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There can be no doubt, that in choosing Yedo for his capital, Ieyasu was largely guided by the example of Yoritomo and by the experience of the Ashikaga. Kamakura had been a success as signal as Muromachi had been a failure. In the former, Ieyasu had much to imitate; in the latter, much to avoid.
These septs, finding themselves so powerful, became unmanageable. Then the division of the Ashikaga into the Muromachi magnates and the Kamakura chiefs brought two sets of rulers upon the same stage, and naturally intrigue and distrust were born, so that, in the end, Muromachi was shaken by Hosokawa, and Kamakura was overthrown by Uesugi.
In fact, the shogun was actually under guard of the Hosokawa troops, who, being encamped on the east and north of Muromachi, received the name of the Eastern Army; the Yamana forces, which were massed on the west and south, being distinguished as the Western Army.
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.
It has been shown above that in the Muromachi era the priests of Buddha were the channels through which the literature and the philosophy of Sung reached Japan, and it will presently be seen that the particular priests who imported and interpreted this culture were those of the Zen sect.
With its reduction, preceded as it had been by the annihilation of the Yamana, the fortunes of the Southern Court had become hopeless, and overtures carried from Kyoto by one of the most distinguished of the Muromachi generals, Ouchi Yoshihiro, were accepted. Go-Komatsu then occupied the Northern throne. He had succeeded Go-Enyu, in 1382, and the latter, had succeeded Go-Kogon, in 1371.
The decline of the Muromachi Bakufu's authority encouraged the monks as well as the samurai to become a law to themselves. Incidental references have already been made to this subject, but the religious commotions of the Sengoku period invite special attention. Religious doctrine was not so much concerned in this feud as rivalry. Shinran had been educated in the Tendai tenets at Enryaku-ji.
Forced by riotous mobs, or constrained by his own needs, the Muromachi shogun issued tokusei edicts again and again, incurring the hot indignation of the creditor class and disturbing the whole economic basis of society. Yoshimasa was conspicuously reckless; he put the tokusei system into force thirteen times.
Chokei, persisted in his design of a general campaign against Kyoto, a crushing defeat must be the outcome, and since the sovereign would not pay heed to his remonstrances, he concluded that the only way to arrest the mad enterprise was his own defection, which would weaken the South too much to permit offensive action. Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was then shogun at Muromachi.
Only a little while after the banishment of Kane-uji, a traveling merchant, seeking to sell his wares, visited the house of the exiled prince at Hitachi. And being asked by the Hangwan where he lived, the merchant made answer, saying: "I live in Kyoto, in the street called Muromachi, and my name is Goto Sayemon.
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