0:01

Hello, the episode you're about to

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multi-part series introducing an overview of

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on, and is intended

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to serve as an update and supplement to

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these original works. After

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10 years, my hope is to return to

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this approach and do it a little bit

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better given the skills that I have improved

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in the intervening years. If

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you haven't been doing so already, you should

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listen to these episodes sequentially, starting

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0:41

Hello and

0:43

welcome to

0:45

the History

0:48

of Japan

0:50

podcast, episode

0:59

517, The Center Cannot Hold. I

1:04

think it's fair to say that

1:06

on the whole the reign of

1:09

the Ashkaga shoguns, the Muromachi bakfu

1:11

as it's often called because the

1:13

palace of the Ashkaga family was

1:15

located along Muromachi Dori in Kyoto,

1:17

does not have the best reputation. Indeed,

1:20

this was so much the case that

1:22

in later years, if, say, a playwright

1:24

or a writer wanted to write something

1:26

topical about the politics or events of

1:28

the day, but was worried about drawing

1:30

the ire of censors, they

1:32

would often simply set their story in

1:35

the Ashkaga years, because it was not

1:37

at all unusual to say critical things

1:39

about those times. And

1:42

while I would say this is somewhat unfair,

1:45

there are ways in which, for example, the

1:47

patronage of the Ashkaga triggered a

1:49

renaissance in the arts and culture and shaped

1:51

much of what we think of as classical

1:53

Japanese aesthetics, it's also

1:56

understandable. Because

1:58

while the Muromachi shoguns were in the way of the Ashkaga,

2:00

it was a very interesting eventually able to win their wars

2:02

against the renegades of the southern court, just

2:04

80 years or so down the line

2:06

their government would implode in spectacular fashion

2:09

and plunge the country into all-out civil war

2:11

as a result. The

2:15

latter Ashkaga shoguns, in particular

2:17

those who came after Ashkaga

2:19

Yoshimitsu, who oversaw the final

2:21

victory in the nonbokcho wars and

2:24

the Golden Age of Ashkaga rule before dying in 1408,

2:27

would lead the country into the famous

2:29

period of civil war known as

2:31

the Sengokujirai, or era of warring

2:33

states. And those

2:36

wars would last for about a century and

2:38

a half, leading Japan into its early modern

2:40

era in the process, but also

2:42

ravaging huge chunks of the country.

2:47

Today is going to be all about the forces

2:49

that led to the collapse of Ashkaga rule in

2:51

Japan and the advent of civil war, and

2:53

we've covered a few of these already actually. As

2:57

we've already talked about in recent episodes,

2:59

in order to win his civil war,

3:02

Ashkaga Takauji was required to make a

3:04

huge number of compromises with potential followers,

3:06

offering warriors who flocked to his banner

3:09

far more power over their landholdings than

3:11

had been the case in past eras.

3:14

The greatest beneficiaries of this policy

3:17

were powerful provincial families who jumped

3:19

over to the Ashkaga cause early

3:21

and were rewarded with positions as

3:23

shugo, military governors of a province,

3:25

or in some cases more than

3:27

one. Since

3:30

we covered this last time I won't belabor the

3:32

point here too much except to say the power

3:34

accumulated by some of these families was substantial. In

3:38

part that's because under the Ashkaga

3:40

the position of shugo itself was

3:42

substantially unpowered. In

3:45

previous eras the legal authority of

3:47

the shugo was always a little

3:49

bit unclear, particularly as it related

3:52

to the kokshi, the civilian provincial

3:54

governors appointed by the imperial court

3:56

in Kyoto. There

3:59

was also some ambience. ambiguity over how

4:01

much power they held relative to the

4:03

owners of the Sho'en tax-free estates out

4:05

in the provinces. Kaga

4:07

Takauji, however, made his shugo a

4:09

great many promises in exchange for

4:12

their support. He

4:14

reaffirmed the right of the shugo to

4:16

handle matters of criminal justice in their

4:18

assigned province and to manage the mobilization

4:20

of warriors, both of which had

4:22

already been the legal right of the shugo

4:24

under the previous Kamakura government, but he

4:27

also extended his followers new powers.

4:29

We're not going to get too deep

4:32

into the legal weeds here, but essentially

4:34

he granted the shugo the ability to

4:36

enforce decisions around land rights and taxation

4:39

disputes in the provinces with force. In

4:42

the past, if a given family of warriors

4:44

disagreed with a decision about, say, how much

4:47

they were owed from a given parcel of

4:49

land, there was very little of it could be

4:51

done to stop them from just taking what they

4:53

felt they deserved. Now however,

4:55

the shugo were empowered to prevent this by

4:57

force. Another

5:00

proclamation a few years later gave

5:02

shugo the ability to collect emergency

5:04

taxes from the estates for defense

5:06

use, a power that had

5:08

been used on an emergency basis during

5:10

the Mongol invasions, but which was now

5:12

being granted permanently. These

5:15

two new legal powers of course made

5:18

it easier for shugo to manage their

5:20

provinces, but they also gave the shugo

5:22

a great deal of largely unaccountable legal

5:24

power. Ashkaga

5:26

Shugo were also able to use their

5:28

more substantial provincial power to begin taking

5:31

vassals in their own right. In

5:34

the Kamakura period, local warriors in

5:36

the given province were theoretically accountable

5:38

only to the shogun directly, except

5:40

in time of war when the shugo would

5:43

mobilize them, the only exception

5:45

were pre-existing followers of the shugo's

5:47

house. Ashkaga

5:49

Shugo however had so much legal authority

5:52

they were able to use that power

5:54

to begin vassalizing warriors in their provinces

5:56

directly. One of the things you start to notice

5:58

when you start to notice is that you have to use the history of

6:01

government is that devolving power like this can

6:03

be very dangerous, particularly when

6:05

you don't have a great way to check the

6:07

authority of those to whom you are granting this

6:09

much power, and that was

6:11

a particular issue for the Ashkaga

6:13

because a couple of families were

6:15

granted multiple Shugo positions, giving them

6:17

substantial wealth as well as large

6:19

armies at their command. For

6:22

example, one of the major warrior families of the

6:24

time, about which we'll have more to say in

6:27

a future episode, the Yamana, became

6:29

so prominent and successful by following

6:31

the Ashkaga that by the 1390s

6:34

the family head Yamana Ujikiyo was

6:36

known as Rokubun Noichido no, or

6:39

Lord One-Sixth because he was

6:41

the Shugo of 11 provinces, just over

6:43

one-sixth of the 60 provinces

6:45

of Japan. And

6:48

Ujikiyo was not the only wealthy Shugo

6:50

out there, the Hosokawa clan,

6:52

one of the other powerful families to

6:54

follow the Ashkaga had eight Shugo positions

6:56

of their own. The list

6:59

goes on, three provinces for the Akamatsu,

7:01

four for the Ouchi, six for the

7:03

Hatakeyama, four for the Shiba, and so

7:05

on. Controlling

7:07

these powerful Shugo families was an

7:10

enormous challenge for the Ashkaga regime,

7:12

particularly because the shogunate itself was

7:15

in a complicated financial position. Unlike

7:19

future shogunates, the Muromachi government didn't

7:21

parcel itself out a centrally located

7:23

chunk of land from which to

7:25

support itself. Indeed,

7:27

precisely how the finances of the

7:29

Muromachi shogunate operated is a bit

7:31

unclear even today and a subject

7:33

of ongoing study. It's

7:36

clear that by the 1400s

7:38

the Ashkaga house held about 200

7:40

different parcels of land, but their

7:43

valuation remains complicated. Often

7:45

these lands were split, so to speak, with

7:47

members of the shogun's household guard who

7:50

would manage the land on behalf of the shogun

7:52

in exchange for a chunk of the income. And

7:55

how well that worked, well, it's disputed

7:57

to say the least. We

7:59

had an information from one shouen

8:01

in Echu Province, modern Toyama

8:04

Prefecture, managed by the house guard

8:06

on behalf of the Ashkaga Shogun, noting

8:08

that the breakdown of tax revenue for the estate

8:10

was supposed to be split into fifths. One

8:14

fifth would cover the cost of administration, one

8:17

fifth would go to the Shogunel Guard family

8:19

managing the estate, and the remaining

8:21

three fifths went to the Shogun. Except

8:24

that due to famine and mismanagement, 45% of the

8:26

tax base, 340

8:29

con out of the 780 con

8:31

of silver worth of taxable goods,

8:33

was lost. Because it turns

8:35

out, being a bodyguard and being an

8:37

estate agent are not exactly what

8:39

you call an overlapping skillset. It's

8:43

also worth noting that a good chunk of

8:45

the land the Shogunate had claimed to was

8:47

in Shikoku, or in the Chugoku region of

8:49

western Honshu, in parts of Japan

8:51

that were relatively underdeveloped, and far

8:54

from the center of power in Kyoto, meaning

8:56

it was hard to ensure taxes from them

8:58

were effectively coming back where they were supposed

9:00

to. The

9:03

Muromachi Bakufu did have other ways to raise

9:05

a buck, of course. For

9:08

example, it had direct control of the city

9:10

of Kyoto, a power it had seized from

9:12

the civilian government of the emperors, and

9:15

could use it to levy taxes on the roads

9:17

going into the city as well as taxing the

9:19

major trade guilds. Asking

9:21

for a loan, so to speak,

9:23

from shogunally supported religious institutions was another

9:26

option, so too was good old fashioned

9:28

selling of jobs within the government to

9:30

the highest bidder. But

9:33

broadly, the best way the Muromachi government had

9:35

to deal with powerful Shugo was by pitting

9:38

other Shugo against them if they got uppity,

9:40

which is not what you would call a

9:42

sustainable plan for the long term. The

9:46

Shoguns of the Ashkaga family were not

9:48

powerless in this whole relationship, but I

9:51

think it's fair to call their position

9:53

institutionally weak. And what I

9:55

mean by that is that the shogunate was not well

9:57

set up to deal with a weak or ineffectual Shogun.

10:01

A charismatic one like Ashkaga Yoshimitsu

10:03

could get by based on his

10:05

ability to work his followers, so

10:07

to speak, by cleverly manipulating

10:09

them with gifts or appointments. So

10:13

too could a more ruthless Shogun, Ashkaga

10:15

Yoshinori the sixth Ashkaga Shogun,

10:18

was infamous for his ruthless suppression

10:20

of political enemies via good old-fashioned

10:23

assassination which certainly helped keep them

10:25

in check, or at least

10:27

it didn't tell one of his followers the

10:30

Shugo Akamatsu Mitsuke, became convinced he

10:32

was next on Yoshinori's hit list and bumped

10:34

a Shogun off first before the Shogun could

10:36

get him. This

10:38

was not a system though that could

10:41

handle a disinterested or ineffectual Shogun very

10:43

well, which brings us back

10:45

to that big question of systems versus

10:47

individuals driving history, and of

10:50

the story of Ashkaga Yoshimasa, the

10:52

eighth Shogun of the Ashkaga family.

10:55

Now we've covered Yoshimasa's story

10:57

in substantial detail before, episode

10:59

429 is all about him and

11:01

so I'm not going to go back over everything here,

11:03

we don't have time at any rate. But

11:06

you can't really talk about the collapse of

11:08

Ashkaga rule without talking about Yoshimasa at least

11:10

a little bit, because while

11:12

the Ashkaga system had structural problems, Yoshimasa's

11:15

rule I think is really what brought

11:17

them to the forefront. So,

11:20

Yoshimasa was, as already established,

11:22

the eighth Shogun and the son

11:24

of Ashkaga Yoshinori, Shogun number six,

11:27

the one whose murder happy ways kept him

11:29

in power until they'd suddenly and very spectacularly

11:31

failed to keep him in power. After

11:35

his father's assassination in 1441, his older brother,

11:39

Ashkaga Yoshikatsu, assumed the position

11:41

of Shogun, which was a

11:43

bit of a misnomer because Yoshikatsu was only

11:45

seven when his father died. Still,

11:48

Yoshikatsu was the elder son, and

11:51

the expectation had always been he would

11:53

take over someday, though preferably not quite

11:55

this soon. Things were already

11:57

in place to assure a smooth transition, and

11:59

the assa- fast-nuke killed his father, Akamatsu

12:01

Mitsuke, was dealt with in the classical

12:04

manner, seeking a powerful neighboring shugo on

12:06

him to go kill him. So

12:09

things were on track to get back

12:11

to normal, until three years later, when

12:13

Ashikage Yoshikatsu fell off his horse during

12:15

a routine ride and died from injuries

12:17

sustained in the fall. And

12:21

so it was that Ashikage Yoshimasa became

12:23

the Shogun at the ripe old age

12:25

of eight. He

12:27

would reign from the time of his ascension in 1449 until his retirement

12:29

in 1473, but the

12:33

son he retired in favor of was six,

12:35

so practically he continued calling the shots until

12:37

the 1490s. And

12:40

I think you could make the case

12:43

that Ashikage Yoshimasa is the single most

12:45

maligned ruler in Japanese history, certainly he'd

12:47

be towards the top of the list

12:49

by any conventional measure. What

12:52

did he do that was so bad? Well

12:54

for a start he didn't really care about government,

12:57

focusing far more of his time on

12:59

patronizing the arts than he did on, you know,

13:01

making sure that things worked. Yoshimasa's

13:04

government was also dominated by powerful

13:06

advisors, naturally enough given that it

13:08

wasn't even until the 1460s that

13:11

he was by modern standards a

13:13

legal adult. Those

13:15

advisors in turn manipulated Yoshimasa to

13:18

their own ends, not exactly

13:20

a great look if you're hoping to command the

13:22

respect of your followers as the Shogun. Chief

13:26

among the manipulators around him was, according

13:28

to the classical telling, his own wife,

13:30

Hino Tomiko, chosen for him in 1455

13:32

when she was 16, he was 15.

13:38

Tomiko does not have a great historical

13:40

reputation. Period Chronicles depict

13:42

her as both mad with power and

13:44

an absolute spendthrift dedicated to burning through

13:46

the bakufu's treasury to suit her own

13:48

whims. Of

13:51

course there's a long tradition in East

13:53

Asian historiography going back to the earliest

13:55

written accounts of Chinese history of

13:57

blaming manipulative women for the problems of the

14:00

government, and it's entirely possible Hino

14:02

Tomiko's depiction as a scheming manipulator

14:04

is another example of exactly this,

14:07

intended to protect somewhat the image of the

14:09

men of the Ashkaga line. We

14:12

can't really know either way because the sources

14:14

we have are the sources we have. In

14:18

the period Chronicles of the Time, Hino

14:20

Tomiko is depicted as the foremost of

14:23

a group of advisors around the Shogun

14:25

who dedicated themselves to manipulating Yoshimasa, not

14:28

that the Shogun fought them very hard

14:30

on this because he was more of

14:32

an artsy guy interested in calligraphy and

14:34

painting rather than taxes and administration. Still

14:38

Hino Tomiko couldn't do the one thing

14:40

that would absolutely cement her position of

14:43

authority in government, give birth to an

14:45

heir for Yoshimasa, a particularly

14:47

pressing issue because the Shogun by all

14:49

accounts hated the job, and

14:51

was desperate to retire and spend his

14:54

days merrily sipping sake and gazing wistfully

14:56

at paintings or something like that. Tomiko

15:00

was only able to conceive once in 1459, and the child died

15:02

in birth. Why

15:07

the two could not conceive is a matter

15:09

of some speculation, perhaps it was simple bad

15:11

luck or a technical issue on one part

15:13

of the other, shall we say. Of

15:16

course the rumor mill of the 1400s

15:19

provided a different explanation. Once

15:22

upon a time one of the closest

15:24

relationships in Yoshimasa's life had been with

15:26

his wet nurse, Imamairi Notsubone, who both

15:29

helped raise the young Shogun and also

15:31

had a sexual relationship with him, which

15:33

what can I say except yikes. Imamairi

15:37

Notsubone was a conduit for influence from

15:39

her birth family, the old atte clan,

15:42

over the Shogun, and convinced

15:44

Yoshimasa to intervene on their behalf a

15:46

few different times. She

15:48

also gave birth to a daughter

15:50

for Yoshimasa in 1455, a worrying

15:52

development for Hino Tomiko, given

15:54

her inability to give the Shogun an heir. Given

15:58

this complicated situation, In addition, the rumor

16:01

flying about Kyoto was that Imamari

16:03

no Tsubone had cursed Hino Tomiko

16:05

to prevent the Shogun's wife from having a

16:07

child out of jealousy, a rumor

16:10

that was taken seriously enough that

16:12

Imamari no Tsubone was eventually exiled

16:14

from the capital. Which

16:16

might seem outlandish to modern sensibilities, these

16:18

days we tend to give less credibility

16:20

to rumors about someone laying down a

16:23

curse, but such beliefs were

16:25

not uncommon during the period. Particularly

16:27

for women, the use of what might be called

16:30

magic to enact revenge was something of a trope.

16:33

If nothing else, I think it's fair

16:36

to say this is indicative of how

16:38

much drama there was around Yoshimasa producing

16:40

an heir, and of course Yoshimasa himself

16:42

wasn't helping things with his well-known desperate

16:44

desire to give up the position of

16:46

Shogun. Yoshimasa

16:49

eventually got so desperate that he named his

16:51

own brother as his heir rather than waiting

16:53

for a son. That

16:56

brother known to history as Ashkaga Yoshimi

16:58

was three years the Shogun's junior, and

17:00

had settled on a comfortable life as a

17:03

Rinzai sect Zen monk, that sect of Buddhism

17:05

being one that was heavily patronized by the

17:07

Shoguns and the other elites of Kyoto. It

17:11

was thus a very fashionable thing, for lack

17:13

of a better term, for a spare heir

17:15

to head over to a local Zen temple

17:17

to take up the monastic life. However

17:20

Yoshimasa was able to convince his brother

17:22

Yoshimi to leave monastic life behind and

17:25

rejoin the wild world of politics, coming

17:27

back to the Hanano Golsho, the palace

17:29

of flowers, the center of

17:32

Ashkaga government along Muromachi Dori and

17:34

Kyoto, as his deputy and

17:36

heir presumptive. Which

17:39

okay, succession crisis handled, it's all

17:41

good, except if you're Hino Tomiko,

17:43

in which case Yoshimi's nomination

17:45

as heir meant staring down the barrel

17:47

of losing basically all your influence at

17:49

court. After all,

17:51

one of the main ways the wife of

17:54

the Shogun could be a power politically speaking

17:56

was by producing the next Shogun. If

17:58

Hino Tomiko was cut out of the that process, it

18:00

was not going to go great for her

18:02

politically. Fortunately

18:05

for Tomiko, in 1465 she was finally

18:08

able to conceive a son for Yoshimasa,

18:10

or if you prefer the more

18:12

scandalous version, she had an affair and produced a

18:14

child out of wedlock that she passed off as

18:16

an heir of Yoshimasa's. That

18:19

child is known as Ashkaga Yoshihisa in

18:21

his appearance through a real wrench in

18:23

the whole succession issue. As

18:26

Yoshimasa, regardless of scandalous rumors, believed

18:28

the kid was his, and was

18:31

increasingly tempted to name the boy as his

18:33

heir and break his promise to his brother.

18:38

Yoshimasa vacillated about what to do with

18:40

the succession issue, and as

18:42

he did the powerful Shugo families of

18:44

the Ashkaga began to insert themselves into

18:46

this little crisis. You

18:49

see the Shugo too had opinions about who

18:51

should take over as the next shogun. For

18:54

example the head of the powerful

18:57

Hosokawa family Hosokawa Katsumoto had

18:59

a personal relationship with Ashkaga Yoshimi,

19:02

while his long time rival in the Yamana

19:04

clan Yamana souls in was politically

19:06

allied to Hino Tomiko's family. Add

19:10

in some general instability, two of the

19:12

major Shugo families, the Shiba and Hatakeyama,

19:14

were in the midst of family civil

19:17

wars where both sides were hoping to

19:19

draw in supporters from the outside to

19:21

bolster their cause, and I bet you can guess

19:23

where this is all going. Long

19:26

story short, rival camps of pro-Yoshimi and

19:28

pro-Yoshihisa groups began to gather forces in

19:31

Kyoto to protect their interests, as they

19:33

put it. Some friction

19:35

began to emerge between the rival armed camps

19:37

in the capital, because that's what tends to

19:39

happen when you insert weapons into politics, and

19:42

long story short, by 1467, Kyoto itself was

19:44

once again in flames. The

19:50

resulting conflict, known as the Onan War

19:52

because of the era name in use

19:54

at the time, wasn't even particularly conclusive.

19:57

Yoshimasa himself would eventually finally decide

19:59

on his son and abdicate

20:02

in his favor in 1473, but Yoshihisa

20:04

was still a kid, his father

20:07

continued to call the shots. What's

20:09

more, Yoshihisa actually died tragically young

20:13

in 1489 when he was 24, being

20:15

wounded in fighting just outside Kyoto.

20:18

Yoshihisa was Yoshimasa's only son,

20:20

and so the succession ended

20:22

up passing to his nephew,

20:24

Ashkaga Yoshitane, the son of

20:26

Ashkaga Yoshimi, so Yoshimi's

20:28

branch of the family still ended up in

20:30

charge of the Muromachi government anyway, or what

20:33

was left of it. In

20:36

the shorter term, the actual fighting of

20:38

the Onan war just kind of petered

20:40

out without any real resolution one way

20:42

or another. Yamana

20:45

Solzen and Hosokawa Katsumoto became the

20:47

de facto leaders of the rival

20:49

camps, and both men actually died

20:51

of old age over the course of the war,

20:53

both, incidentally, in

20:55

1473. Three years

20:58

later, their heirs would decide that continuing

21:00

the war served no purpose and would

21:02

just… stop. The

21:05

biggest legacy of the Onan war was

21:07

the absolute devastation of Kyoto. Hard

21:09

numbers are difficult to come by,

21:11

but pretty much any accounting shows

21:13

the imperial capital suffering mightily after

21:16

being the epicenter of fighting for

21:18

ten consecutive years. The

21:21

fighting of the Onan war, primarily

21:23

urban conflicts over the capital where

21:25

previous battles had largely taken place

21:27

on open fields, saw

21:29

the rise of a new kind of

21:31

soldier, the professional mercenary foot soldier known

21:33

as the Ashigaru, whose approach to

21:36

fighting in large bunched formations on foot

21:38

was far better suited to the tight confines

21:40

of a city than old style mounted warriors

21:43

were. Struggles between Ashigaru

21:45

armies fighting city block to city block

21:47

hollowed out huge parts of the imperial

21:49

capital and forced its residents to flee

21:52

in large numbers. The

21:55

Shugo of Japan also abandoned the capital

21:57

in large numbers after the Onan war.

22:00

though some would eventually return. Battle

22:03

in the heart of the shogun's capital

22:05

proved the Muromachi government wasn't really in

22:07

command of the country anymore, and so

22:09

the Shugo themselves largely left the capital

22:12

behind to return to the provinces

22:14

under their command, there to muster

22:16

their own forces as central order broke down.

22:20

And this is why the Onan War

22:22

also marks the beginning of one of

22:24

the most famous, or infamous, decades of

22:26

Japanese history, the Sengokujidai, or

22:28

era of warring states, a

22:31

name derived from where else but Chinese

22:33

history where another era of warring states

22:35

came before unification of the country under

22:38

the rulership of the First Emperor of China.

22:43

Japan's era of warring states would last

22:45

a century and a half, inaugurated by

22:47

the Onan War, which proved the Ashkaga

22:49

shoguns could no longer govern the land

22:51

they claimed to rule. But

22:54

the Ashkaga shoguns themselves didn't actually

22:56

go anywhere, the shogunate continued to

22:58

operate for another hundred years after

23:00

the Onan War. Indeed

23:03

Ashkaga Yoshimasa, the man whose failures as

23:05

a leader helped enable the war, lived

23:08

comfortably for the last chunk of his life

23:10

in a retirement villa in Higashiyama on the

23:12

eastern edge of Kyoto, converted

23:14

into a temple after his death in

23:17

1390 and known today as Gintatugi. And

23:21

while Yoshimasa wasn't known for his political

23:24

acumen, his time at Higashiyama is hugely

23:26

important for the history of arts and

23:28

culture in Japan, because he spent so

23:30

much money patronizing those subjects, his tastes

23:32

came to define a lot of thinking

23:34

about aesthetics in general. See episode

23:37

429 for more on that. But

23:41

a reputation as a patron of the

23:43

arts doesn't really overshadow a reputation for

23:45

steering the whole country into crisis, even

23:47

if as we've seen it wasn't entirely

23:49

his fault. Yoshimasa was

23:51

decidedly not the right person in the right

23:53

place at the right time. Whether

23:56

someone else could have done a better job in

23:58

his shoes is I think open to consideration. iteration,

24:01

but given the structural weaknesses in the Muromachi regime

24:03

we've talked about, I have to say it's my

24:05

opinion that some kind of collapse was going to

24:07

happen no matter what. Now

24:10

the next few episodes are going to be

24:13

about the Sengoku Civil Wars themselves, but I

24:15

want to spend the rest of this episode

24:17

focusing on why the civil wars which were

24:19

ushered in by the collapse of Ashkaga rule

24:21

matter so much to our narrative of Japanese

24:23

history. And really

24:26

they matter a lot, because the country is going

24:28

to look very different on the other side of

24:30

this conflict from what came before. Probably

24:33

the single most important change ushered in

24:35

by the civil wars is the destruction

24:37

of much of the existing economic order

24:39

of the previous eras, most

24:42

notably the elimination of the show-end

24:44

system we introduced so long ago.

24:48

As a reminder, these tax-free estates,

24:50

used to support powerful families or

24:52

institutions and scattered around the country,

24:55

were central to the political and economic

24:57

order of both classical and medieval Japan

24:59

because of the value they offered to

25:01

their holders. But

25:03

they were also remote, very few estate

25:05

owners actually lived on their estates because

25:08

doing so meant leaving behind life in

25:10

Kyoto and the surrounding provinces, which

25:12

were far and away the most developed part of the

25:14

country. Thus most

25:17

show-end owners relied on local managers who could

25:19

be hired to run things in the estate

25:21

in exchange for a cut of the profits,

25:23

but by the late Ashkaga years this system

25:25

was starting to break down. Part

25:29

of the issue was of course the increasing

25:31

power of samurai in the provinces, first the

25:33

Jito Stewards who were supposed to maintain order

25:36

in the estates but who had no real

25:38

checks on their power, and then

25:40

the Shugo of each province with the sheer

25:42

power given to them by the Ashkaga Shoguns.

25:46

Collectively provincial samurai began to demand ever

25:48

increasing amounts of the proceeds from the

25:51

shō'en cutting into the margins of

25:53

shō'en holders in the process. And

25:56

then there were the actual residents of the estates,

25:58

farmers who set up shop there to

26:00

pay taxes, in essence, into the owner of

26:02

the show-in for the privilege of doing so.

26:05

For understandable reasons, these show-in tenants were

26:07

not terribly keen to pay their taxes

26:09

and generally tried to dodge them as

26:11

often as possible, relying on

26:14

a huge variety of methods to do

26:16

this, from setting up secret fields tax

26:18

assessors didn't know about to making it

26:20

hard to update the official documentation of

26:22

show-in fields used to assess taxes, to

26:25

trying to boost the productivity of their farms

26:27

which were assessed for taxes based on the

26:30

area, not productivity, so bigger harvests didn't change

26:32

your tax levels if the amount of land

26:34

you farmed didn't change. And

26:37

then of course there was good old fashioned

26:39

complaining. We have records

26:42

from throughout the medieval period of show-in

26:44

proprietors petitioning for a decrease in taxes

26:46

and in some cases threatening the equivalent

26:48

of a strike. For

26:51

example, 46 Myôlshu, or village headman

26:53

from the Yanôshouen in Harima province,

26:56

now in Yogo Prefecture, signed

26:58

their names in 1367 to a document

27:01

addressed to the show-in owner, Toji, a

27:03

temple in Kyoto, demanding a

27:05

decrease in their tax assessment and threatening to

27:07

stop all farm work and allow the land

27:09

to return to an uncultivated state if they

27:11

didn't get it. They

27:14

were successful by the way, the manager

27:16

hired by Toji to handle Yanôs estate

27:18

threatened to arrest 35 of

27:20

the signatories, but all that did was

27:22

get more people to protest and Toji's

27:25

leadership eventually had to step in, fire

27:27

the manager, and lower the tax demand.

27:31

Some villages within show-in took things

27:33

further and began to organize themselves

27:36

independently of their so-called owners, forming

27:39

what could loosely be called unions. For

27:41

example in 1298 the villagers

27:43

of Tsuda and Okushima in Oni

27:46

province, today's Shiga Prefecture on

27:48

the shores of Lake Biwa, signed

27:50

an independent agreement around fishing rights on

27:52

the lake, each village agreeing to certain

27:55

rules around shared fishing rights and

27:57

stipulating that violators would be exiled from the

27:59

show. a power normally reserved

28:01

with a shō'in owner or their manager.

28:06

Sometimes angry villagers even took their protests to

28:08

the owners of a shō'in, for example

28:10

the villagers of Kamikuse shō'in, also

28:12

owned by Toji, owed their

28:15

masters 230 koku of rice in

28:17

a year. But they

28:19

also weren't physically very far from Toji just

28:21

a few kilometers, and so regularly marched on

28:23

the temple over the course of the 1400s

28:26

to demand tax decreases. Between

28:30

1400 and 1440 the villagers won

28:32

tax decreases through this method no

28:34

less than ten times, in

28:37

one case by as much as 60 koku,

28:39

so slightly over a quarter of their yearly

28:41

taxes. And

28:43

sometimes of course tax protests could

28:45

turn violent and large. In

28:48

1441 a massive multi-province protest sprang

28:50

up across shō'in and omii, yamashiro

28:53

and yamato province, today broadly shiga,

28:55

kyoto, and nara perfectures, led by

28:57

both peasants and members of the

28:59

porters guild responsible for transporting their

29:02

shō'in taxes to kyoto. Both

29:04

groups were complaining they were not being left enough

29:06

to live off of. Pest

29:09

and protest even made it as far as

29:11

kyoto itself at a few different points, with

29:13

the peasants storming the imperial capital to demand

29:15

what were called toksei, essentially edicts

29:18

from the shogunate cancelling debts and owed

29:20

taxes. All

29:23

told by the mid 1400s the ability

29:25

of shō'in holders to control peasants and

29:27

their shō'in was clearly breaking down, and

29:29

once the authority of the central government folded, well

29:31

that was basically the end of it. After

29:35

all, imagine you're a noble in kyoto

29:37

who depends on the shō'in in say

29:39

shikoku for your income. You're

29:41

not there, how could you be? Going

29:43

there would require leaving the place where your noble

29:45

status counts for the most. You're

29:48

reliant on the local manager and the legal authority

29:50

your shō'in grant gives you to keep the money

29:52

flowing. But now the

29:54

government that's supposed to enforce those rights is

29:56

in shambles and there's nothing preventing say your

29:58

manager from just refusing to affords you anything.

30:02

Even if you have an honest manager, those

30:04

physical goods that you're paid with have to

30:06

cross a country that's broken down into open

30:08

civil war. What I'm

30:10

saying is, maybe it's time to start thinking

30:12

about a side hustle, unfortunately Uber driving is

30:14

still a few centuries down the line. The

30:19

show-in system however wasn't the only victim of

30:21

the outbreak of civil war. Interestingly,

30:23

the very Shugo whose ambitions often

30:25

drove the breakdown of central authority

30:27

were victimized by its collapse. After

30:31

all, the position of Shugo for one

30:33

of Japan's 60 provinces was granted by

30:35

the Shogun. It was only

30:37

because of the Ashkaga in far off Kyoto that

30:40

you had the position if you had it at

30:42

all. But I mean if

30:44

we're just not listening to the Shogun anymore, well

30:46

all of a sudden that Shugo title is going

30:48

to look a bit more tenuous. Over

30:50

the course of the Ashkaga years, many Shugo

30:52

had taken it upon themselves to make use

30:55

of the greater degree of control they'd been

30:57

handed over their provinces to secure more power

30:59

for themselves. For example,

31:01

many Shugo, as we talked about earlier

31:03

in this episode, used their expanded tax

31:06

rights to negotiate vassalage contracts with warriors

31:08

living in their provinces, basically

31:10

bribing local samurai to follow their

31:12

lead. They also began

31:15

to construct their own provincial administrations,

31:17

supplanting the existing ones of the

31:19

civilian governors appointed by Kyoto, which

31:22

was all well and good and quite useful unless

31:24

you say had an ambitious vassal who was

31:26

willing to step in and replace you. All

31:29

they had to do was take control of

31:31

the provincial administration themselves or bribe your followers

31:33

with a better offer to jump ship. And

31:37

indeed more than a few Shugo families

31:39

which dominated politics in the Ashkaga years

31:41

would find their power bases collapsing in

31:44

the provinces. We'll

31:46

look at this more in the next two

31:48

episodes, but many of the big families of

31:50

the Ashkaga years would be largely wiped out

31:52

over the course of the conflict, undone by

31:54

the fighting they helped start. Like

31:57

the show-in system, they were propped into place

31:59

by institution the Civil War undercut,

32:02

and so didn't survive the collapse of

32:04

those institutions. Now,

32:07

Ashkaga rule was not peaceful before

32:09

1467, it was very dysfunctional

32:11

as we've seen, and did

32:13

have its own smattering of wars scattered throughout.

32:16

But the age of Civil War is going to be

32:18

a very different beast, and we'll spend the next couple

32:21

of episodes looking at what makes it so distinctive. But

32:23

that is a conversation for another time.

32:26

That's all for this week, thank you very much for

32:28

listening. This show

32:30

is a part of the Facing Backward Podcast

32:33

Network. You can find out more about this

32:35

show and our other shows at facingbackward.com, and

32:37

you can support the network at patreon.com/Facing Backward.

32:40

Special thanks to those who have given it our shout out

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tier. Yann Leonard, Steven

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Spinrad, Jared Stevens, Jeffrey Dwork,

33:00

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Finkbiner, and anonymous Anna's

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hummingbird, Mark Tsai, Gil,

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Leslie Ikuta, Trash Taste

33:12

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Reis, Inoue Enrios

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Ghostbusters, nihongo kaizen.com, Shimao

33:19

Toshio's History of Yapanese Podcast, A

33:21

House is a Perfectly Cromulent Mascot,

33:23

The Fish I Catch Are Road

33:25

Scholars Compared to Samuel Alito, Schmuck,

33:28

and Everything Changed When the Fire Nation Attacked.

33:31

Also to new patron Daniel for donating

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to support the history of Japan Patreon.

33:36

Thanks Again for listening and I'll see you next

33:39

time for the start of our talk on the

33:41

Age of Civil War.