The military government established by the Minamoto following the Gempei wars, centered at Kamakura, which retained the emperor but where real power resided in the military government and samurai, is known as the

• A. Shogunate
• B. Kamakura administration
• C. Bakufu
• D. Imperial bureaucracy

Answer: (C)

The main idea is the rise of a military government in Japan that held real power while the emperor remained a ceremonial figure. This system, centered in Kamakura, is captured by the term bakufu. After the Gempei Wars, Minamoto no Yoritomo established a Kamakura-based administration that governed land, finances, and military affairs through samurai loyal to the shogun. The emperor stayed on as a symbolic ruler in Kyoto, but the day-to-day authority lay with the military rulers and their officials.

Bakufu specifically emphasizes that this was a field or camp-style government built to control the warrior class, rather than the traditional civilian imperial bureaucracy. The term is the precise label historians use for this arrangement, even though it’s commonly described in English as a shogunate. That contrast—emperor as figurehead versus real power in the military leadership—defines this period.