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Updated: June 29, 2025
But the Nitta chief decided to await the arrival of the Nakasen-do army, and the respite thus afforded enabled the Ashikaga forces to rally. Tadayoshi reached the Hakone Pass and posted his troops on its western slopes in a position of immense natural vantage, while Takauji himself occupied the routes on the north, his van being at Takenoshita.
Takauji was succeeded in the shogunate by his eldest son, Yoshiakira, of whom so much has already been heard. The fortunes of the Southern Court were now at low ebb. During the year after Takauji's death, Kamakura contributed materially to the support of the Ashikaga cause. The Kwanto was then under the sway of Takauji's fourth son, Motouji, one of the ablest men of his time.
Further, he had never borne arms against Go-Daigo's cause, as Takauji had done, and his unswerving loyalty made him an inconvenient rival. Therefore, the Ashikaga leader took an extreme step.
As for the provinces, the main purpose kept in view by the new Government was to efface the traces of the shugo system. But in many cases civilian governors would have been powerless in the face of the conditions that had arisen under military rule, and thus the newly nominated governors included Ashikaga Takauji, governor of Musashi, Hitachi, and Shimosa.
Thus, when his patent of high constable arrived, he rejected it with disdain, saying that he had already received a patent from the shogun, Takauji, and was in no need of an Imperial grant which "could be altered as easily as turning one's hand." Yoshisada, enraged at having been duped, laid siege to Shirahata but found it almost invulnerable.
Attacked simultaneously from three directions by the armies of Norimura, Takauji, and Minamoto Tadaaki, and in spite of the death of their commandant, Hojo Tokimasu, they held out until the evening, when Hojo Nakatoki escaped under cover of darkness, escorting the titular sovereign, Kogon, and the two ex-Emperors.
Thereafter, Takauji, and his brother Tadayoshi celebrated with great pomp the ceremony of opening the new temple, and the Ashikaga leader addressed to the priest, Soseki, a document pledging his own reverence and the reverence of all his successors at Muromachi. But that part of his programme which related to the provincial branch temples was left incomplete.
Takatoki, appreciating that a crisis had now arisen in the fortunes of the Hojo, ordered Ashikaga Takauji to lead a powerful army westward. Takauji represented a junior branch of the Minamoto family. He was descended from the great Yoshiiye, and when Yoritomo rose against the Taira, in 1180, he had been immediately joined by the then Ashikaga chieftain, who was his brother-in-law.
He waited until his plans were mature, and then a strong force of Southern troops was launched against Kyoto, while a powerful army of Kwanto bushi, led by the Nitta brothers, Yoshioki and Yoshimune, as well as by Wakiya Yoshiharu, marched into Musashi and defeated Takauji on the Kotesashi moor.
The Nikki, the Hosokawa, the Doki, and the Sasaki, all followed Takauji, but the Ishido, the Uesugi, and the Momonoi adhered to Tadayoshi. At last the situation became so strained that Tadayoshi withdrew to Echizen and from thence made his way to Kamakura.
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