Nakahara no Morotsura (中原師連)
NAKAHARA no Morotsura (1220 - 1283) was a working-level official of the bakufu (Japanese feudal government headed by a shogun) during the middle of the Kamakura period. He was a son of Morokazu NAKAHARA, and served as a secretary and then Head of the Sewing Office.
He served three shoguns, the fifth shogun FUJIWARA no Yoritsugu, Prince Munetaka, and Prince Koreyasu; on July 5, 1263, he took over the office of Intendant of the Shogunal Palace, and on November 22 in the same year, the magistrate of sleeping chamber from Yukikata NIKAIDO. In 1264, he became a member of the Council of State.
In the end of the Kamakura period, his family was called the Settsu clan and began to inherit secretary official positions in the center of the government. The family line was characterized by 'the family of an aide to the shogun,' but from the generation of Chikamune SETTSU, a son of NAKAHARA no Morotsura, the family changed its name from NAKAHARA to FUJIWARA. Morotsura approached the head of the Hojo clan, while keeping the family as 'the family of the aide to the shogun,' to become a trusted vassal to the Hojo clan. The Commissioner of the Ministry of Justice in Settsu Province Lay priest Dojun who committed suicide in the presence of Takatoki HOJO, the incident of which was written in 'Suicide of Takatoki and his whole family in Tosho-ji Temple' in Volume 10 of a historical epic "Taiheiki," was the direct grandson of NAKAHARA no Morotsura.
As Morotsura frequently appear in a chronicle of the Kamakura bakufu "Azumakagami" with his real name, it is highly possible that the compiler of "Azumakagami" used his diary and records as source materials.