Chris Perry, Author

Tag: Hino Tomiko

The Meio Coup

As we’ve discussed previously, by the 1490s, the Ashikaga Shogun was a shadow of its former self. The Onin War had effectively ended even the pretence of Shogunate power, and in the provinces, what would later be called the Sengoku Jidai was already underway.

The Onin War ultimately broke the Shogun’s power.

There’s a post on the Onin War if you want details, but very briefly, the war was fought over who would succeed Ashikaga Yoshimasa as Shogun, his son (Yoshihisa), or his brother (Yoshimi). When the war ended in 1477, it was his son who became Shogun.

Yoshihisa was apparently a bit of a lush, and contemporary sources paint him as a young man who was too fond of wine and women. In fact, when he died suddenly in 1489, aged just 25, it was widely blamed on his hedonistic lifestyle (not a bad way to go, mind you).

Despite his proclivities, Yoshihisa died without a male heir, and it was at this point that the son of the defeated brother, Ashikaga Yoshitane, became Shogun. This might seem like a strange choice, and it certainly wasn’t unopposed, but he apparently had the support of Hino Tomiko, Yoshihisa’s mother, who was widely regarded as one of the most influential women in Japanese history.

Quite why Tomiko chose to support Yoshitane isn’t documented, but given her reputation for political intrigue, she probably had some long game in mind. Yoshitane wouldn’t actually become Shogun until July 1490, and even when he took the throne, his position was weak.

Ashikaga Yoshitane was a surprising and ultimately controversial choice for Shogun.

There were myriad problems in and around the Shogun’s government, but the fundamental issue seems to have been that Yoshitane was the son of the man who had been defeated in the Onin War just 13 years earlier. The men who had won that war were still in government, and they weren’t fans of the idea of having to serve someone who was probably going to be out for revenge.

When Tomiko announced her support for Yoshitane, several high-ranking members of the government resigned their positions rather than serve under him. Initially, this might not have been a problem. Yoshitane was a young man (just 23) who enjoyed the support of one of the realm’s most powerful figures, Hino Tomiko, and the advice and guidance of his father, Yoshimi, who might have been Shogun himself, if things had gone differently.

Yoshitane was also aided by his kanrei (deputy), Hosokawa Masamoto, an experienced (if slightly eccentric) politician. As seems to be inevitable with the Ashikaga, though, this initial optimism didn’t last. Ashikaga Yoshimi died in January 1491, just months into the new Shogun’s reign, and it seems that his relationship with Hino Tomiko soured too. Some sources (admittedly biased against Tomiko) suggest this was because Yoshitane turned out to be not as compliant as Tomiko had intended, but whatever the reason, Yoshitane was obliged to find a new way to shore up his power.

To do this, he turned to the time-honoured tradition of his forebears and went to war. The region around Kyoto had been devastated by the Onin War, and recovery had been unequal at best. There were numerous uprisings from angry peasants and religious movements throughout the decades of ‘peace’, and Yoshitane saw an opportunity to flex his muscles and put these troublemakers in their place.

The first blow was struck against the Rokkaku Clan. Like his predecessors, Yoshitane had few military resources of his own to call on, so he summoned several powerful lords to do the fighting for him. They agreed eagerly, but one figure who opposed the campaign was Hosokawa Masatomo. Quite why the kanrei was against the campaign isn’t clear, but this led to a schism between the Shogun and his most powerful official.

Hosokawa Masamoto, the Shogun’s Deputy and most powerful official.

In response, Yoshitane began relying on other lords to do his bidding, attempting to cut Masatomo out of the picture. In 1493, he launched another campaign, this time seeking to bring an end to the division in the once powerful Hatakeyama Clan. This time, Masatomo’s opposition is easier to understand. The Hatakeyama and Hosokawa Clans were historic rivals, and the ‘civil war’ in the Hatakeyama Clan had been to the Hosokawa’s benefit. If the Shogun succeeded in ending the fighting, then the Hatakeyama might regain their strength, and Masatomo couldn’t have that.

When the Shogun issued orders for an army to be gathered in January 1493, Masatomo went to work. He contacted the faction within the Hatakeyama that the Shogun intended to attack and made arrangements with them to earn their support for what came next. Throughout early spring that year, Masatomo gathered others who were unhappy with Yoshitane. Some were partisans of the armies that had opposed Yoshitane’s father; others were disgruntled with the political situation, like Hino Tomiko, who now sided against the man she had supported just a few years earlier.

Others were almost certainly just opportunists, but by April, Masatomo was ready to move. He waited for the Shogun’s army to attack the Hatakeyama in Kawachi Province (in modern Osaka), and when Kyoto was vulnerable, he launched his coup.

It all went relatively smoothly for Masatomo. His forces took the city without much trouble, and Hino Tomiko issued an order commanding that Masatomo take control to restore order, giving his actions the veneer of legality. Masatomo then announced he would depose Yoshitane and replace him with Ashikaga Yoshizumi, who had been adopted by Hino Tomoki and Shogun Yoshimasa.

Ashikaga Yoshizumi, installed as Shogun after the Meio Coup.
_{^{Geneast – 投稿者自身による著作物, CC 表示-継承 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21645552による}}

When the news reached the army in Kawachi, it disintegrated almost immediately, with many vassals supporting the new Shogun and effectively legitimising Masatomo’s coup. Yoshitane could still call on around 8000 loyalists to fight for his cause, but the situation was dire.

As well as Yoshitane’s (much reduced) loyalists, the Emperor himself was apparently against the coup. You may remember that the Shogun was technically a servant of the Imperial Court, and although it had been centuries since the Emperor had actually had the power to decide who would be Shogun, the idea that someone else could overthrow him was an affront to what remained of Imperial prestige.

The Emperor was so angry that he even threatened to abdicate, but the impotence of his position was highlighted when Imperial officials pointed out that a) even if he abdicated, the coup would not be reversed, and b) the Imperial Court couldn’t afford the ceremony, and might have to resort to borrowing money for it from the very Shogunate they sought to protest.

So the Imperial Court prevaricated by engaging in some religious ceremonies that the Emperor was required to attend, and would therefore be unavailable to condone or condemn the coup. This led to a strange stalemate, where the Imperial Court could do nothing to change the course of events, but the Shogunate (controlled by Masatomo) could not compel the court to obey, denying the coup the full support of Japan’s ‘legal’ sovereign.

Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado was on the throne during the coup and was pretty annoyed about it.

Political difficulties aside, the reality was that Masatomo was now in control, and to demonstrate this, he ordered an army to be dispatched to Kawachi Province to deal with what was left of the old Shogun’s loyalists. Chronicles at the time suggest the force was as large as 40,000, and, faced with such odds, Yoshitane and his supporters retreated to and fortified a nearby temple, where they hoped to hold out.

The situation got worse for Yoshitane, however, as a relief force sent by his supporters met Masatomo’s army near Sakai (modern Osaka), where they were defeated, effectively ending any chance Yoshitane had of reversing the coup.

Not long afterwards, Masatomo’s forces attacked the temple and quickly overwhelmed its defences. Several of Yoshitane’s prominent supporters committed suicide, but Yoshitane himself was captured and taken back to Kyoto and held at the Ryoanji Temple.

A modern scene of Ryoanji Temple, where Yoshitane was held. Picturesque as prisons go.
_{^{663highland – 投稿者自身による著作物, CC 表示-継承 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=159351811による}}

In the aftermath of this battle, Masatomo had several of his more powerful opponents killed or exiled, and consolidated power in the capital and by the Autumn of 1493, his position was practically unassailable.

Quite why Masatomo decided to get rid of Yoshitane has been debated from the start. The man himself claimed it was due to the Shogun’s military campaigns putting an unsustainable burden on the more powerful lords, and while there’s probably some truth to that claim, it also seems likely that the relationship between Masatomo and the Shogun had broken down, and Masatomo decided to strike while he was in a position of strength.

That being said, Masatomo wouldn’t have succeeded if he’d acted alone. The fact that he had the support of Hino Tomiko and that most of Yoshitane’s supporters abandoned him almost immediately suggests that the dissatisfaction with his rule ran deep. It has also been suggested that Tomiko herself was the instigator of the coup, as she had come to regret her earlier decision to support Yoshitane.

Although the Meio Coup left Masatomo as the dominant political figure in Kyoto, in the long term, it did nothing to reverse the catastrophic decline of Shogunate power. Although the supreme military power, Masatomo, did not have control of the bureaucracy, which remained with Hino Tomiko and her supporters.

Additionally, the swift collapse of the Shogun’s ‘loyalists’ demonstrated how fragile that system really was, and after the coup, instead of relying on several powerful clans, the Shogunate was forced to rely on one, the Hosokawa and by extension, Masatomo.

Masatomo certainly didn’t have it all his own way, then, and the situation only got worse when Yoshitane (who had been left alive) escaped captivity in Kyoto and fled to Etchu Province, from where he issued calls for his supporters to deal with Masatomo.

Masatomo would dispatch an army to deal with Yoshitane, but it was defeated, and not long after that, several powerful clans declared their support for the deposed Shogun, though in reality, they offered little practical support in the short term.

Internally too, opposition to Masatomo grew as Yoshizumi, who had been a boy when Masatomo installed him as Shogun, grew into a man (as they do) and began trying to assert control of what was supposed to be ‘his’ government, so, despite the success of his coup, Masatomo found himself with problems on all sides, and the power of the Shogun declined further still.

Sources
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E9%87%8E%E5%AF%8C%E5%AD%90
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%8E%E5%BF%9C%E3%81%AE%E6%94%BF%E5%A4%89
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B6%B3%E5%88%A9%E7%BE%A9%E5%B0%9A
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B6%B3%E5%88%A9%E7%BE%A9%E8%A6%96
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B4%B0%E5%B7%9D%E6%94%BF%E5%85%83
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B6%B3%E5%88%A9%E7%BE%A9%E6%BE%84
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A0%BA
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BE%8D%E5%AE%89%E5%AF%BA
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BE%8C%E5%9C%9F%E5%BE%A1%E9%96%80%E5%A4%A9%E7%9A%87

October 14, 2025
The Onin War

As we discussed last time, Japan in the 1460s was a chaotic place. Rival clans engaged in bloody feuds with each other, and it wasn’t uncommon for members of the same families to take up arms against each other in disputes over who was really in charge, taking sibling rivalry to a whole new level.

By this time, endemic warfare was just a part of life in Japan.

In the centre of this chaos was a Shogun who was so weak he might as well not have existed, and when the violence inevitably reached Kyoto, there was little he could do to stop it.

The exact origins of the Onin War are disputed, but the main rivals were the Yamana and Hosokawa Clans, arguably the two most powerful clans of their day, with both playing key roles in the government and having control of vast swathes of land, and the wealth, manpower, and allegiances that went along with it.

Throughout the 1450s and 60s, the Yamana and Hosokawa Clans had been engaged in something of a ‘Cold War’ in which they supported rival factions in numerous proxy wars around Japan, most importantly, the ongoing civil war within the Hatakeyama Clan.

In January 1467, Yamana supported Hatakeyama forces attacked those of the Hosokawa at the Battle of Goryo Shrine (sometimes just called the Battle of Goryo). Though the battle resulted in a Yamana victory, the intervention of the Shogun brought an end to the immediate hostilities, and both Yamana and Hosokawa partisans remained in the capital.

The marker at Kamigoryo Shrine in Kyoto, showing the spot where the Onin War broke out.

It has been speculated that both side were willing to let the Shogun mediate because neither of them was ready for all out war, because through early Spring, forces gathered in and around Kyoto, until May of that year, when it is said in some (probably exaggerated) sources that there were more than 270,000 warriors present, with the Hosokawa having a significant advantage in numbers (160,000-110,000).

Though the Yamana had secured an advantage after Goryo and controlled the Shogun, the Hosokawa did not sit idly by. Their leaders issued orders and summons of their own, and set about raiding Yamana/Shogunate supply lines, and literally burning bridges.

Due to the location of their relative bases in Kyoto, the Hosokawa and their allies became known as the Eastern Army, and the Yamana and theirs were called the Western Army, and it is by these names that we’ll refer to them going forward.

Tensions finally boiled over in late May 1467, when forces of the Eastern Army launched a dawn attack against the Western forces around the Shogun’s palace, driving them away, occupying the palace, and bringing the Shogun under their control.

A scene from later in the war, depicting just how chaotic the battlefield could be.

Shortly after this victory, Ashikaga Yoshimi (the Shogun’s brother, and still heir) was declared commander in chief, and the Shogun himself handed over an official banner to the Eastern Army, proclaiming them to be the official army of the Shogun, effectively branding the Western army rebels.

Despite their setback, the Western forces regrouped and attacked Kyoto in August, driving Yoshimi and his supporters out of the city and establishing control for themselves. It is at this point that the Western Army stopped deferring to any Shogunate officials and instead began issuing orders signed by a ‘junta’ of their most senior generals.

Further attempts by the Western army to press their advantage failed, and several battles throughout September and October ended in bloody stalemate. In December, the Emperor issued a decree stripping all Western generals of their formal Imperial titles in an attempt to further delegitimise their cause; however, it had no practical effect, and as 1467 came to an end, the Western Army was in control of Kyoto, but the war was a stalemate.

Throughout early 1468, there were sporadic outbursts of fighting in and around Kyoto, leaving large areas of the city in ruins, with the two sides gaining and losing ground in return, until the capital they had been so eagerly fighting over was no longer a prize worth having.

In the summer of that year, Yoshimi, who had been in hiding away from Kyoto, was persuaded to return to the capital by his brother, the Shogun. This reconciliation was short-lived, however, as it was becoming clear that the Shogun now supported his (still infant) son, Yoshihisa, as heir. The key leaders of the Eastern Army, too, were behind Yoshihisa, and so Yoshimi fled to Mt Hiei, where, in November, messengers arrived from the Western Army, declaring him to be the ‘new Shogun’. From then on, Western Forces began issuing formal declarations from the ‘Shogun’, Yoshimi, although in reality, the generals remained in control, and Yoshimi was effectively isolated on Mt Hiei.

By early 1469, the conflict had spread to Kyushu and the Kanto as well, where nominally Western and Eastern forces would fight it out in localised episodes of the wider conflict. In reality, however, the complete breakdown in central authority meant that these forces had no loyalty to anyone but themselves, and this fighting is often considered to be the start of the Sengoku Jidai or “Age of the Country at War.”

As 1469 dragged on, the main forces around Kyoto were exhausted. The capital was a ruin, and the Shogunate’s power, already tenuous, had ceased to exist entirely. There had been many reasons for the outbreak of war, but the main one had been control of the Shogunate; now that there was no real Shogunate to control, neither side had much motivation to continue fighting.

Rival forces loot Kyoto as the city burns around them. By the end of the Onin War, Kyoto was a ruin.
_{^{Docsubster – 投稿者自身による著作物, CC 表示-継承 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63970510による}}

As Machiavelli said, though “Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please,” and the Eastern and Western forces were now discovering how true that was. Although superficially a conflict over the Shogunate, by 1470, factions on both sides had begun working for themselves. There were numerous internal conflicts, feuds, and defections, and by 1471, there were several clans that had switched sides, and some that had done so more than once.

In 1472, there was a serious effort to make peace, with the leaders of the Yamana and Hosokawa clans (the originators of the feud) agreeing, in principle, to return to the antebellum situation. These terms were unpopular with other factions, however, many of whom had gained significant territories as a result of the war. The head of the Yamana Clan even went so far as to attempt suicide, in a move that historians have suggested shows the extent of his desire to find a settlement, but it did no good, and the fighting dragged on.

Yamana Sozen, head of the Yamana Clan, whose attempted suicide is supposed to have shown how sincere he was about forging peace.
_{^{By Mt0616 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=99587678}}

At the Shogunate court, a priest commented:

“The affairs of the nation were being handled, the maids were planning (all the politics of the nation were being planned by Tomiko, a woman), the Shogun (Yoshimasa) was drinking sake, and the feudal lords were wearing dog hats (a reference to a kind of hat worn during mounted archery displays) . It was as if the world was at peace.”

This quote gives us the impression of a court completely out of touch with the wider world, and indeed, other sources state that Yoshimasa’s drinking was no mere social tipple; he would drink to excess, and it was said that the Emperor got into the habit of joining him, further eroding the respect and prestige of whatever government remained.

In March and May 1473, first the Yamana, then the Hosokawa Clan heads died, and a new generation took their place. Also in that year, Shogun Yoshimasa retired as Shogun, handing the title over to his nine-year-old son, Yoshihisa, whilst keeping the actual power for himself.

Peace was finally agreed between the two main protagonists in April 1473, but the war didn’t come to an immediate end; defections and skirmishing continued, and it wasn’t until 1477 that the Western Army was formally disbanded. In November of that year, the Shogunate held a formal celebration, announcing the restoration of peace.

Despite eleven years of Civil War, very little had actually been achieved. Yoshimasa had remained Shogun and handed the title to his son, Yoshihisa. The rival claimant, Yoshimi, had fled into exile but was formally pardoned in 1478, along with most of those who had supported him.

Early in the war, the Eastern forces had been granted a banner from the Shogunate, effectively declaring themselves the legitimate party, whilst their Western enemies were branded rebels. In the wake of their victory, then, you might have expected the Eastern leadership to seek ‘justice’ (or more likely, revenge) against the Westerners.

So why didn’t it happen?

The answer is fairly simple: the Eastern Army, now just the Shogunate, was too weak. Eleven years of Civil War had resulted in nothing but fatally weakening both sides, and even though they were victorious, no one amongst the Shogun’s supporters had the strength to mete out any kind of justice.

Ashikaga Yoshihisa, nominally Shogun at this point, but far too weak to actually exercise his power.

This weakness is best seen in the fact that, despite a formal peace agreement, the fighting didn’t end. Kyoto was a blackened ruin, and the formerly great clans were exhausted, but in the provinces, the war went on, and on, and on.

Though it would not be called the Sengoku Jidai until much later, the Onin War brought about a period of anarchy that would last for more than 120 years, and the Ashikaga Shoguns would never hold any real authority outside of Kyoto, despite some brief resurgences in the late 15th century.

It wasn’t just the Shogunate that was weakened; however, many of the shugo, regional lords, had committed considerable resources to the fighting, expending blood and treasure in pursuit of their goals, only to find themselves with little to show for it. In the 1480s, the system of shugo-in, the policy of requiring the lords to remain in Kyoto, formally broke down, and the shugo returned to their provinces, where some were able to restore their wealth and power, but many others became the first victims of gekokujo, (lit. lower rules/overthrows high) in which deputies of nominally lower rank were able to overthrow their masters, a phenomenon that would become common in the century ahead.

Kyoto itself was also left as a practical ruin by the end of the fighting. The expense of restoring the city and the fact that the Shogun and his wife (Tomiko) were seen as embezzling huge sums of money led to outbreaks of rebellion in the 1480s and only served to further erode what little remained of the Shogun’s authority and prestige.

The Onin War also foreshadowed several developments of the Sengoku Jidai, especially the end of the reliance on Samurai-only armies. The Samurai as a class had once monopolised war, but they were too few to man the much larger armies required in the 15th Century and later. This led to the rise of the Ashigaru, or Foot Soldiers. Originally peasant levies, the Ashigaru would evolve into something that could be recognised as professional soldiery, and they would play a key role in the wars to come, with one of their number, a man who would eventually be known as Toyotomi Hideyoshi, rising to a position of supreme power a century later.

Sources
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BF%9C%E4%BB%81%E3%81%AE%E4%B9%B1
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B6%B3%E5%88%A9%E7%BE%A9%E5%B0%9A
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B6%B3%E5%88%A9%E7%BE%A9%E8%A6%96
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashikaga_Yoshimasa
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B6%B3%E5%88%A9%E7%BE%A9%E6%94%BF

September 25, 2025
Road to Disaster

By the mid-15th Century, Japan was in trouble. That might not come as a surprise for anyone who has read any of my previous posts (or even cast a curious eye over Japanese history to this point), but even by the admittedly tumultuous standards of Shogunate rule, things were bad.

We’ve focused a lot on the Ashikaga Shogunate and its ongoing efforts to stamp permanent authority on the country, but if we zoom out for a moment, the chaos is evident in microcosm almost everywhere we look.

There are multiple, long-term reasons for this, but here are several immediate causes: First, the Shogun’s policy of insisting that shugo (provincial lords) permanently reside in Kyoto. Whilst this kept the highest rank of the nobility under close supervision, it also meant that governance of the provinces was left in the hands of deputies, and over the years, these deputies began to operate more or less independently, and not always (if ever) in the interests of their nominal lords in Kyoto, leading to centralisation on paper, but fragmentation in reality.

Secondly, the nature of Samurai families meant that there was no clear rule of succession. Whilst a lord could be succeeded by his eldest son, in reality, when a lord died, it wasn’t uncommon for any of his relatives who could muster support to stake a claim, leading to frequent outbreaks of serious violence that sometimes lasted for years, and led to even more fragments forming.

Thirdly, the Ashikaga Shoguns themselves were weak. Since the beginning of their Shogunate, they had relied almost entirely on the support and goodwill of powerful clans. The reasons for this are fairly straightforward. In Japan, as in most feudal societies, power was derived from wealth and manpower, and those were derived from the control of land.

The Ashikaga, despite being the pre-eminent family, controlled very little land of their own, and therefore had relatively few independent resources that they could call on, meaning that, when it came to everything from collecting taxes to raising armies, they relied heavily on the powerful clans around Kyoto.

This system was always unstable, but it kind of worked when there was a strong-willed, capable Shogun at the head of things. But what happened when the seat of power was occupied by a weakling, or worse, a child?

In 1441, that question was foremost in the minds of Japan’s leaders. In June of that year, the Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshinori, was assassinated. Yoshinori has arguably become a paranoid despot by this point, but he was undeniably a leader strong enough to hold the whole system together.

Ashikaga Yoshinori, arguably a tyrant, but strong enough to keep the whole thing together.

The impact of his sudden death was compounded by the fact that he had no adult heirs. Now, as I mentioned earlier, the idea that a lord would be succeeded by his eldest wasn’t enshrined in law, but the heir, generally, was expected to at least be grown up. What remained of the Shogunate was now facing not only rebellion but a succession crisis as well.

The crisis was faced by the Kanrei, or Shogun’s Deputy, Hosokawa Mochiyuki. You might remember hearing the Hosokawa name before. They were a powerful family, and although their fortunes waxed and waned, they had remained central to the Shogun’s government.

Mochiyuki put Yoshikatsu, the previous Shogun’s son, on the throne, and for a short while, at least, the initial crisis passed. Emphasis on the short , however, within a year, first Mochiyuki, and then Yoshikatsu (at just nine years old) were dead.

Hosokawa Mochiyuki, the man who held the centre after Yoshinori’s death, but then, like so many great men, died himself not long after.

Mochiyuki was replaced as kanrei by Hatakeyama Mochikuni, a member of the Hatakeyama Clan (hence the name). The Hatakeyama had been particularly harmed by the tyrannical rule of Ashikaga Yoshinori, and Mochiyuki sought to use his position to undo some of that harm. His intention was to restore certain lands and titles that had been taken from himself and his relatives, which I suppose he thought would serve to redress the balance of power.

In this, however, he was opposed by the Hosokawa Clan, who had actually done quite well under Shogun Yoshinori and saw no reason to upset the new status quo. What followed was something of a ‘Cold War’ situation in which the Hosokawa and Hatakeyama would seek influence and advantage by engaging in politicking and proxy wars.

The most visible example of this is how they involved themselves in family disputes. As I mentioned, succession was not a clear-cut thing, and when violent disputes inevitably broke out, the Hosokawa and Hatakeyama would swoop in to offer support for either side.

From 1455 to 1460, the Hatakeyama themselves fell into civil war over who would be the next leader of the clan. The Shogun threw his support behind his favoured candidate, but it did little good.

A strong Shogun might have been able to reassert control, but Yoshimasa was not that, and Shogunate support, which might have once been a decisive factor in deciding these disputes, instead became an irrelevance.

Ashikaga Yoshimasa, another weak Shogun.

One of the more serious outbreaks was in the Kanto (again), and when the Shogun ordered the Shiba Clan to dispatch an army to put it down, the Shiba instead collapsed into chaotic infighting over who would be the next head of the clan. The Shogun attempted to impose a new clan head, but this just made things worse. The Shiba were now too embroiled in their own fighting to be much use, and the rebellion in the Kanto went on unopposed.

By late 1464, then, Japan was in serious crisis. This sense of anxiety was only worsened by the fact that, at age 29 (middle-aged by the standards of the day), Yoshimasa had no children who could serve as his heir (he had two daughters, but no one thought a woman could be Shogun). In November of that year, he solved this problem by calling his brother, Yoshimi, who was a monk, back to secular life and named him his heir.

With Yoshimi safely back in Kyoto, the question of succession was resolved for now, and the Shogunate could focus on bringing the rest of the country back under control, or so they probably thought.

In November 1465, just a year later, and to the surprise of many (though hopefully not Yoshimasa), a son and heir, Yoshihisa, was born. I’ve made this point already, but a son didn’t necessarily inherit from his father, and Yoshihisa didn’t automatically become the heir.

This is where Yoshihisa’s mother, Hino Tomiko, enters the scene. She had actually been Yoshimasa’s wife for a decade at that point, and had given birth to a son in 1459, although the child had only lived for a day. Two daughters followed in 1462 and 1463, and then in 1465, Yoshihisa arrived.

Like many historical women, Tomiko has been the victim of some seriously unflattering portrayals in contemporary sources, and what followed is possibly an example of that. The Oninki, a source for the origins of what was to come, say that Tomiko was a manipulative woman who saw in her son an opportunity to take power. She secured the support of the Yamana Clan and sought to promote her son as heir, whilst she would take control as regent until he came of age (which was expected to be a long time).

Her alliance with the Yamana and her attempts to promote her son as heir over the Shogun’s brother were, for centuries, believed to have been the spark that led to the so-called Onin War.

The problem with this is that the Oninki is literally the only source that places the blame for the war on Tomiko and her scheming. That’s not to say that she didn’t play a part, and the factions that formed in the late 1460s were certainly motivated at least nominally by support for one candidate or another, but Tomiko herself seems to have become a genuinely unpopular figure by the late 15th century (fairly or not) and so the Oninki which is usually believed to have been authored around the late 15th or early 16th centuries may have just been playing on what was, by then, a popular trope.

Outside of Kyoto, the situation continued to deteriorate. In July 1466, the Shogun attempted to intervene in the Shiba clan’s succession crisis. This time, however, he encountered serious pushback, with several powerful shugo, including the Hosokawa, refusing orders to intervene, and some even stating they would fight for the Shiba against the Shogun.

In September of that year, rumours abounded that Yoshimi (still officially the heir at this point) was going to be assassinated. Exactly how complicit the Shogun was is unclear, but Yoshimi was sufficiently scared for his life to flee to the protection of the Hosokawa.

Ashikaga Yoshimi, the Shogun’s appointed heir.
_{^{Musuketeer.3 – 投稿者自身による著作物, CC 表示-継承 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24843648による}}

At this point, the Hosokawa and the Yamana cooperated to protect Yoshimi and oppose the Shogun. Facing the combined might of these two clans, the Shogun had little choice but to back down. The allies went further when they demanded that the lords who were closest to the Shogun (and were publicly blamed for his decisions) be removed. Several previously powerful supporters of the Shogun were either forced to commit suicide or sent into exile, seriously weakening the ability of the Shogun to run the government, and effectively leaving him in the hands of the Hosokawa-Yamana alliance.

This alliance of convenience quickly became inconvenient, however. It goes back to the Hatakeyama Clan’s internal dispute that I mentioned earlier. The Hosokawa and Yamana supported rival factions, and when this dispute spilt over into Kyoto, a proverbial line in the sand was drawn.

The actual combatants were made up of various members of different clans, and it gets very messy, so for ease of use, we’ll just talk about the Hosokawa and Yamana factions, but just know that’s not strictly how it went. For example, there were Hatakeyama, Shiba, and numerous other clans on both sides, which gives you some idea of how chaotic it got.

At New Year 1467, the Shogun, breaking with tradition, visited the Yamana faction for the celebrations, which was about as clear a statement of support as you can imagine short of openly declaring himself. In response, Hosokawa forces surrounded the Shogun’s palace and attempted to intimidate him into issuing orders against the Yamana faction.

This attempt failed, however, and the Shogun then issued orders that private feuds should not be settled in Kyoto. The Hosokawa faction seems to have followed these orders, but the Yamana and their supporters did not. As a result, the Hosokawa faction’s allies were forced to retreat to the Kamigoryo Shrine, on the outskirts of Kyoto.

There, on the evening of January 18th, 1467, they were attacked by allies of the Yamana faction and defeated. At the time, the Shogun intervened swiftly, and there was hope that what became called the Battle of Kamigoryo Shrine would be the end of it.

Neither side was going to let it lie, however, and throughout early spring, both sides gathered more forces in and around Kyoto, and by May, they were on a collision course.

Sources
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BF%9C%E4%BB%81%E3%81%AE%E4%B9%B1
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8A%E5%BE%A1%E9%9C%8A%E7%A5%9E%E7%A4%BE
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BE%A1%E9%9C%8A%E5%90%88%E6%88%A6
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B6%B3%E5%88%A9%E7%BE%A9%E8%A6%96
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B4%B0%E5%B7%9D%E6%8C%81%E4%B9%8B
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%95%A0%E5%B1%B1%E6%8C%81%E5%9B%BD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cnin_War
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E9%87%8E%E5%AF%8C%E5%AD%90
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hino_Tomiko
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BF%9C%E4%BB%81%E8%A8%98
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashikaga_Yoshimasa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashikaga_Yoshihisa
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B6%B3%E5%88%A9%E7%BE%A9%E6%94%BF#%E6%96%87%E6%AD%A3%E3%81%AE%E6%94%BF%E5%A4%89

September 23, 2025