Japan: From the Japanese Government History

by Unknown

The reason that the Ashikaga shōguns established themselves at Muromachi in Kyōto, the civil capital, was that the seat of the Southern dynasty being near and the tide of battle sweeping again and again as far as Kyōto, the exigencies of the struggle made it necessary that the imperial city should also be the headquarters of the feudal government. Takauji had to intrust the administration of the eastern provinces to his son Motouji, as the regent (kwanryō) at Kamakura, and also to another general the control of the southern island of Kiushū. At first the supporters of the Southern sovereign kept busy the regent of Kamakura and the warden of Kiushū, who remained loyal to the Muromachi shōgun so long as this trouble lasted. It might have been foreseen, however, that in time of peace the vantage ground occupied by these magnates would be turned against the interests of the overlord. Nor did the central government at Muromachi promise a greater security to the will of the Ashikaga, for its functions were performed by men who, unlike several of Yoritomo's counselors, were at the same time the greatest landlords of the country. They might readily defy an effete shōgun and lapse into a bitter quarrel among themselves. Special circumstances were not wanting to hasten the coming of the logical consequences of the careless organization of the Ashikaga feudalism.

It so happened that the third shōgun, Yoshimitsu, under whom the rule of the Ashikaga seemed to have risen to its height, was also arbitrary and vainglorious. He ceded the shōgunate, in 1393, to his son Yoshimochi, and received for himself the appointment of chief minister of state (daijō daijin), an unprecedented procedure for a feudal overlord since Yoritomo. After a brief interval, however, he resigned that post also, and having adopted the tonsure, nominally retired from official life. Always prone to luxury, he now more freely than ever gave the reins to his fancy for pomp and splendor. Whenever he moved abroad, he was accompanied by an escort large enough for an ex-emperor, and such was the magnificence of his mansion at Muromachi and so great the profusion of blossoming trees among which it stood, that men gave to it the name of the Palace of Flowers. After his retirement from official life he established his residence at Kitayama, where he erected a three-storied house with timbers and stones of the finest quality, contributed by the territorial magnates of the land. Its columns, doors, alcoves, ceilings, and floors were decorated with gold dust. Nothing could exceed the elegance and splendor of this edifice. The people called it "Kinkaku-ji," or the golden temple, and it stands to this day one of the most interesting relics of ancient Kyōto. On the completion of this gorgeous mansion, Yoshimitsu—or Tenzan Dogi as he was then called—took up his residence there, and thither all the magnates of state had to repair in order to obtain his sanction for administrative measures. Banquets were often given there on a sumptuous scale, the illustrious host amusing himself and his guests with displays of music and dancing—Budō, Sarugaku, and Shirabyōshi. The example thus set by the ex-shōgun was readily imitated by the military men of the time, and to support all this luxury, it became necessary to increase the burden of taxation. Yoshimitsu had strong faith in Buddhist doctrines, and devoted large sums to the building of temples. The doctrines of the Zen sect found special favor with him, and its priests were the recipients of much munificence at his hands. He levied contributions on all the provinces for the purpose of erecting for the sect in Kyōto a temple of unparalleled magnificence called Shōkoku-ji.

Amid the exercise of all this pomp and while the power of the shōgunate was thus supreme from end to end of the country, the seeds of future misfortune were sown. Not long after the death of Yoshimitsu the country began to fall into disorder. The generals and military partisans of the Southern dynasty supposed that a return to the system of alternate succession between the two lines of Jimyō-in and Daikaku-ji had formed part of the arrangement under which peace was restored, in 1393, and Gokomatsu raised to the throne. Hence, after the demise of that sovereign, they looked to see a prince of the Southern line assume the scepter. But the shōgun's government crowned Shōkō, of the Northern line. Discontented with this act, Kitabatake Mitsumasa of Ise declared war against the shōgun, and a number of military men in or about Kyōto and in Mutsu raised the standard of revolt. Serious disturbance was averted on that occasion by the shōgun's promising that a prince of the Southern line should be the next sovereign. The partisans of the latter dynasty imagined, therefore, that at the death of Shōkō, Prince Ogura, a son of Gokameyama, would come to the throne, whereas the Ashikaga family, disregarding the engagement entered into by its chief, again secured the succession to a prince of the Northern dynasty.[1] This breach of faith led to a renewed demonstration by Kitabatake, who, in collusion with the military men at Kamakura, unsheathed the sword in behalf of the son of Prince Ogura. There rose also another revolt in Yamato. The supporters of the Southern line, however, never effected any material success. But before their energy withered away, combats and tumults of the most inveterate character devastated the land. The Ashikaga shōguns found themselves perpetually confronted by disturbance and disaffection. One, probably the principal, cause of the frequent insurrections, was that the Ashikaga made immense grants of land to their supporters without, at the same time, elaborating some efficient system for the control of the territorial magnates thus created. Many nobles developed such puissance under these circumstances, and acquired command of such vast local resources, that they gave themselves no concern whatsoever about any government, whether that of Kyōto or that of Muromachi, and sided with whatever party they found most convenient. Personal ambition and individual aggrandizement were too often the ruling motives of the time. No bonds proved strong enough to secure men's union amid these scenes of tumult. Even brothers, as in the time of Takauji and Yoshinori, did not hesitate to belong to opposite camps, nor were other family ties considered more sacred. In the days of Yoshimitsu, a great territorial magnate, Yamana Ujikiyo, whose estates extended over ten provinces so that men spoke of him as Rokubuichi-shi (lord of a sixth of Japan), took up arms against the Ashikaga. So, too, Ōuchi Yoshihiro rebelled because his success in subjugating Kiushū had given him confidence in his own powers. The regent at Kamakura, also, to whom was entrusted the government of the eastern provinces, became so puissant that his influence almost equaled that of the shōgun, who regarded the growth of his relative's power with no little uneasiness. So independent was the attitude of this Kamakura official and so openly did he affect autonomic state, that we find him adopting the precedent of the Muromachi ruler and nominating two of the Uyesugi family—Yamanouchi and Inugake—to the office of kwanryō or regents. Immense estates were also held by the branch house of Ogigayatsu Mitsukane, grandson of the first Kamakura kwanryō. Motouji (son of Ashikaga Takauji), carried away apparently by his wealth and strength, supported the insurrection of Ōuchi Yoshihiro, mentioned above, but had no difficulty in making peace with the Muromachi shōgun on the defeat and downfall of Yoshihiro. Thus feud succeeded feud, and campaign, campaign, arising out of the universal creed that a prize scarcely inferior to the scepter itself lay within reach of any noble whose territorial influence and military puissance enabled him to grasp it.

On the death of the fourth Ashikaga shōgun, Yoshimochi, in 1428, there was no heir in the direct line to succeed him, his son Yoshikazu having died in childhood. His younger brother, Prince Giyen, but later named Yoshinori, was supported to the shōgunate by the kwanryō. This chagrined the Kamakura administrator, Ashikaga Mochiuji, who had aspired to the office, and who now entered into an open warfare with the Kwanryō Uyesugi Norizane and the new shōgun. Mochiuji was defeated, and the Uyesugi family intrusted with the sole administrative control in the eastern provinces.

Yoshinori, although a man of rare administrative ability and military achievement, was vain and profligate, and treated his generals and samurai with contempt. An object of his constant dislike was Akamatsu Mitsusuke, whom he ridiculed because of his short stature and upon whom he put many slights. This Mitsusuke was the grandson of Akamatsu Norimura, who, in consideration of conspicuous services rendered to the Ashikaga in the days of Takauji, had received, and bequeathed to his children, broad estates. The shōgun's dislike for Mitsusuke was exceeded only by his affection for a relative of the latter, Sadamura. He would fain have deprived Mitsusuke of his domains in order to bestow them on Sadamura. Mitsusuke was indignant at the notion of such confiscation in the absence of any misdeed to justify it. In June, 1441, he invited the shōgun to his mansion, where a splendid banquet was spread and a new kind of dancing was displayed. While the entertainment was in progress, Mitsusuke killed and decapitated Yoshinori, set fire to the house, and carrying with him the head of the shōgun, fled to Harima. Thereafter Yoshikazu, eldest son of Yoshinori, was proclaimed shōgun by the kwanryō. Hosokawa Mochiyuki and Yamana Mochitoyo, having received the emperor's mandate, marched against Mitsusuke, destroyed his castle of Shirahata and killed him. Yoshikazu commissioned Mochitoyo to govern the three provinces over which Mitsusuke had ruled, and the Akamatsu family was exterminated.

Yoshikazu died in childhood and was succeeded in the shōgunate in 1449 by his younger brother Yoshimasa, who thus became the eighth Ashikaga shōgun, the Kwanryō Hatakeyama Mochikuni being intrusted with the administration of affairs and showing great zeal in the service of the shōgunate. As Yoshimasa grew older he gave himself up to sensual excesses, and paid no attention to business of state, leaving everything in the hands of favorite officers. Thus by degrees disaffection began to appear among the generals and samurai. Moreover, the two kwanryō Hatakeyama and Shiba, ceased to work harmoniously and engaged in competition for the possession of power. Taking advantage of this state of affairs, the partisans of the Southern dynasty once more raised their heads and Kyōto again witnessed scenes of disorder, while Mochiuji's party renewed their opposition in the Kwantō and the rebellion of the Shōni family still continued in the west. Yoshimasa, nevertheless, continued his life of extravagance, devoting great sums to the gratification of his pleasures and to the building of a magnificent mansion. Careless of the dilapidated condition of the capital, Kyōto, he caused the celebrated pavilion Ginkaku-ji to be constructed at Higashiyama, covering the doors, walls, and ceilings with dust of silver in order to rival the golden pavilion (Kinkaku-ji) built by Yoshimitsu at Kitayama. In this new building he brought together rare paintings and costly objects of virtu, Chinese and Japanese, and there also, in chambers specially planned for the purpose, he inaugurated the tea ceremonial (cha-no-yu), afterward so fashionable in Japan, devoting his days to the practice of effeminate dilettanteism.

Official duties received no attention, and by degrees his financial circumstances became so straitened that, finding it impossible to procure money for the indulgence of his whims, he began to lay heavy imposts on the people of the provinces and on the merchants of Kyōto especially, who were taxed five or six times in the course of the year. Under these circumstances, great discontent prevailed and riots occurred, the poor breaking into the houses of the wealthy, and destroying all certificates of debt that were found there, by which means the shōgun himself was simultaneously relieved of his monetary obligations. To this device, endorsed in effect, as it was, by the authorities, the people mockingly gave the name of tokusei, or the government of virtue, and Yoshimasa found it altogether to his taste, since it extricated him from many of his financial embarrassments. The shōgun did not even shrink from sending envoys to China with instructions to prefer requests for money to the Chinese government, and the latter were not unwilling thus to purchase immunity from the raids to which their ports were exposed at the hands of Kiushū pirates. Under Yoshimasa's administration the power and prestige of the shōgunate declined sensibly; the affairs of state fell into confusion; the most cruel mandates were frequently issued; customs opposed to the dictates of humanity and the principles of morality prevailed; the kwanryō, following the shōgun's example, subserved the duties of their office to selfish ends, and finally this hopeless misgovernment culminated in the celebrated war of the Onin era, marking the darkest age of Japan's history.

The proximate causes of the Onin conflict are to be sought in personal ambition. Yoshimasa, weary of official duties, determined to intrust to his younger brother, Gijin, the task of administering affairs. Gijin had entered the priesthood. He was not averse, however, to falling in with Yoshimasa's plan on condition that in the event of a child being born to the latter, it should be devoted to a life of religion. This compact having been made, Gijin abandoned the priesthood, and taking the name of Yoshimi, assumed the direction of the affairs of the shōgunate, Hosokawa Kazumoto acting as controller of his household. By and by, however, Yoshimasa's wife bore a son, Yoshihisa, and being ambitious that her child should succeed to the shōgunate, instead of retiring to the cloister, she took into her confidence Yamana Sōzen, a nobleman possessing domains as ample and power as extensive as Hosokawa Kazumoto himself, the idea of the confederates being to contrive the abdication of Yoshimi. A parallel conjuncture occurred in the family of Hatakeyama Mochikuni, the kwanryō. Having no son, he nominated his nephew Masanaga to succeed him, but on the subsequent birth of his son Yoshinari, he resolved to deprive Masanaga of the distinction. Further, the vassals of the other kwanryō, Shiba, became split up into two parties, one espousing the cause of Yoshikado, the other that of Yoshitoki. Yoshikado and Yoshinari allied themselves with Yamana Sōzen, and Masanaga and Yoshitoshi were supported by Hosokawa Kazumoto.

The enmity between these rival factions gradually deepened, until in the first year of the Onin era, 1467, Sōzen attempted to remove Hatakeyama Masanaga from the office of kwanryō, and to replace him by Yoshinari, at the same time expelling the partisans of Kazumoto from the Hatakeyama house. A collision ensued in Kyōto between the parties of Masanaga and Yoshinari, and the shōgun gave orders that they should settle their dispute by a combat, the guards attached to them alone taking part in the duel. Sōzen, however, contrived secretly to render aid to Yoshinari, so that Masanaga suffered defeat. This result caused much chagrin to Hosokawa Kazumoto, who considered that his honor was tarnished by his failure to assist Masanaga. He, therefore, privately assembled all his troops and partisans, to the number of about a hundred thousand, and posting them to the east of Muromachi, guarded the residence of Yoshimasa. Sōzen, on his side, mustered a force of some ninety thousand, and encamped on the west of Muromachi. Then commenced a long series of fights in which victory nearly always rested with Kazumoto's side. Kazumoto had the countenance of the retired shōgun, Yoshimasa, and also procured the recognition of the emperor and ex-emperor, while Sōzen, taking advantage of the strained relations between Yoshimasa and his successor Yoshimi, invited the latter to join him, and also obtained the support of the former partisans of the Southern dynasty by declaring in favor of the grandson of Prince Ogura.

Combats occurred almost daily, and were accompanied by numerous conflagrations. The citizens of Kyōto fled from the city, and the streets were left desolate. In 1470 Sōzen and Kazumoto both died, but their parties continued to fight as fiercely as ever. Not until 1477, when Yoshimi had escaped to Mino, did the generals abandon the campaign and retire to their castles.