A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (20 page)

The
Taiheiki
not only tells us something about samurai values, it also gives an insight into the life of the medieval peasant amidst the warfare.
⁵⁰
It shows them being taken away as labourers by armies on the march, or having their goods taken from them for military use. It shows them being killed over nothing by ill-disciplined warriors. And it shows them scavenging for spoils, or robbing the defeated as they fled. For they too, in their own way, were opportunists.

Against such a background, then, Go-Daigo fled Ky
to for Yoshino. Here he set up a court in exile, with the result that there were now two ‘emperors’ at the same time. This duality continued till 1392, when the rival courts, known as the Northern (Ky
to) and Southern (Yoshino) Courts, were ‘reconciled’. More exactly, claimants from the southern line were promised alternate succession with the northern claimants by the then third Ashikaga sh
gun, Takauji’s grandson Yoshimitsu (1358–1408, r.1369–95). Yoshimitsu did not honour his promise, and the southern line soon ceased to exist.

Unlike the Minamoto and H
j
before him Takauji preferred to establish the sh
gunate in Ky
to, and it was eventually located in the Muromachi area of the city. Administratively, he used many of the existing structures and offices, such as the
jit
and
shugo
.

However, his relationship with the
shugo
was problematic, for he had neither land to offer as reward nor the personal charisma of Yoritomo. That is, he could neither buy nor command their loyalty. Some of the
shugo
were arguably as powerful as he himself was. Takauji and most of his successors also proved to be poor leaders, and exercised little real control. Disputes, even within the sh
gunate itself, were numerous. In one such dispute Takauji arranged the murder of his own brother Tadayoshi (1306–52), continuing the tradition of ‘family first’ when it came to eliminating enemies.

With a few exceptions, actual sh
gunal power declined steadily with the passing of time. Powerful
shugo
families such as the Hosokawa, who often occupied the position of sh
gunal deputy, exerted great influence on the sh
gunate. One
shugo
family, the Yamana, controlled no fewer than 11 of the 66 provinces of their day.

The main exception to weak sh
guns was probably Yoshimitsu. He not only ‘reunited’ the dual courts, but also attempted to curb
shugo
power by the ancient Yamato state method of giving many of them court posts, which obliged them to reside in Ky
to where he could keep a watchful eye on them. In order to strengthen his own personal power he created the position of ‘retired sh
gun’, which he himself occupied in 1395 after abdicating in favour of his 9-year-old son. He then had the world-famous Kinkakuji or Golden Pavilion built in Ky
to, in the lavish style of the palaces of retired emperors of old.