Ashikaga shogunate

From 1336 to 1573 Japan's military government was in the hands of the Ashikaga family, whose shoguns ruled from Kyoto alongside, and largely over, the imperial court. Founded by Ashikaga Takauji, the shogunate presided over a brilliant flowering of Zen-inspired culture, but it never commanded the military resources of the regimes before and after it, and from the late fifteenth century real power drained away to regional lords. The era is also called the Muromachi period, after the Kyoto street where the third shogun built his residence.

In 1333 Emperor Go-Daigo called on warriors to overthrow the Hōjō rulers of the Kamakura shogunate. Takauji, sent to crush the rising, changed sides, and Kamakura fell. Go-Daigo's attempt to restore direct imperial rule, the Kenmu Restoration, soon disappointed the warriors who had backed it, and in 1336 Takauji set up his own military government in Kyoto. He was formally appointed shogun in 1338.

When Go-Daigo refused to cooperate, Takauji placed a rival prince on the throne as Emperor Kōmyō, and Go-Daigo withdrew to Yoshino. For 56 years Japan had two imperial courts, the Ashikaga-backed Northern Court in Kyoto and the Southern Court at Yoshino. The north generally had the upper hand, although southern forces occasionally seized the capital. The split ended in 1392 under the third shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, and the Northern line kept the throne thereafter.

Takauji had little land of his own, so Ashikaga power rested on the loyalty of provincial military governors, the shugo, who gradually took over the judicial and tax powers of the old imperial governors. Yoshimitsu, who ruled from 1368 to 1394, held these lords in balance and brought shogunal authority to its peak, building his "Flower Palace" on Muromachi Street in 1379 and the Golden Pavilion, Kinkaku-ji, in 1397. Seeking help against the wokou pirates and access to trade, he opened relations with the Ming dynasty and in 1401 styled himself, in a letter to the Chinese emperor, as its subject, the "King of Japan". Japanese swords, sulphur, copper and fans were exchanged for Chinese silk, porcelain and bronze coins, and there was also trade with Joseon Korea through Tsushima.

Zen monasteries were centres of learning and taste, carrying Chinese painting styles into Japan. The tea ceremony moved into small, quiet rooms and took on a meditative character, flower arrangement became an art, and Noh theatre grew from earlier performance traditions after Yoshimitsu began supporting the actors Kan'ami and Zeami in 1374. Later, Ashikaga Yoshimasa built the Silver Pavilion, Ginkaku-ji, in 1489.

After Yoshimitsu, succession disputes and early deaths weakened the shoguns, and by the death of Ashikaga Yoshinori in 1441 their authority had almost vanished. The Ōnin War of 1467 to 1477 broke central control altogether and opened the Sengoku period of warring provincial lords. The shogunate became little more than a local power in the capital. Portuguese traders reached Tanegashima in 1543 and introduced firearms, which made provincial wars deadlier.

After Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru was assassinated in 1565, the warlord Oda Nobunaga installed Yoshiteru's brother Yoshiaki as the fifteenth shogun. Yoshiaki tried to act independently, and in 1573 Nobunaga drove him from Kyoto, ending the shogunate. A branch of the family survived as the lords of the Kitsuregawa domain.

Our 1400 map shows the Ashikaga shogunate across Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu at the time of Yoshimitsu, with Ainu lands to the north.