Chapter XXXI: The Fall of the Ashikaga

TWO BRANCHES OF THE ASHIKAGA

THE Ashikaga family was divided into two main branches, both descended from Takauji. The representatives of one, the senior, branch had their headquarters at Muromachi in Kyoto and held the office of shogun as a hereditary right. There were fifteen generations:

Name Born Succeeded Abdicated Died

(1) Takauji 1305 1338 .... 1358

(2) Yoshiakira 1330 1358 1367 1368

(3) Yoshimitsu 1358 1367 1395 1408

(4) Yoshimochi 1386 1395 1423 1428

(5) Yoshikazu 1407 1423 .... 1425

(6) Yoshinori 1394 1428 .... 1441

(7) Yoshikatsu 1433 1441 .... 1443

(8) Yoshimasa 1435 1443 1474 1490

(9) Yoshihisa 1465 1474 .... 1489

(10) Yoshitane (#1) 1465 1490 1493 ....

(11) Yoshizumi 1478 1493 1508 1511

Yoshitane (#2) .... 1508 1521 1522

(12) Yoshiharu 1510 1521 1545 1550

(13) Yoshiteru 1535 1545 .... 1565

(14) Yoshihide 1565 1565 .... 1568

(15) Yoshiaki 1537 1568 1573 1597

The apparent clashing of dates in the case of the fourth and fifth shoguns, Yoshimochi and Yoshikazu, is due to the fact that on the death of the latter, in 1425, the former resumed the office and held it until his own death, in 1428.

THE KAMAKURA KWANRYO AND KUBO

Born Died

(1) Motouji 1340 1367

(2) Ujimitsu 1357 1398

(3) Mitsukane 1376 1409

(4) Mochiuji 1398 1439

(5) Shigeuji 1434 1497

(6) Masatomo .... 1491

(7) Takamoto .... ....

(8) Haruuji .... 1560

(9) Yoshiuji .... ....

The title "kwanryo," as already stated, signifies "governor-general," and the region governed was the eight provinces of the Kwanto, together with Izu and Kai. The first of the Ashikaga kwanryo, Motouji, was Takauji's youngest son, and the following eight names on the above list were direct descendants. But not all had the title of kwanryo or wielded the extensive power attached to that office. Only the first four were thus fortunate. From the days of the fifth, Shigeuji, evil times overtook the family. Driven out of Kamakura by the Uesugi, who had hitherto served as manager (shitsuji), they were obliged to change their domicile to Koga in Shimosa; their sphere of jurisdiction was reduced to four provinces, namely, Shimosa, Shimotsuke, Kazusa, and Awa; their official title was altered to gosho or kubo, and their former title of kwanryo passed to the Uesugi family who also replaced them at Kamakura. These things fell out in 1439, when Mochiuji died. To avoid confusion it is necessary to note that the chief official in the shogun's court at Muromachi in Kyoto was also called kwanryo. He had originally been termed "manager" (shitsuji), but, in 1367, this was changed to "governor-general," and the corresponding functions were practically those discharged by the regent (shikken) in the polity of the old Bakufu. The first Muromachi kwanryo was Shiba Yoshimasa, and it became the ultimate custom to give the post to a member of one of three families, the Shiba, the Hosokawa, and the Hatakeyama.

STATE OF THE PROVINCES

When swords were sheathed after the long and wasting War of the Dynasties, the Ashikaga found themselves in a strong position. Having full control of the Court, they could treat as a rebel anyone opposing them by force of arms, and their partisans were so numerous in Kyoto and its vicinity that they could impose their will upon all. In the east, the Kwanto was effectually ruled by a branch of their own family, and in the north as well as in the south they were represented by tandai, who governed stoutly and loyally. But trouble began very soon. In Kyushu the office of tandai was held by Imagawa Ryoshun, a man ever memorable in Japanese history as the author of the precept that military prowess without education is worse than useless. Ryoshun had been selected for service in Kyushu by the great shitsuji of Muromachi, Hosokawa Yoriyuki, who saw that only by the strongest hands could the turbulent families of the southern island be reduced to order--the Shimazu, the Otomo, the Shoni, and the Kikuchi. Everything went to show that Imagawa would have succeeded had not that familiar weapon, slander, been utilized for his overthrow. The Otomo chief persuaded Ouchi Yoshihiro to traduce Ryoshun, and since the Ouchi sept exercised great influence in the central provinces and had taken a prominent part in composing the War of the Dynasties, the shogun, Yoshimitsu, could not choose but listen to charges coming from such a source. Imagawa Ryoshun was recalled (1396), and thenceforth Kyushu became the scene of almost perpetual warfare which the Muromachi authorities were powerless to check.

THE OUCHI FAMILY

It was to the same Ouchi family that the Muromachi shogun owed his first serious trouble after the close of the War of the Dynasties. The ancestor of the family had been a Korean prince who migrated to Japan early in the seventh century, and whose descendants, five and a half centuries later, were admitted to the ranks of the samurai. The outbreak of the War of the Dynasties had found the Ouchi ranged on the Southern side, but presently they espoused the Ashikaga cause, and distinguished themselves conspicuously against the Kikuchi in Kyushu and, above all, in promoting the conclusion of the dynastic struggle.

These eminent services were recognized by Ouchi Yoshihiro's appointment to administer no less than six provinces--Nagato, Suwo, Aki, Buzen, Kii, and Izumi. In fact he guarded the western and eastern entrances of the Inland Sea, and held the overlordship of western Japan. At his castle in Sakai, near Osaka, he amassed wealth by foreign trade, and there he received and harboured representatives of the Kusunoki and Kikuchi families, while at the same time he carried on friendly communications with the Doki, the Ikeda, and the Yamana. In short, he grew too powerful to receive mandates from Muromachi, especially when they came through a kwanryo of the Hatakeyama family who had just risen to that distinction.

Suddenly, in November, 1399, the Ouchi chief appeared in Izumi at the head of a force of twenty-three thousand men, a force which received rapid and numerous accessions. His grounds of disaffection were that he suspected the shogun of a design to deprive him of the two provinces of Kii and Izumi, which were far remote from the other five provinces in his jurisdiction and which placed him within arm's length of Kyoto, and, further, that no sufficient reward had been given to the family of his younger brother, who fell in battle. There were minor grievances, but evidently all were pretexts: the real object was to overthrow Muromachi. The shogun, Yoshimitsu, acted with great promptitude. He placed Hatakeyama Mitsuiye at the head of a powerful army, and on January 18, 1400, Sakai fell and Yoshihiro committed suicide. Thereafter the province of Kii was placed under the jurisdiction of the Hatakeyama family, and Izumi under that of Hosokawa, while the Shiba ruled in Echizen, Owari, and Totomi. In short, these three families became the bulwarks of the Ashikaga.

KAMAKURA AND MUROMACHI

An important episode of the Ouchi struggle was that Mitsukane, the third Kamakura kwanryo of the Ashikaga line, moved an army into Musashi to render indirect assistance to the Ouchi cause. In truth, from an early period of Kamakura's tenure by an Ashikaga governor-general of the Kwanto, there had been an ambition to transfer the office of shogun from the Kyoto to the Kamakura branch of the family. The matter was not mooted during Takauji's lifetime, but when, on his demise, the comparatively incompetent Yoshiakira came into power at Muromachi, certain military magnates of the eastern provinces urged the Kamakura kwanryo, Motouji, to usurp his brother's position. Motouji, essentially as loyal as he was astute, spurned the proposition. But it was not so with his son and successor, Ujimitsu. To him the ambition of winning the shogunate presented itself strongly, and was only abandoned when Uesugi Noriharu committed suicide to add weight to a protest against such an essay. Japanese annals contain many records of lives thus sacrificed on the altar of devotion and loyalty. From the outset the Uesugi family were the pillars of the Ashikaga kwanryo in Kamakura. Uesugi Noriaki served as shitsuji in the time of the first kwanryo, and the same service was rendered by Noriaki's son, Yoshinori, and by the latter's nephew, Tomomune, in the time of the second kwanryo, Ujimitsu. Confusing as are the multitude of names that confront the foreign student of Japanese history, it is necessary to note that from the time of their appointment as shitsuji at Kamakura, Yoshinori took the family name of Yamanouchi, and Tomomune that of Ogigayatsu. Balked in his design against Kyoto, Ujimitsu turned his hand against the Nitta, old enemies of his family, and crushing them, placed the Ashikaga power on a very firm basis in the Kwanto. His son, Mitsukane, had the gift of handling troops with great skill, and in his time the prestige of the Kamakura kwanryo reached its highest point.

In the eyes of the military men of the eastern provinces, the shogun in distant Kyoto counted for little compared with the governor-general in adjacent Kamakura. The latter's mansion was called gosho (palace); its occupant was termed kubo, an epithet hitherto applied to the shogun only, and the elder and younger branches of the Uesugi family, in which the office of kwanryo of Muromachi was hereditary, were designated Ryo Uesugi (the Two Uesugi). Mitsukane, when he abetted the Ouchi's attempt to overthrow the Kyoto shogun, persuaded himself that he was only carrying out his father's unachieved purpose, and the shogun, Yoshimitsu, took no step to punish him, preferring to accept his overtures--made through Uesugi Tomomune.

THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF YOSHIMITSU

There is little question that whatever applause history can extend to the administration of the third Ashikaga shogun, Yoshimitsu, was won for him by his profoundly sagacious guardian and chief minister, Hosokawa Yoriyuki. After the latter's death, in 1392, many abuses and few meritorious acts appear in the shogun's record. Alike, the wise self-effacement and the admirable frugality which distinguished the Hojo rule were wholly foreign to the mood of Yoshimitsu. He insisted on being raised to the post of chancellor of the empire, and he openly spoke of himself as "king," designating as Go-sekke (Five Regent Houses) the families of Shiba, Hosokawa, Hatakeyama, Rokkaku, and Yumana. At the ceremony of his investiture as chancellor (dajo daijiri) he presented to the Throne a sword forged by Kunimitsu; one hundred pieces of white silk; one thousand silver coins; ten tigers' skins, and fifty pounds of dyed silk. To the ex-Emperor he gave a thousand silver coins; fifty pieces of white silk, and a sword, and among the Imperial princes and Court nobles he distributed ten thousand pieces of silver. Such was his parade of opulence.

ENGRAVING: ASHIKAGA YOSHIMITSU

The chief obstacle to conferring on him the title of chancellor had been that the records contained only one instance of a military man's appointment to that exalted post. That instance was Taira no Kiyomori, whose example should have been deterrent to a Minamoto. Yoshimitsu overcame the difficulty by nominally transferring his military functions to his son Yoshimochi (1423), and constituting himself the patron of literature. It was now that his love of luxury and splendour assumed its full dimensions. He had already beautified his Muromachi mansion by constructing there a park so spacious and so brilliant at all seasons that it went by the name of Hana no Gosho (Palace of Flowers). This he now assigned as a residence for his son and successor, Yoshimochi, transferring his own place of abode to the site occupied by the Saionji family, to whom was given in exchange an extensive manor in Kawachi. Here the Ashikaga chancellor built a palace of such dimensions that sixteen superintendents and twenty assistant superintendents were required to oversee the work. Most conspicuous was the Kinkaku-ji, or golden pavilion shrine, so called because its interior was gilt, the gold foil being thickly superposed on lacquer varnish. On this edifice, on the adjacent palace, and on a park where deer roamed and noble pine trees hung over their own shadows in a picturesque lake, immense sums were expended. Works of art were collected from all quarters to enhance the charm of a palace concerning which the bonze Sekkei declared that it could not be exchanged for paradise.

Yoshimitsu prayed the Emperor to visit this unprecedentedly beautiful retreat and Go-Komatsu complied. During twenty days a perpetual round of pastimes was devised for the entertainment of the sovereign and the Court nobles--couplet composing, music, football, boating, dancing, and feasting. All this was typical of the life Yoshimitsu led after his resignation of the shogun's office. Pleasure trips engrossed his attention--trips to Ise, to Yamato, to Hyogo, to Wakasa, and so forth. He set the example of luxury, and it found followers on the part of all who aimed at being counted fashionable, with the inevitable result that the producing classes were taxed beyond endurance. It has to be noted, too, that although Yoshimitsu lived in nominal retirement at his Kita-yama palace, he really continued to administer the affairs of the empire.

INTERNATIONAL HUMILIATION

It is not for arrogance, or yet for extravagance, that Japanese historians chiefly reproach Yoshimitsu. His unpardonable sin in their eyes is that he humiliated his country. From the accession of the Ming dynasty (1368) China made friendly overtures to Japan, especially desiring the latter to check the raids of her corsairs who, as in the days of the Hojo after the repulse of the Mongol armada, so also in the times of the Ashikaga, were a constant menace to the coastwise population of the neighbouring continent. Upon the attitude of the shogun towards these remonstrances and overtures depended the prosecution of commerce with the Middle Kingdom, and the profits accruing from that commerce were too considerable to be neglected by a ruler like Yoshimitsu, whose extravagance required constant accessions of revenue. Moreover, the Muromachi shogun was a disciple and patron of the Zen sect of Buddhism, and the priests of that sect always advocated peaceful intercourse with China, the source of philosophic and literary learning.

All these considerations induced the Ashikaga chief not only to issue orders for the restraint of the corsairs, but also to receive from the Chinese Court despatches in which he was plainly designated the king of a country tributary to China, and to make answer in language unequivocally endorsing the propriety of such terminology. In one despatch, dated February, 1403, Yoshimitsu described himself as a "subject of Ming" and, "prostrate, begged to present twenty horses, ten thousand catties of sulphur, thirty-two pieces of agate, three gold-foil folding screens, one thousand lances, one hundred swords, a suit of armour, and an ink-stone." It is recorded that he even humbled himself so far as to ask for supplies of Chinese coins, and certainly these comparatively pure copper tokens remained largely in circulation in Japan down to Tokugawa times, under the name of Eiraku-tsuho, Eiraku being the Japanese sound of the Chinese year-period, Yunglo (1403-1422).

DEATH OF YOSHIMITSU

Yoshimitsu died in 1408. He was accorded by the Court the posthumous rank of Dajo Tenno (ex-Emperor), a proof of the extraordinary confusion of etiquette caused by his arrogant pretensions. The Chinese sovereign, Yunglo, sent a message of sympathy to the Japanese potentate's son, Yoshimochi, in which the deceased was designated "Prince Kung-hsien," but Yoshimochi, though not distinguished for ability, had sufficient wisdom ultimately to adopt the advice of the kwanryo, Shiba Yoshimasa, and to decline the rank of Dajo Tenno, as well as to break off relations with the Ming ruler. Yoshimochi also handed over the magnificent edifice at Kita-yama to the Buddhist priesthood.

THE EMPEROR SHOKO

In 1412, the Emperor Go-Komatsu abdicated in favour of his son Shoko (101st sovereign), then twelve years old. This sovereign abandoned himself to the profligacy of the era. It is doubtful whether his reason was not unhinged. Some accounts say that he fell into a state of lunacy; others, that he practised magic arts. At all events he died childless in 1428, and was succeeded by a grandson of the Emperor Suko, Go-Hanazono, then in his tenth year. Thus, the claims of the Southern dynasty were ignored twice consecutively, and its partisans made armed protests in the provinces, as has been already noted. But these struggles proved abortive, and thereafter history is no more troubled with such episodes. The Daikagu-ji line disappears altogether from view, and the throne is occupied solely by representatives of the Jimyo-in. There can be very little doubt that the former was the legitimate branch; but fortune was against it.

YOSHIMOCHI, YOSHIKAZU, AND YOSHINORI

Yoshimochi, son of Yoshimitsu, became shogun (1395) at the age of nine, and the administration was conducted by Hosokawa Mitsumoto, Shiba Yoshishige, and Hatakeyama Mitsuiye. Twenty-eight years later, that is to say, in 1423, he abdicated in favour of his son, Yoshikazu. The cause of that step deserves notice. Yoshimitsu had intended to pass over Yoshimochi, his first-born, in favour of his second son, Yoshitsugu, but death prevented the consummation of that design. Yoshimochi, however, knew that it had been entertained. Therefore, after the death of their father, he seized Yoshitsugu, threw him into prison, and ultimately caused him to be killed. With the blood of his younger brother on his hands he abdicated in favour of his own sixteen-year-old son, Yoshikazu. But the latter died--some historians say that dissipation destroyed him--in two years, and having no second son to succeed, Yoshimochi himself resumed the office of shogun, holding it until his death, in 1428.

During his thirty-three years' tenure of power this ruler seems to have aimed solely at enjoying the sweets of ease and tranquillity. He left the provinces severely alone and thought only of the peace of the metropolis. Turbulent displays on the part of self-appointed partisans of the Southern Court; intrigues in the Kwanto; revolts among his own immediate followers--all these things were treated by Yoshimochi with gloved hands so long as the atmosphere of Kyoto was not troubled. In 1428, he fell sick, and, the end being in sight, he ordered his advisers to consult about his successor. Some advocated the appointment of his kinsman, Mochiuji, governor-general of the Kwanto, and Mochiuji himself prayed that it should be so. But the choice ultimately fell on Yoshimochi's younger brother, Gien, who had embraced religion and was then serving as abbot of the temple Shoren-in.

This man, then in his thirty-fourth year, hesitated to accept the nomination, but was induced to do so. He changed his name to Yoshinori, and assuming the office in 1428, showed high talents and great intrepidity. He was, in truth, a ruler as efficient as his predecessor had been perfunctory. One of the most important events of his time was the ruin of the Ashikaga Bakufu at Kamakura. Between Kamakura and Muromachi there had been friction from an early date. We have seen the second and third governors-general of the Kwanto, Ujimitsu and Mitsukane, plotting to supplant the elder branch of their family in Kyoto, and we have seen how the accession of the priest, Yoshinori, had disappointed the ambition of the fourth governor-general, Mochiuji, who, if unable to become shogun himself, would fain have obtained that high office for his son, Yoshihisa. Several years previously, namely, in 1417, there had occurred a feud between the Yamanouchi and the Ogigayatsu branches of the Uesugi family in the Kwanto, the former represented by Norimoto, the latter by Ujinori. The Uesugi stood next to the Ashikaga at Kamakura, the important office of manager (shitsuji) being invariably held by the head of the former house. It would have been well-nigh impossible therefore for the governor-general to view such a feud with indifference. Mochiuji, then in his twentieth year, sympathized with Norimoto, and in the sequel, Ujinori, with whom was allied Mochiuji's younger brother, Mochinaka, took the field at the head of such a force that the governor-general must have succumbed had not the shogun, Yoshimochi, rendered aid.

This should have placed Kamakura under a heavy debt of gratitude to Muromachi. But Mochiuji was not subject to such emotions. He rebelled vehemently against the lenient treatment accorded to Ujinori's son after their father's death, and the shogun had difficulty in placating him. So long, however, as Yoshimochi ruled in Kyoto, the Kamakura kwanrya abstained from further intrigues; but on the accession of the sometime bonze, Yoshinori, to the shogunate, all sense of restraint was removed. The governor-general now made no attempt to conceal his hostility to the Muromachi shogun. Certain family rights imperatively demanding reference to the shogun were not so referred, and Mochiuji not only spurned the remonstrances of the manager (shitsuji), Uesugi Norimoto, but even attempted to kill the latter's son, Norizane. All efforts to reconcile the Kwanto and the shitsuji proved futile, and Norizane had to flee to Kotsuke. No sooner did these things come to the ears of the shogun, Yoshinori, than he obtained an Imperial commission to quell the insurgents, and placing an army under the orders of Mochifusa, a son of Ujinori, directed him to march against Kamakura.

At first it seemed as if the Kamakura men would emerge victorious. At the easily defended passes of Hakone they inflicted several successive though not signal defeats upon Mochifusa's army. But the appearance of Norizane in the field quickly changed the complexion of the campaign. Very soon the Kamakura force was shattered, and Mochiuji himself fled to the temple Shomyo-ji in Kanazawa, where he begged to be allowed to retire from the world. But the shogun declined to pardon him and remained obdurate in spite of earnest and repeated petitions from Norizane, praying that Mochiuji should be forgiven and allowed to retire in favour of his son, Yoshihisa. In the end, Mochiuji, his son, his uncle, and many others all died by their own hands. These things happened in 1439. The redeeming feature of the sombre family feud was the fine loyalty of Norizane. Though it had been against him chiefly that Mochiuji raged, and though his death was certain had he fallen under the power of the Kamakura kwanryo, Mochiuji's fate caused him such remorse that he attempted to commit suicide and finally became a priest. Thenceforth, the title of governor-general of the Kwanto passed to the Uesugi, two of whom were appointed to act simultaneously. As for the Kamakura Ashikaga, the three remaining sons of Mochiuji fled to Koga in Shimosa, where two of them were subsequently killed by a Kamakura army, and the third, Shigeuji, fared as has already been described.

ASSASSINATION OF THE SHOGUN

It has been shown that Akamatsu Norimura was among the captains who contributed most to the triumph of the Ashikaga cause. In recognition of his distinguished services the offices of high constable in the five provinces of Settsu, Inaba, Harima, Mimasaka, and Bizen were given to his three sons. Mitsusuke, grandson of the eldest of these, administered three of the above provinces in the days of the fourth Ashikaga shogun, Yoshimochi. A puny man of contemptible presence, Mitsusuke received little consideration at Muromachi, and the shogun was induced to promise his office of high constable to a handsome kinsman, Mochisada. Enraged at such partiality, Mitsusuke set fire to his mansion in Kyoto and withdrew to his castle at Shirahata in Harima. When, however, the shogun would have sent an army against him, none was found to take command, Mochisada having given universal offence by his haughty arrogance. In the sequel, Mitsusuke had to be pardoned and Mochisada ordered to kill himself.

After the death of the shogun, Yoshimochi, Mitsusuke fell into fresh trouble. The new shogun, Yoshinori, belonged to a very different category of men from his immediate predecessors. He conquered the Kitabatake family in Ise; repressed the remnants of the Southern Court league; crushed the military monks by capturing Nara and Hiei-zan; put an end finally to Kamakura's intrigues; obtained control of the west, and quelled his enemies in all directions. It now became his task to bend to his will the overstrong and over-presumptuous among the concerted families of the Ashikaga. Foremost of these were the Akamatsu, their chief, a man whose personality invited contumely. The shogun disliked Mitsusuke, and found it an agreeable occupation to slight him. Gradually the Akamatsu leader became bitterly estranged. Moreover, he saw his younger sister executed for disobedience though she was the shogun's mistress; he saw the nephew of his old enemy, Mochisada, treated with marked favour by the Muromachi potentate, and he learned, truly or untruly, that his own office of high constable was destined to be bestowed on this favourite.

It was now the time when Kamakura's mischievous potentialities had been finally destroyed, and to commemorate the event, entertainments in the shogun's honour were organized by the heads of the great military families. On the 6th of August, 1441, it fell to Akamatsu Mitsusuke to act as his host. So soon as the shogun and his personal attendants had passed the portals of the Akamatsu mansion, the horses in the stables were set free as though by accident; the gates were closed to prevent the escape of the animals; Yoshinori with his small retinue, being thus caught in a trap, were butchered; the mansion was fired, and Mitsusuke with seven hundred followers rode off in broad daylight to his castle in Harima, whence, assisted by the monk, Gison, he sent circulars in all directions inciting to revolt. Thus miserably perished a ruler whose strong hand, active brain, and fearless measures, had he been spared a few years longer, might have saved his country from some of the terrible suffering she was destined to undergo in the century and a half subsequent to his death. He did not live long enough to reach a high place in history. But all his measures were designed to make for the eradication of immorality and corruption, and for the restoration of law and order throughout the country. His fault seems to have been precipitancy. So many suffered by his reforms, and in such quick succession, that the hatred he provoked could scarcely have been kept within control. In the matter of finance, too, he resorted, as will be presently seen, to devices quite irreconcilable with just administration.

YOSHIKATSU AND YOSHIMASA

The murder of Yoshinori left the shogun's office without any designate occupant, but the heads of the great military families lost no time in electing Yoshikatsu*, the eight-year-old son of Yoshinori, and at the latter's nominal instance the Emperor ordered him to attack his father's assassin. The three Yamana chiefs, Mochitoyo (called also Sozen, or the "Red Monk," one of the ablest captains of his country), Noriyuki, and Norikiyo; the Hosokawa chief, Mochitsune; and Sadamura, representing the Akamatsu family, all joined forces for the expedition, and presently an army of fifty thousand men sat down before Shirahata Castle. In October, 1441, the stronghold fell. Mitsusuke perished, and the three provinces he had administered were transferred to the Yamana--Harima to Mochitoyo, Mimasaka to Norikiyo, and Bizen to Noriyuki.

*To be distinguished from Yoshikazu (shogun 1423-1425), son of Yoshimochi.

We have seen how, in 1392, the Yamana family was shattered in a revolt against the authority of the shogun, Yoshimitsu. We now see the fortunes of the family thoroughly rehabilitated. The young shogun, however, did not long survive the punishment of his father's murderers. He died in 1443, at the age of ten, and was succeeded by his brother Yoshimasa, then in his eighth year. During the latter's minority, the administration fell into the hands of Hatakeyama Mochikuni and Hosokawa Katsumoto, who held the office of Muromachi kwanryo alternately. The country now began to experience the consequences of Yoshinori's death before his plans to limit the power of the great military septs had matured. Disorder became the normal condition in the provinces. The island of Kyushu took the lead. There the Shoni, the Kikuchi, the Otomo, and the Shiba had always defied a central authority, and now Norishige, a younger brother of the assassin, Akamatsu Mitsusuke; found among them supporters of a scheme to restore the fortunes of his house. In the Kwanto partisans of the late kwanryo, Mochiuji, raised their heads. In the home provinces the warrior-priests of Nara sought to avenge the chastisement they had suffered at Yoshinori's hands, and among the immediate entourage of Muromachi, the Hosokawa, the Hatakeyama, the Shiba, and others engaged in desperate struggles about questions of succession.

ENGRAVING: ASHIKAGA YOSHIMASA

THE TOKUSEI

Even when he reached man's estate, Yoshimasa proved wholly incompetent to deal with these complications. He abandoned himself to dissipation and left everything, great or small, to be managed by his wife, Fujiwara Tomiko, and by his consort, Kasuga no Tsubone. Bribery and corruption were the motive forces of the time. The innocent were punished; the unworthy rewarded. The shogun remained indifferent even when his mandates were neglected or contravened. The building of splendid residences, the laying out of spacious parks, the gratification of luxurious tastes, and the procuring of funds to defray the cost of his vast extravagance--these things occupied his entire attention.

Associated with the Ashikaga shogunate is a financial device known in history as tokusei, a term signifying "virtuous administration." Originally imported from China, the tokusei meant nothing more than a temporary remission of taxes in times of distress. But during the financial straits to which the country was reduced after the Mongol invasion, the Hojo deemed it necessary to afford relief to landowners who had mortgaged their property, and thus, in 1297, a law--tokusei-rei--was enacted, providing that eviction for debt must not be enforced. Under the Ashikaga, the tokusei received a still wider import. It was interpreted as including all debts and pecuniary obligations of any kind. In other words, the promulgation of a tokusei ordinance meant that all debtors, then and there, obtained complete relief. The law was not construed exactly alike everywhere. Thus, in Nara a debtor must discharge one-third of his obligation before claiming exemption, and elsewhere a nominal sum had to be paid for release. Naturally, legislation so opposed to the fundamental principles of integrity led to flagrant abuses. Forced by riotous mobs, or constrained by his own needs, the Muromachi shogun issued tokusei edicts again and again, incurring the hot indignation of the creditor class and disturbing the whole economic basis of society. Yoshimasa was conspicuously reckless; he put the tokusei system into force thirteen times.

EXTRAVAGANCE AND INCOMPETENCE OF YOSHIMASA

It is stated in the records of the Onin era (1467-1469) that Yoshimasa subordinated his duties altogether to his pleasures, and that his thoughts seemed to turn wholly on banquets and fetes. His favourites, especially females, had the control of affairs and were the final arbiters in all important matters. Thus, a domain which had been in the undisputed possession of a family for generations might be alienated in favour of any claimant sufficiently unscrupulous and sufficiently rich to "commend" his title, and a judgment delivered by a court of law in the morning was liable to be reversed in the evening by the fiat of the ladies in the Muromachi "palace." Stability of policy had no existence. In a period of twenty-four years (1444-1468), three sentences each of punishment and pardon were pronounced in the case of the Hatakeyama family, and in twenty years, Yoshikado and Yoshitoshi of the Shiba sept were each punished and pardoned three times. In Kyoto it became a current saying that loyal acts, not evil deeds, were penalized, and the truth of the comment found confirmation in the case of an official, Kumagaya, who was dismissed from his post and deprived of his property for venturing to memorialize the shogun in a critical manner.

These same records of the Onin year-period also make clear that one of the factors chiefly responsible for the disturbance was Yoshimasa's curious lack of sympathy with the burdens of the people. Even one grand ceremony in the course of from five to six years sufficed to empty the citizens' pockets. But in Yoshimasa's time there Were nine of such fetes in five years, and four of them had no warrant whatever except pleasure seeking--as a performance of the Sarugaku mime on an immense scale; a flower-viewing party; an al-fresco entertainment, and a visit to the cherry blossoms. On each of these occasions the court officials and the military men had to pawn their estates and sell their heirlooms in order to supply themselves with sufficiently gorgeous robes, and the sequel was the imposition of house taxes and land taxes so heavy that the provincial farmers often found vagrancy more lucrative than agricultural industry. Pawnshops were mercilessly mulcted. In the days of Yoshimitsu, they were taxed at each of the four seasons; in Yoshinori's time the same imposts were levied once a month, and under Yoshimasa's rule the pawnbrokers had to pay nine times in November, 1466, and eight times in December of the same year.

Even after full allowance has been made for exaggeration, natural in the presence of such extravagance, there remains enough to convict Yoshimasa of something like a mania for luxury. He built for himself a residence so splendid that it went by the name of the Palace of Flowers (Hana no Gosho) and of materials so costly that the outlay totalled six hundred thousand strings of cash;* and he built for his mother, Shigeko, a mansion concerning which it is recorded that two of the sliding doors for the interior cost twenty thousand strings.** Yet at times this same Yoshimasa was reduced to such straits for money that we read of him borrowing five hundred "strings" on the security of his armour, to pay for a parturition chamber.

*£4,500,000--$22,000,000.

**£150,000--$7,300,000.

The Palace of Flowers came into existence in 1459, just on the eve of a period of natural calamities which culminated in famine and pestilence. In 1462, these conditions were at their worst. From various, provinces people flocked to the capital seeking food, and deaths from starvation became frequent in the city. A Buddhist priest, Gwana, constructed grass huts to which the famished sufferers were carried on bamboo stretchers to be fed with soft, boiled millet. It is recorded that, during the first two months of 1462, the number of persons thus relieved totalled eighty-two thousand. Another Buddhist priest erected a monument to the dead found in the bed of the river below the bridge, Gojo. They aggregated twelve hundred. Scores of corpses received no burial, and the atmosphere of the city was pervaded with a shocking effluvium.

But even the presence of these horrors does not seem to have sobered the Muromachi profligate. The costly edifices were pushed on and the people's resources continued to be squandered. Even the Emperor, Go-Hanazono, was sufficiently shocked to compose a couplet indirectly censuring Yoshimasa, and a momentary sense of shame visited the sybarite. But only momentary. We find him presently constructing in the mansion of his favourite retainer, Ise Sadachika, a bath-house which was the wonder of the time, a bath-house where the bathers were expected to come robed in the most magnificent costumes. One of the edifices that formed part of his palace after his retirement from active life, in 1474, was a "Silver Pavilion" intended to rival the "Golden Pavilion" of his ancestor, Yoshimitsu. During the last sixteen years of his life--he died in 1490--he patronized art with a degree of liberality that atones for much of his previous profligacy. In the halls of the Jisho-ji monastery, constructed on a grand scale as his retreat in old age, he collected chefs d'oeuvre of China and Japan, so that the district Higashi-yama where the building stood became to all ages a synonym for choice specimens, and there, too, he instituted the tea ceremonial whose votaries were thenceforth recognized as the nation's arbitri elegantiarum. Landscape gardens also occupied his attention. Wherever, in province or in capital, in shrine, in temple, in private house, or in official residence, any quaintly shaped rock or picturesque tree was found, it was immediately requisitioned for the park of Higashi-yama-dono, as men then called Yoshimasa, and under the direction of a trio of great artists, So-ami, Gei-ami, and No-ami, there grew up a plaisance of unprecedented beauty, concerning which a poet of the time wrote that "every breeze coming thence wafted the perfume of tea." The pastimes of "listening to incense," of floral arrangement, of the dramatic mime, and of the parlour farce were all practised with a zest which provoked the astonishment even of contemporary annalists.

ENGRAVING: A PICNIC DURING THE FLOWER SEASON IN THE ASHIKAGA PERIOD

All this contributed materially to educate the nation's artistic faculties, but the cost was enormous and the burden of taxation correspondingly heavy. It was under this financial pressure that Yoshimasa approached the Ming emperor seeking pecuniary aid. Thrice the shogun's applications were successful, and the amounts thus obtained are said to have totalled three hundred thousand strings of cash (equivalent of £450,000, or $2,200,000). His requests are said to have assumed the guise of appeals in behalf of famine-stricken people, but there is no evidence that any of the presents were devoted to that purpose. Partial apologists for Yoshimasa's infatuation are not wanting. Thus, it is alleged that he was weary of failure to reform the administration; that the corruption and confusion of society induced him to seek consolation in art; that outside the precincts of his palace he was restrained by the provincial magnates, and inside he had to obey the dictation of his wife, Tomi, of her brother, Katsumitsu, and of his own favourite page, Ise Sadachika, so that only in his tea reunions and his private theatricals could a semblance of independence be obtained; that his orders were not obeyed or his injunctions respected by any save the artists he had gathered around him, and that in gratifying his luxurious tastes, he followed the example of his grandfather, Yoshimitsu. But such exculpations amount to saying that he was an essentially weak man, the slave of his surroundings.

THE KWANTO TUMULT

The lawlessness of the time and the indifference with which the shogun's mandates were treated find illustration in the story of the Kwanto. When (1439) Mochiuji perished, the only member of his family that survived was his five-year-old son, Shigeuji. This child placed himself under the protection of Muromachi. It will be remembered that Uesugi Norizane, lamenting his unwilling share in Mochiuji's destruction, had entered religion. His son, Noritada, was then appointed to act as manager (shitsuji) to Shigeuji, his colleague being Uesugi Akifusa (Ogigayatsu Uesugi). But the Yuki family, who had given shelter to two sons of Mochiuji, objected to bow their heads to the Uesugi, and persuaded Shigeuji to have Noritada killed. Therefore, the partisans of the murdered man placed themselves under the banner of his brother, Fusaaki, and having received a commission from Muromachi as well as a powerful contingent of troops under Imagawa Noritada, they marched in great force against Kamakura from Kotsuke, Kazusa, and Echigo.

Kamakurawas well-nigh reduced to ruins, but Shigeuji retired to the fortress of Koga in Shimosa, and his cause against the Uesugi was espoused by the eight families of Chiba, Koyama, Satomi, Satake, Oda, Yuki, Utsunomiya, and Nasu, thenceforth known as the "eight generals" of the Kwanto. Against such a league it was difficult to operate successfully. Masatomo, a younger brother of Yoshimasa, built for himself a fortress at Horigoe, in Izu, which was thereafter known as Horigoe Gosho (the Horigoe Palace), Shigeuji in his castle of Koga being designated Koga Kuba (the Koga shogun). Castle building acquired from this time greatly increased vogue. Uesugi Mochitomo fortified Kawagoe in Musashi; Ota Sukenaga (called also Dokan), a vassal of the Ogigayatsu Uesugi, built at Yedo a fort destined to have world-wide celebrity, and his father, Sukekiyo, entrenched Iwatsuki in the same province of Musashi. Thus the Kwanto became the arena of warring factions.