The Kamakura Shogunate (1185–1333 CE) was the first warrior government of Japan — the moment a military regime of samurai, based in a coastal town in the east, rose beside the Kyoto court and took much practical power. It set the dual structure of sacred emperor and ruling general that would govern Japan for nearly seven centuries, and it twice threw back the Yuan-led invasion fleets of Kublai Khan.
Twice in eight years the Mongols came for Japan, and twice Japanese defenders held long enough for storms to wreck the invasion fleets. The Japanese gave the storms a name: kamikaze, the divine wind. But the men who held the beaches were no myth. They belonged to the first government in Japanese history run by warriors rather than courtiers — a frugal regime of swordsmen that had taken the country from its perfumed aristocrats and would set the pattern of rule for almost seven hundred years.