Losing the heir in an accident - Emperor Shijo and Ivan

Emperor Gohorikawa enthroned his only son, Imperial Prince Mitsuhito (Emperor Shijo), at just one year old, but Emperor Shijo died at the age of 11 after slipping and hitting his head in the hallway of the imperial palace. He was playing with talc stones lined up in the hallway in an attempt to play a prank on his servant and wife, but he fell over.

After the Jokyu War (1221), the lineage of Emperor Gohorikawa, who was selected by the Kamakura Shogunate to exclude the lineage of the retired Emperor Gotoba, suddenly became extinct, and the imperial line was in danger of being severed. Emperor Gotoba's two sons (Emperor Tsuchimikado and Emperor Juntoku) were exiled like their father after the Jokyu War, but Emperor Tsuchimikado had originally had a bad relationship with his father and opposed Retired Emperor Gotoba's raising of an army. It is said that After an 11-day interregnum, Regent Yasutoki Hojo enthroned his son, Prince Kunihito (Emperor Gosaga). Incidentally, this is the first time in 472 years that a vacant position has occurred since Emperor Konin was appointed in the Nara period.

The imperial line once again returned to the line of Emperor Gotoba, but Emperor Gosaga later created the cause of the Nanbokucho period, in which the lineages of his two sons diverged and established themselves. It can be said that the boy emperor's mischief led to an era of instability, but issues such as the stability of imperial succession and the unification of power are universal themes that relate not only to Japanese history but to organizations in general.  

Russia's first tour (tsar) Ivan IV is a king whose merits and demerits are very divided, but he has an extremely harsh personality and is nicknamed the ``Thunder Emperor.'' He had six children with his first wife, Anastasia, but lost his eldest son, Dmitri, who was still an infant, in a ship capsizing accident. The successor candidate was to be his second son, Ivan, but when he was 27 years old, Ivan IV accidentally killed his son.

When Ivan IV criticized Ivan's pregnant wife for her clothes and began to beat her, his son Ivan tried to stop him, but his father threw away his cane in anger. Ivan IV mourned, but there was nothing he could do.

In the end, the third son Fyodor became his successor, but due to his intellectual disability, he was unable to find a successor, and after Russia went through a period of turmoil, his mother Anastasia's in-laws established the Romanov dynasty in 1917. It lasted until the revolution. In a fit of rage, the Cane replaced the dynasty, and the new dynasty lasted until 300 years later, when the royal family was brutally executed.

We pray for our children and grandchildren at the shrine, but we don't know where the mischief of fate will occur. At least be careful about accidents involving children.