Azuma Kagami The medieval text chronicles events of the Kamakura Shogunate from Minamoto no Yoritomo ' s rebellion against the Taira clan in Izokuni of 1180 to Munetaka Shinnō ( the 6th shogun ) and his return to Kyoto in 1266 . The work is also called after the Late Hōjō family of Odawara ( Kanagawa prefecture ) , in whose possession it used to be before it was donated to Tokugawa Ieyasu . It originally consisted of 52 chapters , but the 45th is lost . In spite of its many flaws , the document is considered the most important existing document concerning the Kamakura period . History . The " Azuma Kagami " was compiled after 1266 under the directive of the Hōjō shikken ( officially a regent to a shogun , but the " de facto " ruler ) and is a record in diary form of events occurring in Japan . Written in a Japanized version of classical Chinese known as , the massive work was incomprehensible to most Japanese until an edition with furigana glosses was published in 1626 . It was given in present to shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603 , who obtained the missing section from other daimyos and then ordered the preparation and publication of the Fushimi version of the Azuma Kagami in " Kokatsujiban " , the old movable - type printing . This edition in turn became the basis for the present printed editions . Ieyasu considered the book as the product of historical wisdom , kept it at his side , and consulted it often . Content . The " Azuma Kagami " is an enormously detailed record of different activities centering on the shogun with almost daily entries that include even notes on the weather . It used to be considered an official Kamakura Bakufu diary , but it contains sections about events in distant areas written on the day of occurrence . Such entries are therefore believed to have been added later . Its content goes from the words and the deeds of the shogun , officials , and military men to poems , literary pieces , descriptions of hunts , banquets and notes on the weather . It is therefore likely to be a compilation of information about the Hōjō regency period taken from Hōjō , Adachi and other noble houses archives , plus temple and shrine records . Predictably , it is heavily biased towards a Hōjō point of view but , because of its painstaking attention to details , it is nonetheless an important document to understand the Kamakura Bakufu . Reliability Problems of the " Azuma Kagami " . As a historical document , the " Azuma Kagami " suffers from reliability problems . To begin with , there are unexplained gaps in it , one being for example the three years following the death of Minamoto no Yoritomo . Whether these blanks are scattered and insignificant losses or deliberate and systematic acts of censorship is unclear , and opinions on the subject are divided . There are even dubious allegations that Ieyasu himself ordered the elimination of paragraphs he considered shameful for a famous military leader like Yoritomo . The book also shows an obvious anti - Minamoto , pro - Hōjō bias . It depicts Hōjō enemies as Minamoto no Yoriie and Kajiwara Kagetoki as evil doers in exaggerated terms . Minamoto no Yoshitsune , viceversa , is spoken of very highly , probably because he was hunted down and forced to kill himself by his brother Yoritomo . This partisanship is evident in many other cases throughout the book . For example , the episode of Shizuka Gozen , who was captured by Hōjō Tokimasa and forces loyal to Yoritomo and , according to some versions of the story , was forced to dance for the new shogun at Tsurugaoka Hachiman - gū , flatters Hōjō Masako . Finally , it contains many factual errors . Weng Guangping and the " Wuqi jing bu " . Chinese scholar Weng Guangping ( 1760 – 1847 ) read a copy of the book in China , and found it valuable but marred by errors . After struggling to obtain a complete copy , he decided to correct , expand and amend it using other Japanese and Chinese texts dealing with Japan . After seven years of work , in 1814 he finished the " Wuqi jing bu " , or " Emendations to the Azuma Kagami " . The " Wuqi jing bu " had , as far as we know , two editions , one consisting of 28 and the other of 30 chapters , both handwritten . Because Weng had never been to Japan , the book had major limitations in various areas , but it nonetheless became a valuable introduction to Japan and its culture .