![]() ![]() Nobunaga’s response was to warn the bird, “Sing or I’ll kill A story is told that there was a bird that refused to sing. Their personalities and careers are contrasted by the following two anecdotes. But that’s about where their similarities end. Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu (following the Japanese pattern of the surname coming before the given name) were all samurai from central Honshu. There were not enough imperial officials and bakufu samurai to put Japan back together again. The situation was akin to the British tale of Humpty Dumpty, the English egg fallen off a wall and scattered into hundreds of pieces. While the emperor and shogun still held their titles and positions, they were powerless against the tide and momentum of civil wars across the domains. War and plunder characterized both the countryside and the imperial capital. It seemed that everyone, including farming villages, chose to follow whoever promised the lowest taxes along with the maximum protection. The Portuguese were astounded at the lack of loyalty and the ubiquitous betrayals between jito and daimyo. These guns and cannons spurred daimyo and jito to establish castles as defense fortresses against Japan’s nascent weaponry. Guns and cannons first brought by the Portuguese were duplicated in mass by Japanese entrepreneurial daimyo and metal workers. To add fuel to the fire of chaos, it was in the mid-sixteenth century that Westerners, in the form of Portuguese traders and Jesuit priests, entered Japan. Japan’s sixteenth century moniker was gekokujo jidai “mastery of the high by the low.” It seemed wherever anyone turned, rebellion and deference to authority was replaced by Machiavellian pragmatism. But everything seemed to have changed during the Ashikaga bakufu. The Japanese worldview which was an amalgamation of Confucian, Buddhist, and Shinto beliefs emphasized a schematized social system where loyalty, deference to authority, and a rigid class system kept Japan in relative peace and prosperity for close to a millennium. Jito began to break free from their overlords and farmers were brought into the fray as huge armies emerged to help the upstart jito and daimyo fight for control of the land. But chaos prevailed through the first half of the sixteenth century. These daimyo delegated authority to their retainer samurai and made some of them deputies ( jito). ![]() The bakufu tried to keep the centuries-long political system in place by appointing military governors, also known as shugo or daimyo to keep peace throughout Japan and provide taxes for the emperor and bakufu. Jizamurai-samurai who lived within villages-farmed during planting and harvesting season and fought during the other parts of the year. Upstart emperors who wanted greater say in the running of their realm had to be quieted while bakufu-appointed military governors faced the dilemma of deputies carving out independent fiefs throughout Japan.Īs each decade passed, imperial and shogunate power and authority waned. From the outset, the Ashikaga had multiple challenges of trying to keep unity throughout Japan. Cousins of the Minamoto shogun (all subsequent shoguns had to be related to Yoritomo) the Ashikaga clan established the second shogunate rule, the Ashikaga bakufu (1336-1573)and placed its headquarters in Kyoto’s neighboring town of Muromachi. The emperor reigned but did not rule it was the shogun and his deputies that governed Japan.īy 1333 the Minamoto bakufu had grown weak and the expenses related to defending Japan against Mongol invasions (1274, 1281) emptied the bakufu’s coffers. The Minamoto shogunate chose the beautiful setting of Kamakura as its home. The shogun and his close advisers chose an area to establish their geographical headquarters, which became known as the bakufu or the tent government. ![]() The emperor, which legitimized the shogun’s rule by appointing each successive military ruler, lived in Kyoto with other aristocratic families. Since Minamoto Yoritomo was given the title seii tai-shogun (Japan’s leading military figure) in 1192, Japan functioned as a semi-bicameral political state. This essay explores the roots of the Sengoku period and the three men who emerged to restore a sense of political, economic, and social calm throughout the realm. For the Japanese, the Sengoku Era (1467-1603), also referred to as the Warring States Period was their age of turmoil. Few civilizations escape periods of chaos and upheaval. ![]()
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