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Hosokawa Kiyouji, returning to his native province, Awa, essayed to bring the whole of Shikoku into allegiance to the Southern Court, but was signally worsted by his cousin, Hosokawa Yoriyuki afterwards very famous, and scarcely a month had elapsed before Yoshiakira was back in the capital.
Yoshiakira died in the same year, 1367. Previously to this event, a new trouble had occurred in the Southern Court. The Emperor Go-Murakami signified his desire to abdicate, and thereupon the Court nobles who had followed the three ex-Emperors into the Southern lines in 1352 fell into two cliques, each advocating the nomination of a different successor.
A desperate struggle ensued, and the Ko generals had to retreat to Harima, where they joined with Takauji, the latter having abandoned his expedition to Kyushu. Meanwhile, Yoshiakira, Takauji's eldest son, had escaped from Kyoto and entered his father's camp.
He had just succeeded in quelling the defection of the Nitta family, and his military power was so great that his captains conceived the ambition of marching to Kyoto and supplanting Yoshiakira by Motouji. But the latter, instead of adopting this disloyal counsel, despatched a large army under Hatakeyama Kunikiyo to attack the Southern Court.
*Murdoch's History of Japan. THE Ashikaga family was divided into two main branches, both descended from Takauji. The representatives of one, the senior, branch had their headquarters at Muromachi in Kyoto and held the office of shogun as a hereditary right. There were fifteen generations: Name Born Succeeded Abdicated Died Takauji 1305 1338 .... 1358 Yoshiakira 1330 1358 1367 1368
The Southern generals carried everything before them at the outset, and Yoshiakira had to fly to Omi. But, after a brief period of quiet, the Northern troops rallied and expelled the Southern. Yoshiakira found himself again supreme. A strange dilemma presented itself, however. There was no sovereign.
Yoshiakira, guarding the young sovereign, Go-Kogon, effected his escape, and the Southern Emperor, Go-Murakami, issued a decree depriving of their official ranks and possessions all Court nobles who had assisted at the ceremony of the fugitive monarch's coronation. But the supremacy of the South did not last long.
The most prominent figures in the closing chapter of the great dynastic struggle are Hosokawa Yoriyuki and Yamana Mitsuyuki. When the second Ashikaga shogun, Yoshiakira, recognized that his days were numbered, he summoned his trusted councillor, Hosokawa Yoriyuki, and his son Yoshimitsu, and said to the latter, "I give you a father," and to the former, "I give you a son."
The retired sovereigns, Kogon, Komyo, and Suko, had all been carried to a place well within the Southern lines, and even the false regalia were not available. Nevertheless, Yoshiakira, regardless of forms, raised to the throne the younger brother of Suko, who is known in history as Go-Kogon.
During ten years this family had supported the Southern Court, but its chief, Tokiuji, now yielded to the persuasion of Yoshiakira's emissaries, and espoused the Ashikaga cause on condition that he, Tokiuji, should be named high constable of the above five provinces. Yoshiakira became weary of the unceasing strife.
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