[5] This was because on his death bed in 1272, Go-Saga had insisted that his sons adopt a plan in which future emperors from the two fraternal lines would ascend the throne in alternating succession.

After the destruction of the Kamakura shogunate in 1333, Kōgon lost his claim, but his brother, Emperor Kōmyō, and two of his sons were supported by the new Ashikaga shōguns as the rightful claimants to the throne.

During the Meiji period, an Imperial decree dated April 3, 1911 established that the legitimate reigning monarchs of this period were the direct descendants of Emperor Go-Daigo through Emperor Go-Murakami, whose Southern Court had been established in exile in Yoshino, near Nara.

He could and did produce a koseki detailing his bloodline back to Go-Daigo in Yoshino, but his claims and rhetoric failed to inspire anything other than sympathy.

[14] These are the Nanchō or Southern Court emperors: Go-Kameyama reached an agreement with Go-Komatsu to return to the old alternations on a ten-year plan.