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Minamoto Yoshitsune was a younger son of Minamoto Yoshitomo. When Yoshitomo was destroyed by Taira Kiyomori in 1160, his surviving sons (Yoritomo, Noriyori, and Yoshitsune) were spared and sent off into exile. History tells us almost nothing about the course of Yoshitsune's life between 1160 and around 1181. Folklore provides many fanciful stories to fill in that gap, however, including the meeting of Yoshitsune and the warrior monk Benkei (which is quite a bit like the story of Robin Hood and Little John, in fact) and Yoshitsune learning swordplay from the Tengu (mythical, bird-like beasts).
In 1180 Yoshitsune and Yoritomo were probably reunited, as Yoritomo raised an army to challenge the local Taira forces in the Kanto. In 1184 Yoshitsune finally emerges into the clear light of history as he and his brother Noriyori lead an army that destroys Minamoto Yoshinaka and occupies Kyoto. In the aftermath, Yoshitsune was given a number of administrative duties in the Kyoto area, and some historians speculate that this period saw a souring of relations between Yoshitsune and Yoritomo. At any rate, after this lull, Yoshitsune and Noriyori advanced westward to pursue the harried Taira (who had themselves been ejected from Kyoto by Yoshinaka in 1183) and after a series of encounters (Ichi no tani and Yashima being the most famous) the Taira were destroyed at the Battle of Dan no Ura, a contest that looms large in the annals of Japanese history (but may, perhaps, be judged a remarkable 'mop-up' operation).
In the aftermath of the so-called Gempei War, Yoshitsune and Yoritomo grew increasingly estranged. No one can be sure just what brought this about; some suggest that Kajiwara Kagetoki, another important Minamoto retainer, nursed a grudge for Yoshitsune and blackened his name to Yoritomo. Others hold that Yoritomo was almost absurdly paranoid and feared his younger brother’s newly-won fame. A small body of historians suspect that Yoshitsune was in fact plotting against Yoritomo (not a very popular theory, as it detracts from Yoshitsune’s tragic hero status somewhat). Regardless, it eventually became clear to Yoshitsune that he was no longer in his brother’s good book; in fact, that his life was in danger. He first attempted to drum up support from Minamoto clansmen in the Home Provinces and when this effort proved in vain he fled north. He took up with the Fujiwara of Mutsu Province but was betrayed by a Fujiwara clansman and was either killed or committed suicide at Koromogawa in 1189. His head was sent to Yoritomo at Kamakura. Most likely as a result of this sad course of events, Noriyori, Yoshitsune’s other brother, also became estranged from Yoritomo. He was first sent into exile and then murdered in 1193.
Later hopefuls invented a number of stories keeping Yoshitsune alive beyond 1189. One held that he escaped to Hokkaido. Another, and the one mentioned elsewhere on the forum, is that he somehow got to Mongolia and became Genghis Khan. There seems to be no real basis for this tale beyond some (suspect) similarity in the reading of their names (I admit that I have never seen anything in a Japanese book on the matter), and I seem to think that it was floated many hundreds of years after the fact.
Anyway, sorry for the long post…
) and wanted to emphasize northern Japan for this particular excursion. In doing some research of the area, I was amazed at how many 'Yoshitsune was here' locations you can find as you move north up to Hokkaido. It's worse than the 'George Washington slept here' tourist spots in the northeast U.S. If one were to take it all seriously, one would think Yoshitsune, instead of trying to avoid detection, was running some kind of election campaign. 
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