United States or Greenland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
From this time forward the confusion grows worse confounded. The Miyoshi of Awa are found in co-operation with Yanamoto Kataharu espousing the cause of the shogun's younger brother, Yoshikore, and of Harumoto, a son of Hosokawa Sumimoto. We see this combination expelling Yoshiharu and Takakuni from Kyoto, and we see the fugitives vainly essaying to reverse the situation.
From the legal consequences of that violence, Sozen was saved by Katsumoto's intercession at Muromachi, and the alliance between the Hosokawa and the Yamana seemed stronger than ever. But Sozen did not greatly trust his crafty ally, with whose gifts of political strategy he was well acquainted.
Motochika, believing that Hosokawa's ultimate intention was to elevate Sumimoto to the shogunate, in which event the latter's guardian, Nagateru, would obtain a large access of power, compassed the murder of Hosokawa, the kwanryo, and proclaimed Sumiyuki head of the Hosokawa house.
Thereupon Miyoshi Nagateru moved up from Shikoku at the head of a strong army, and, after a fierce conflict, Motochika and Sumiyuki were killed, and Sumimoto, then in his eleventh year, became chief of the Hosokawa family, receiving also the office of kwanryo. The Motochika faction, however, though defeated, were not destroyed.
Every great conflict throughout the era was marked by similar features. It is a weary record of broken promises, violated allegiances, and family feuds. If the Hatakeyama, the Hosokawa, and the Miyoshi set their own interests above those of the shogun, the Ashikaga, in turn, sacrificed the interests of the Throne on the altar of their own ambition. A river cannot be purer than its source.
The Daikagu-ji line disappears altogether from view, and the throne is occupied solely by representatives of the Jimyo-in. There can be very little doubt that the former was the legitimate branch; but fortune was against it. Yoshimochi, son of Yoshimitsu, became shogun at the age of nine, and the administration was conducted by Hosokawa Mitsumoto, Shiba Yoshishige, and Hatakeyama Mitsuiye.
The first is the Court in Kyoto and the Muromachi Bakufu, where the Hosokawa, the Miyoshi, and the Matsunaga deluged the streets with blood and reduced the city to ashes. The second is the Hojo of Odawara, who compassed the destruction of the kubo at Koga and of the two original Uesugi families.
An interesting illustration of the administrative canons of the time is afforded in the advice said to have been given by Hosokawa Tadaoki when consulted by Hidetada. "There is an old proverb," Tadaoki replied, "that if a round lid be put on a square vessel, those within will have ease; but if a square lid be used to cover a square vessel, there will result a feeling of distress."
This was not merely a great accession of numerical strength, it also opened the road to the north where the Hatakeyama estates lay, and thus the Eastern Army found a solution of the problem which dominated the situation at Kyoto the problem of provisions. The scale of success now swung in the direction of Hosokawa and his allies.
Muromachi made a futile attempt to levy contributions from the daimyo, and the kwanryo, Hosokawa Masamoto, is recorded to have brusquely said, in effect, that the country could be administered without crowning any sovereign.
Word Of The Day