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Updated: May 23, 2025
They note that Daigo's treatment of his father, Uda, on the celebrated occasion of the latter's visit to the palace to intercede for Michizane, was markedly unfilial; that his Majesty believed and acted upon slanders which touched the honour of his father no less than that of his well-proved servant, and that he made no resolute effort to correct the abuses of his time, even when they had been clearly pointed out by Miyoshi Kiyotsura.
Thenceforth, the great protagonists in the Kyoto arena were the two factions of the Hosokawa house, led by Sumimoto and Takakuni, respectively; the former championing the cause of the shogun, Yoshizumi, and in alliance with the Miyoshi; the latter supporting the shogun, Yoshitane, and aided by the Ouchi.
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.
Yoritomo would probably have deferred conclusive action in such circumstances had there not reached him from Miyoshi Yasunobu in Kyoto a warning that the Taira were planning to exterminate the remnant of the Minamoto and that Yoritomo's name stood first on the black-list.
But now these allotments were illegally appropriated, so that they neither paid imposts nor furnished labourers; and while governors held worthless regions, wealthy magnates annexed great tracts of fertile land. Another abuse, prevalent according to Miyoshi Kiyotsura's testimony, was that accusations were falsely preferred by officials against their seniors.
Takauji's brother, Tadayoshi, became chief of the general staff in Kyoto, and "several Kamakura literati descendants of Oye, Nakahara, Miyoshi, and others were brought up to fill positions on the various boards, the services of some of the ablest priests of the time being enlisted in the work of drafting laws and regulations."* *Murdoch's History of Japan.
The great scholar, Miyoshi Kiyotsura, responded with ability so conspicuous that posterity has been disposed to question the justice of the charges against him in connexion with Michizane's fate. He set out by stating that, in the early times, the national sentiment had been kind and simple; the people loyal to the Throne and obedient to parents; the taxes moderate.
Miyoshi Kiyotsura says that instead of being "metropolitan tigers" to guard the palace, they were "rural wolves" to despoil the provinces. This celebrated document consisted of twelve articles and contained five thousand ideographs, so that nothing was wanting in the matter of voluminousness. The writer did not confine himself to enumerating abuses: he also suggested remedies.
The sole hope of their redress lay in Michizane; but instead of supporting that ill-starred statesman, Miyoshi had contributed to his downfall. Could a reformer with such a record be regarded as altogether sincere?
But in the presence of the violent usurpations of the Miyoshi and others, neither the sovereign nor the shogun could exercise any authority, and, as has been shown already, the Throne was constantly in pecuniarily embarassed circumstances.
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