Japan (Lonely Planet, 11th Edition) - Chris Rowthorn [14]
Despite the successful defence, the Hōjō shōgunate suffered. It was unable to make a number of promised payments to those involved in repelling the Mongols, which brought considerable dissatisfaction towards it, while the payments it did make severely depleted its finances.
It was during the Hōjō shōgunacy that Zen Buddhism was brought from China. Its austerity and self-discipline appealed greatly to the warrior class, and it was also a factor in the appeal of aesthetic values such as sabi (elegant simplicity). More popular forms of Buddhism were the Jōdo (Pure Land) and Jōdo Shin (True Pure Land) sects, based on salvation through invocation of Amida Buddha.
Dissatisfaction towards the Hōjō shōgunate came to a head under the unusually assertive emperor Go-Daigo (1288–1339), who, after escaping from exile imposed by the Hōjō, started to muster anti-shōgunal support in Western Honshū. In 1333 the shōgunate dispatched troops to counter this, under one of its most promising generals, the young Ashikaga Takauji (1305–58). However, realising that between them he and Go-Daigo had considerable military strength, and also aware of the dissatisfaction towards the Hōjō, Takauji threw in his lot with the emperor and attacked the shōgunal offices in Kyoto. Others also soon rebelled against the shōgunate in Kamakura itself.
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The ‘divine wind’ of 1281 is said to have drowned 70,000 Mongol troops, which, if true, would make it the world’s worst maritime disaster.
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This was the end for the Hōjō shōgunate, but not for the shōgunal institution. Takauji wanted the title of shōgun for himself, but his ally Go-Daigo was reluctant to confer it, fearing it would weaken his own imperial power. A rift developed, and Go-Daigo sent forces to attack Takauji. However, Takauji emerged victorious, and turned on Kyoto, forcing Go-Daigo to flee into the hills of Yoshino, some 100km south of the city, where he set up a court in exile. In Kyoto, Takauji installed a puppet emperor from a rival line, who returned the favour by declaring him shōgun in 1338. Thus there were two courts in co-existence, which continued till 1392 when the ‘southern court’ (at Yoshino) was betrayed by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408), Takauji’s grandson and the third Ashikaga shōgun.
Takauji set up his shōgunal base in Kyoto, at Muromachi, which gives its name to the period of the Ashikaga shōgunate. With a few exceptions, such as Takauji himself and his grandson Yoshimitsu, who among other things had Kyoto’s famous Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion) built, and once declared himself ‘King of Japan’, the Ashikaga shōguns were relatively weak. In the absence of strong centralised government and control, the country slipped increasingly into civil war as regional warlords – who came to be known as daimyō (big names) – vied with each other in seemingly interminable feuds and power struggles. Eventually, starting with the Ōnin War of 1467–77, the country entered a period of virtually constant civil war for the next hundred years, a time appropriately known as the Sengoku (Warring States) era.
Ironically perhaps, it was during the Muromachi period that a new flourishing of the arts took place, such as in the refined nō drama, ikebana (flower arranging) and chanoyu (tea ceremony). Key aesthetics were yūgen (elegant and tranquil other-worldliness, as seen in nō), wabi (subdued taste), kare (severe and unadorned) and the earlier-mentioned sabi.
The later stages of the period also saw the first arrival of Europeans, specifically three Portuguese traders blown ashore on the island of Tanegashima, south of Kyūshū, in 1543. Presently more Portuguese and other Europeans arrived, bringing with them two important items, Christianity and firearms (mostly arquebuses). They found a land torn apart by warfare, ripe for conversion to Christianity – at least in the eyes of missionaries such as (St) Francis Xavier, who arrived in 1549 – while the Japanese warlords were more interested in the worldly