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But it is surprising to see him openly espouse this same Yoshimi's cause two months later. The fact was that Sozen might not choose.
The shogun attempted to limit the area of disturbance by ordering that the various rival inheritors should be left to fight their own battles, and by announcing that whoever struck the first blow in their behalf would be proclaimed a rebel. Such injunctions were powerless, however, to restrain men like Sozen.
The Yamana chief readily assented, and thus the situation received its final element, a claimant whose right rested on a deliberately violated oath. By the close of 1466, the two great protagonists, Katsumoto and Sozen, had quietly collected in Kyoto armies estimated at 160,000 and 110,000 men, respectively.
From this grievously complicated story the facts which emerge essentially and conspicuously are: first, that Yamana Sozen now occupied the position of champion to representatives of the two great families of Hatakeyama and Shiba; secondly, that the rival successors of these families looked to Hosokawa Katsumoto for aid; thirdly, that the relations between Sozen and Katsumoto had become very strained, and fourthly, that the issue at stake in every case was never more lofty than personal ambition.. The succession to the shogunate also was in dispute.
Masanaga sought succour from Hosokawa Katsumoto, and that magnate, welcoming the opportunity of avenging an old injury at the hands of the Hatakeyama, laid siege to the mansion of Tokuhon, who barely escaped with his life, his son, Yoshinari, fleeing to the fortress of Wakae, in Kawachi, whence he was presently driven by the forces of Katsumoto and Sozen, then acting in conjunction but destined afterwards to become bitter enemies.
It is necessary here to recall the murder of the shogun Yoshinori, in 1441. That crime had resulted in the fall of the Akamatsu family, the direct agent of its overthrow being the united forces of Hosokawa, Takeda, and Yamana. There were no bonds of genuine friendship between the Hosokawa chief, Katsumoto, and Yamana Sozen. Their union was primarily due to Katsumoto's ambition.
Thus Yamana Sozen, as the high constable of Harima province, held administrative authority in fourteen districts covering an area of 10,414 cho, and if to this be added the expanse of his fief, namely, 8016 cho, we get a total nearly equal to the manors of Hosokawa Katsumoto.
He desired to break the power of Hatakeyama Tokuhon, and with that ultimate object he courted the alliance of Sozen, giving his own daughter to the latter in marriage and himself adopting Sozen's son, Koretoyo. Thus, the two chiefs were subsequently found acting together against Tokuhon's attempt to substitute his son, albeit illegitimate, for his nephew, as heir to the Hatakeyama estates.
From the legal consequences of that violence, Sozen was saved by Katsumoto's intercession at Muromachi, and the alliance between the Hosokawa and the Yamana seemed stronger than ever. But Sozen did not greatly trust his crafty ally, with whose gifts of political strategy he was well acquainted.
Yoshinari displayed greatly superior skill as a strategist, and finally Yamana Sozen, who had always entertained a good opinion of him even while opposing his succession at the outset, openly espoused Yoshinari's cause. The immediate result was that Masanaga, who had been named kwanryo in 1464, had to give way to SOzen's nominee, Shiba Yoshikado, and found himself in deadly peril.
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