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When Yoshinori was shogun, he himself acted as shikken of the Inchu. As for the Court officials properly so called, from the kwampaku downwards, they were mere figureheads. Holding their posts, indeed, as of old, they constituted, not administrative actors, but an audience.
But whereas, the Kamakura shikken exercised virtually autocratic authority, the shogun being a minor, the Muromachi kwanryo, nominally, at all events, was under the control of an adult shogun. In fact, the kwanryo in the Muromachi polity resembled the betto of the Man-dokoro in Yoritomo's time.
Tokiyori, younger brother of Tsunetoki, held the post of shikken at the time of the Miura tragedy. He had succeeded to the position, in 1246, on the death of Tsunetoki, and he nominally abdicated in 1256, when, in the sequel of a severe illness, he took the tonsure.
Some umbrage was given to the Miura at this time, however, owing to the favours enjoyed at the regency by the Adachi family, one of whose ladies was the mother of the two shikken, Tsunetoki and Tokiyori. The situation thus created had its issue in a plot to kill Tokiyori, and to replace him by an uncle unconnected with the Adachi.
The most important feature of the arrangement was that Hojo Tokimasa became shikken, or military regent, and thus wielded greater powers than ever powers which he quickly proceeded to abuse for revolutionary purposes. His policy was to remove from his path, by any and every measure, all potential obstacles to the consummation of his ambition.
The shikken, standing at the head of the Samurai-dokoro and the Man-dokoro simultaneously, came to wield such authority that even the appointment of the shogun depended upon his will, and though a subject of the Emperor, he administered functions far exceeding those of the Imperial Court. In the year 1225, a reorganization of the Man-dokoro was effected.
Many additions were made to the code during the fourteenth century, but they were all in the nature of amplifications or modifications. Kyoto also was busy with enactments in those times busier, indeed, than Kamakura, but with smaller practical results. His two sons had preceded him to the grave, and therefore his grandson, Tsune-toki, became shikken.
Lodging at one time with an aged widow, he learns that she has been robbed of her estate and reduced to painful poverty, a wrong which Tokiyori hastens to redress; at another time his host is an old samurai whose loyal record comes thus to the knowledge of the shikken and is subsequently recognized. But it must be confessed that these tales rest on very slender evidence.
He did so effectually, but in the disposition of the insurgents' property, the shikken, Yoshitoki, contrived to drive Wada to open rebellion. After this convenient episode, Yoshitoki supplemented his office of shikken with that of betto of the Samurai-dokoro, thus becoming supreme in military and civil affairs alike.
A zealous believer, from his youth upwards, in the doctrines of the Zen sect of Buddhism, he built a temple called Saimyo-ji among the hills of Kamakura, and retired thither to tend his health entrusting the office of shikken to a relative, Nagatoki, as his own son, Tokimune, was still of tender age but continuing himself to administer military and judicial affairs, especially when any criminal or civil case of a complicated or difficult nature occurred.
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