apan has a long history of
feudal warfare. Such conflict
reached its apogee during
the Sengoku Jidai, ‘the Age
of the Country at War’, that
stretched from 1467 until 1615. The
warlords of this fractured Japan, riven
by civil wars, were known as daimyo,
the ‘Great Names’, that ruled over large
territories of the country.
The daimyo proper, as opposed to
the traditional aristocrats of medieval
Japan, traced their origin to the heyday
of the Ashikaga shoguns. The 14th
century witnessed the rise of a new
samurai aristocracy known as the
shugo. Originally, shugo were military
governors serving the prior Kamakura
bakufu (military government) and they
were subsequently integral members
of the following Ashikaga Shogunate.
Like the daimyo of later years, the shugo
were the lords of their own domains.
The power of the Ashikaga Shogunate
declined precipitously in the late 15th
century as the country had been shaken
by a series of devastating peasant revolts.
Then the ten-year Ōnin War (1467-77)
between two rival clans, the Hosokawa
and the Yamana, was fought over the
control of Kyoto, Japan’s capital, and the
seat of the emperor himself. Much ofKyoto was destroyed in the conflict, and
the authority of the Ashikaga was largely
ruined along with it.Hojo Soun: The First Daimyo
The disruption of traditional lines of
authority that followed the Ōnin War
opened up opportunities for ruthless
samurai to grab a share of power by
using any means possible. Old families
of ancient lineage could be knocked
from their perches by aggressive
underlings, or perhaps they could
even be annihilated altogether.
This era of instability and civil war
that engulfed Japan, the Sengoku Jidai,©^ Alamy