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It is characteristic of the age that the Ashikaga
downfall came not at the hands of a more powerful family or coalition
but as the result of disputes within its own ranks. In 1464
Yoshimasa, still without an heir, designated his brother as next in
line, but the following year his ambitious and strong-minded wife Masako bore
him a son. Anxious to have her son be the next shogun, she found
support in a powerful provincial governor’s family, while another
family backed the older claimant. Thus the ground was prepared
for the succession struggle that produced the disastrous Onin
War. The outcome of the war did not lead to the triumph of either
family, but it did destroy the authority of the Ashikaga as well as
half of the city of Kyoto, and it wreaked havoc on much of the
surrounding country. [BHJC, 110] |
The Warring States Period
1467-1568
Few of the major
military houses that existed at the beginning of the Warring States era
survived to the end of the period. By the end of the period, there were four major
regional powers—Uesugi,
Takeda, Imagawa and Hojo; however, three less powerful families—Oda,
Toyotomi and Tokugawa—would ultimately play
more decisive roles in reestablishing centralized authority.
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- Centered in Owari, stategically
located
on the route between Kamakura and Kyoto.
- Married Oda women into important military
families, thereby establishing
crucial alliances.
- He was quick to adopt new military
technology
(pikes for foot soldiers,
and then muskets), and he was a brilliant military strategist.
- Took Kyoto in 1568, forcing the
usurping
shogun Matsunaga
Hisahide to flee and restoring power Ashikaga Yoshiaki.
- But Yoshiaki, concerned about Nobunaga’s
growing
power, conspires
with his enemies—and so he is forced to flee the capital himself.
- Nobunaga continues to defeat rival daimyo
until
he controls 32 of
the 66 provinces; however, he is forced to commit suicide by his own
general, Akechi Mitsuhide, whose mother had died as the direct
result of
Nobunaga’s trickery.
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- Nobunaga’s regime is taken over by another
one of
his generals, Toyotomi
Hideyoshi.
- Hideyoshi eventually managed to gain
control of
almost all of Japan,
either directly through his own holdings, or indirectly through daimyo
vassals.
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The Great Sword Hunt
One of Hideyoshi’s most important acts was the great “sword hunt” of 1588, when all peasants who had not already
done so were ordered to surrender their weapons, the metal to be used
in building a great statue of the Buddha. By depriving peasants of
their weapons he did more than discourage them from rioting or
rebelling—although he did that, too. A major, and intentional,
consequence of the measure was to draw a sharp line between peasant and
samurai, to create an unbridgeable gulf between the tiller of the soil
and the bearer of arms where hitherto there had been low-ranking
samurai who had also worked the land....
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The Confucian Social Order
Scholar-Officials/Samurai
Peasants
Artisans
Merchants
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...An edict of 1591 carried the process
further. The first of its three articles prohibited fighting men from
becoming peasants or townsmen, and the second banned peasants from
leaving their fields and becoming merchants or artisans and prohibited
the latter from becoming farmers. The third prohibited anyone from
employing a samurai who had left his master without permission....In
this way, Hideyoshi, who had himself risen from the peasantry to the
greatest heights, did his best to make sure that henceforth everyone
would remain within his hereditary social status. [BHJC, 125-6] |
- The one exception was Tokugawa Ieyasu,
who controlled 8 provinces
in the central Kanto region; since Ieyasu’s wealth exceeded
that
of even Hideyoshi himself, they essentially agreed to a truce by having
Ieyasu marry Hideyoshi’s sister.
- The truce was effective while Hideyoshi was
alive, but when he died neither Ieyasu nor Hideyoshi’s other vassals
abided by their sworn allegiance to his five-year-old son,
Hideyori. The scramble for power was ultimately settled in the
Battle of Sekigahara (October, 1600); the victor, Tokugawa Ieyasu, was
officially designated shogun in 1603.
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Tokugawa Ieyasu
& the Restoration of Order
Once Ieyasu became the shogun, he took concrete steps to
strengthen his own authority and prevent the daimyo from acquiring too
much power.
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System of Alternate Attendance
.
Approval of Marriages
.Authority to Assign, Reassign
and even Confiscate Domains
.
Control of Gold and Silver Mines
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