribes to feudalism, there have been several female emperors in Japanese history. With the establishment of feudalism, female emperors gradually disappeared. After the abdication of Emperor Takaaki, there was no female emperor in Japan for nearly seven hundred years.
However, during the Edo shogunate, the pinnacle of Japan's feudal society, Emperor Go-Mizuo ceded the throne to his daughter Prince Kokouchi, emperor Akisho (Japan's penultimate female emperor). So why did Emperor Go-Mizuo cede the throne to his daughter?
The reign of Emperor Go-Mizuo coincided with the establishment and gradual rule of the Edo shogunate over all of Japan. On the eve of the outbreak of the Osaka Battle, the newly succeeded Emperor Gomio, under pressure from Tokugawa Ieyasu, married Tokugawa Kazuko, daughter of the second shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, as empress.
Tokugawa Ieyasu's purpose in making Tokugawa Kazuko empress was to integrate the blood of the Tokugawa family into the Imperial Family, thereby bringing the imperial court into the shogunate system. Therefore, before Tokugawa Kazuko officially entered the palace, the children born to Emperor Go-Mizuo and other women were all expelled from the palace under pressure from the shogunate.
The expulsion of the Crown Princess was enough to make Emperor Go-Mizuo resent the shogunate, but it was only an appetizer for the shogunate to suppress the emperor. Shortly after the Emperor became acquainted with the Tokugawa family, the shogunate promulgated the Prohibition and PublicIty of the Laws, which severely limited the emperor's powers in the name of the shogunate.
At that time, Japanese monks were only high monks who were granted the qualification to wear "purple clothes" by the emperor, which was one of the only real powers of the emperor. According to the Prohibition and Public Laws, the Emperor's granting of the "Purple Robe" must be approved by the shogunate, otherwise it will be considered illegal.
In the fourth year of Kanei (1627), Emperor Go-Mizuo granted dozens of senior monks the title of "Purple Robe" in order to solve financial difficulties. As a result, the shogunate not only declared the emperor's private purple clothes invalid, but also exiled all the dozens of senior monks who were privately given purple clothes by the emperor, that is, the purple clothes incident.
The Purple Incident marked the fact that the Emperor's remaining religious power had also been stripped away by the shogunate, and Emperor Go-Mizuo's resentment could be imagined. Two years after the Purple Incident, the three-generation shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu sent his nursing mother, Afu (Kasuga Bureau), to see Emperor Go-Mizuo directly on his behalf.
It should be known that before, only shoguns could directly visit the emperor, and even the shogun's main room (Odaiso) could not directly visit the emperor, let alone Tokugawa Iemitsu's unofficial nursing mother Afuku. Tokugawa Iemitsu's move was undoubtedly a public humiliation of Emperor Go-Mizuo.
Although Emperor Go-Mizuo personally received Ah Fu, his dissatisfaction had reached its peak. However, the imperial court, which had been a puppet for hundreds of years, could not openly turn its face with the shogunate, and Emperor Go-Mizuo could only think of a wonderful way to make the Edo shogunate "dumb and eat yellow lian".
Emperor Go-Mizuo then decided to cede the throne to Prince Kokouchi, his daughter born to Tokugawa Kazuko. Prince Hiroko Uchi was the granddaughter of Tokugawa Hidetada, the shogunate at the time, and the cousin of the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, and the Edo shogunate was not openly opposed to Prince Koko's ascension to the throne.
However, according to Japanese court etiquette, female emperors could not marry and have children, and Emperor Mizuo and Tokugawa Kazuko had no other sons. As a result, the Tokugawa family's bloodline ended in the Imperial Household, dealing a heavy blow to the Tokugawa family's attempt to incorporate the imperial court into the shogunate system.