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The matter was not mooted during Takauji's lifetime, but when, on his demise, the comparatively incompetent Yoshiakira came into power at Muromachi, certain military magnates of the eastern provinces urged the Kamakura kwanryo, Motouji, to usurp his brother's position. Motouji, essentially as loyal as he was astute, spurned the proposition. But it was not so with his son and successor, Ujimitsu.
The Hatakeyama chief developed ambitions of his own, and, on returning to the Kwanto, was crushed by Motouji and deprived of his office of shitsuji, that post being given again to Uesugi Noriaki, "who had been in exile since the death of Tadayoshi in 1352.
Takauji was succeeded in the shogunate by his eldest son, Yoshiakira, of whom so much has already been heard. The fortunes of the Southern Court were now at low ebb. During the year after Takauji's death, Kamakura contributed materially to the support of the Ashikaga cause. The Kwanto was then under the sway of Takauji's fourth son, Motouji, one of the ablest men of his time.
Yoshiuji .... .... The title "kwanryo," as already stated, signifies "governor-general," and the region governed was the eight provinces of the Kwanto, together with Izu and Kai. The first of the Ashikaga kwanryo, Motouji, was Takauji's youngest son, and the following eight names on the above list were direct descendants.
In Takauji's time, his second son, Motouji, was appointed to this office, and it was thenceforth inherited for some generations, the Uesugi family furnishing a shitsuji. Ultimately the Kamakura kwanryo became a powerful military satrap, hostile to the Muromachi shogun. The holder of the office then received the title of kubo, and the hitherto shitsuji became kwanryo.
He had just succeeded in quelling the defection of the Nitta family, and his military power was so great that his captains conceived the ambition of marching to Kyoto and supplanting Yoshiakira by Motouji. But the latter, instead of adopting this disloyal counsel, despatched a large army under Hatakeyama Kunikiyo to attack the Southern Court.
In August, Yoshiakira was strong enough to countermarch against the capital and to drive out Tadafuyu. Moreover, Takauji himself now found it safe to leave the Kwanto. Placing his son Motouji in charge at Kamakura, he returned to Kyoto accompanying the Emperor Go-Kogon, and thenceforth during nearly two years the supremacy of the North was practically undisputed.
The Ashikaga chief, whose trust in Moronao was not at all shaken by these events, summoned from Kamakura his eldest son, Yoshiakira, and entrusted to him the functions hitherto discharged by his uncle, Tadayoshi, replacing him in Kamakura by a younger son, Motouji. Yoshiakira was not Takauji's eldest son; he was his eldest legitimate son.
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