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Updated: June 25, 2025
In it he wrote: 'An officer in command of an army should respect the sovereign; treat his subordinates with clemency but decision; leave his fate in heaven's hands, and not blame others. Yoshisada is open to criticism for not pursuing the Ashikaga when they fled westward from Kyoto; yet it must be remembered that he had no firm base, being hurried from one quarter to another.
During ten years he remained in seclusion. But, in 1389, a journey made by the shogun to Miya-jima revealed so many evidences of Yoriyuki's loyalty that he was invited to return to Kyoto, and with his assistance the organization of the Ashikaga forces at Muromachi was brought to a high state of efficiency, partly because the astute Yoriyuki foresaw trouble with the Yamana family, which was then supreme in no less than ten provinces, or nearly one-sixth of all Japan.
It has already been shown that in spite of the disorder and unrest which marked the military era, that era saw the birth of a great art movement under the Ashikaga shogun, Yoshimasa. It has now to be noted that this movement was rapidly developed under the Taiko. "The latter it was whose practical genius did most to popularize art.
From all quarters the malcontent bushi flocked to his flag. A serious obstacle to the achievement of the Ashikaga chief's purpose was Nitta Yoshisada. Both men were of the Minamoto family, but Yoshisada's kinship was the closer and his connexion with the Hojo had always been less intimate.
But Yoshiaki and Yoshisuke turned in their tracks and delivered a rear attack which scattered the besiegers. This success, however, proved only temporary. The Ashikaga leader's deep resentment against Yoshisada inspired a supreme effort to crush him, and the Kana-ga-saki fortress was soon invested by an overwhelming force on sea and on shore. Famine necessitated surrender.
There is natural sequence, therefore, in the facts that these same priests excelled in calligraphy and introduced Japan to the pictorial art of the immortal Sung painters. There were in China, at the time of the Ashikaga, two schools of painters: a Northern and a Southern. The term is misleading, for the distinction was really not one of geography but one of method.
That official patronage was extended to these great men is proved by the fact that Mitsunobu was named president of the E-dokoro, or Court Academy of Painting; and Motonobu received the priestly rank of hogen. Industries in general suffered from the continual wars of the Ashikaga epoch, but the art of forging swords flourished beyond all precedent.
An animal with too ponderous a tail cannot wag it, and a stick too heavy at one end is apt to break. The Ashikaga angled with such valuable bait that they ultimately lost both fish and bait. During the thirteen generations of their sway there was no respite from struggle between family and family or between chief and vassal." Takauji's record plainly shows that deception was one of his weapons.
It is a temple garden many centuries old; and the eyes of the initiated may read in the miniature landscape, in the grouping of shrubs and rocks, in the sudden glimpses of water, and in the bare pebbly beaches, a whole system of philosophic and religious thought worked out by the patient priests of the Ashikaga period, just as the Gothic masons wrote their version of the Bible history in the architecture of their cathedrals.
For more than two centuries the Ashikaga lorded it over Japan, as the Hojo had done before them, and the mikados were tools in their strong hands. Then arose a man who overthrew this powerful clan. This man, Nobunaga by name, was a descendant of Kiyomori, the great leader of the Taira clan, his direct ancestor being one of the few who escaped from the great Minamoto massacre.
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