Season 8, Episode 4: The Northern and Southern Courts

The Muromachi Period is often given the start date of November 13, 1336. Emperor Go-Daigo’s surrender to Takauji and the beginnings of the Muromachi Bakufu were certainly nation-shattering events at the time, and while I’ve already given my reasons for marking the beginning of Muromachi in 1333, it is easy to understand why so many historians choose instead to mark 1336 as the inception date.

Oftentimes it is said that the people of a time would not have realized they were living at the beginning of a new era until years later, if at all, but I don’t think that is true of the people living in Japan during the beginning of the Muromachi Period. The Kamakura Shogunate was, by 1336, well and truly destroyed, and the emperor who had provided moral authority for the rebellion that crushed them was now, himself, seemingly the puppet of a new military regime.

In 1337, however, Emperor Go-Daigo was free and the new samurai government was in jeopardy. The court of Heian-kyo, the longstanding traditional capital of the civil government, will from now on be referred to as “The Northern Court,” and Yoshino, where Emperor Go-Daigo attempted to lead a new restoration with his followers, will be referred to as “The Southern Court.” The civil conflict between the two competing capitals is referred to as “The Nanboku-cho Wars,” or “The Wars of the Northern and Southern Courts.” The fact that it is also called “Nanboku-cho Jidai,” or “The Age of the Northern and Southern Courts,” gives you a preliminary idea of just how long this civil conflict lasted.

While the samurai as a class generally rejected Emperor Go-Daigo’s reforms, many also balked at the idea of following Ashikaga Takauji. In some cases this was due to longstanding clan rivalries, but it’s also important to keep factors like self-interest in mind. Many of the clans who cast their support behind the Southern Court had no desire to restore absolute imperial power, but were seeking a better deal than what they would receive serving the Ashikaga. Questions of legitimacy seem to have taken a backseat in the minds of the warriors, especially among the influential who hoped to improve their clan’s power.

While I have frequently referred to the samurai as a class or caste, it is helpful to note that not all of the warriors were equals. By the Muromachi Period, distinctions between samurai became more important, and the Japanese language evolved new ways of describing them. The lowest rung of the samurai ladder was occupied by the jizamurai, also called kokujin, who owned very small plots of land which was often the result of divided inheritance. Near the end of the Kamakura Period, many samurai divided their plots between several sons, which resulted in heavily splintered land claims.

The fields of the Jizamurai would be managed by peasant farmers and often used year-round with rotated crops. Like its predecessor, the Muromachi Bakufu gradually appointed Shugo, or governors, to oversee the activities of these small fiefs and collect taxes. Sometimes many jizamurai would band together with the peasants they employed to resist especially greedy Shugo, forming leagues, or Ikki.

This is not to say that the jizamurai were some kind of perpetually-suffering underclass. Their counterparts in Europe are referred to as gentry and yeomen. Maintaining independence was not always easy or possible, but some who chose to serve the Ashikaga were later promoted to Shugo.

On the next rung up from the jizamurai were the Tozama. The term Tozama means outsider, and it should be understood in a different way than the Tozama-Daimyo of the later Edo Period. The Tozama of the Muromachi Period were regional magnates whose power was rooted in the area they lived and were not blood-related to the Ashikaga clan. They frequently tried to recruit jizamurai to their banners, offering practical protection for their land in exchange for military service and, occasionally, helped them resist the attempts of the Muromachi Shugo to take more than their fair share of tax income.

As it is probably already clear, the Shugo of the Muromachi Period played a more important, or at least more prominent, role than their Kamakura predecessors. The Ashikaga Shoguns saw the Shugo as their primary enforcers in the provinces and they tended to give their appointees a lot of latitude. While it is tempting to imagine that the Tozama must have been generally opposed to the Ashikaga on principle, this was often not the case. Many of the Tozama wanted the Ashikaga to confirm their lands and saw the Shogunate as a powerful new ally who might aid them in their struggles with rival clans. In fact, more than a few Tozama served as Shugo, and are referred to as “Tozama-Shugo.”

The tension that naturally existed between official Bakufu-sponsored power and localized regional support would, in many ways, guide some of the key events of the Muromachi Period. In addition to its official government appointees, the Ashikaga clan still functioned as a feudal samurai clan, having retainers, vassals, and controlling large amounts of productive land. The tendency of some Shoguns to give preferential appointments to relatives instead of popular regional magnates was not without potential pitfalls. Wise leaders had to walk a fine line between appointing those they could trust and keeping powerful Tozama happy.

The Nanboku-cho Period lasted from 1337 to 1392, a whopping 55 years. Part of the reason why this lasted so long was the frequent shifts in loyalty of the clan leaders involved. Because of the emphasis placed on absolute loyalty by samurai of a much later period, Nanboku-cho Jidai has proven difficult to understand within the context of its own time. Loyalty, as it existed in the mid-1300s, was a commodity that was understood as being given in exchange. What could a clan leader expect in exchange for his loyalty? It would depend upon the abilities of the clan itself, as well as the disposition of whichever power broker for whichever court on whose behalf they were fighting. It was a negotiation and one that was subject to change if the circumstances surrounding it were altered significantly.

Both courts claimed to support legitimate emperors. What this meant, practically, was that neither court was truly legitimate in the higher sense of the word. Which one could marshal larger armies? Which one collected more tax revenue? Which one offered better rewards? The answers to these questions would shift as the conflict dragged on and the samurai from middling clans often found great opportunities to extract titles, land rewards, and even independent power.

Rather than thinking of the two courts as ideologically opposed entities which samurai might support based on their own ideologies or sense of loyalty, I find it helpful to compare them to professional sports teams. If a player on one team did especially well and built a reputation for being reliable, the other team may try to entice that player to join their team instead. Although sports fans may decry such players as disloyal, their fellow athletes would probably understand that they are employees doing a job.

It is tempting to compare this to the character of Dwight Schrute from the popular television series “The Office.” He once said, “I'm all about loyalty. In fact, I feel like part of what I'm being paid for here is my loyalty. But if there were somewhere else that valued loyalty more highly, I'm going wherever they value loyalty the most.” While greater monetary income was sometimes used to lure ambitious generals away from the court they supported, there were many other reasons why a great samurai lord would change sides. Some wanted confirmation of disputed lands, others desired greater recognition, some wanted promotions and access to higher-ranking titles, and still others felt they had been mistreated by their previous employer and wanted a better deal. As we discuss the continuously-shifting loyalties of this civil conflict, we should try to keep these factors in mind rather than imagining some “age without honor.”

The book “The Origins of Japan’s Medieval World” goes into some detail about the conceptions of loyalty and reward that dominated Nanboku-Cho Jidai. I’ve mentioned this book before, and if you want a deeper understanding of these issues, I highly recommend reading it. If money is an issue, check your local library.

Now that we’ve set the stage for the fifty-five years of civil strife to come, let’s return to our imperial schism already in progress. Emperor Go-Daigo and his co-conspirators immediately set out to organize a large army to march on the capital. Fortunately for the emperor, one of his allies Kitabatake Akiie had busied himself with raising an army in Mutsu and Dewa during Ashikaga Takauji’s junket in Kyushu.

After receiving a summons from the emperor in late January of 1337, Kitabatake Akiie began marching immediately for Yoshino and recruiting more eager warriors along the way. He and prince Norinaga had been sheltering with the Date clan of Mutsu, who would prove stalwart allies to the loyalist cause.

Meanwhile in Heian-kyo, Ashikaga Takauji was preparing his own offensive against the forces loyal to the Southern Court. Just before Emperor Go-Daigo’s surrender in November of 1336, Nitta Yoshisada had fled with imperial princes Takanaga and Tsunenaga to Echizen Province in northern Kansai where he hoped to rally the loyalists there to his banner. The journey was harsh, as much of northern Kansai was already blanketed in seasonal snow, but by the end of November they arrived at Kanegasaki Fortress. By the end of the year, Takauji had dispatched two brothers of the Ashikaga-allied Ko clan, Moronao and Moroyasu, to lead a massive expedition north to kill Nitta Yoshisada once and for all.

Echizen was full of loyalist samurai clans who resented the Ashikaga, so Yoshisada had little difficulty rallying them to his cause. A well-to-do samurai leader named Uryu Tamotsu joined the cause, raising an army of his own and preparing to defeat the incoming Ashikaga army. The Ko brothers arrived in force in January of 1337 and made straight for Kanegasaki Fortress.

Nitta Yoshisada expected further loyalist reinforcements to arrive soon, and it seems he was confident that the Bakufu troops would be repelled. As the Ashikaga army besieged Kanegasaki Fortress, Uryu Tamotsu would raid the besiegers and those within Kanegasaki’s walls repulsed several assault attempts. It is possible that if Yoshisada and Tamotsu had were better coordinated they could have crushed the Bakufu troops in a pincer maneuver, with the Kanegasaki troops sallying forth and the Uryu army attacking the rear of the camp. I do not know whether such an idea was considered, but after several months the point was moot. While Uryu Tamotsu’s troops had inflicted significant casualties upon the army led by the Ko brothers, they had gradually accumulated many casualties of their own and so they returned to Somayama Fortress by mid-March 1337.

Wanting to organize a successful final push against the Bakufu troops, Nitta Yoshisada snuck out of Kanegasaki in secret and went to Somayama hoping to rally the forces of Uryu Tamotsu and the other regional elites. However, he badly miscalculated just how crestfallen the local samurai had become. By the time Yoshisada accepted that they would not be rejoining the fight to lift the siege of Kanegasaki, it was far too late.

The troops within Kanegasaki were in miserable condition and had been reduced to eating their horses-- an act which brought ritual pollution in Japanese Buddhism at the time, breaking their karma and ensuring they would be reincarnated as an animal or worse in their next life. On April 7, the last vestiges of resistance were broken when general Ko Moroyasu called for a broad assault which succeeded in taking the walls along with the city itself.

Prince Takanaga opted for ritual suicide, along with Nitta Yoshiaki, Yoshisada’s own son. Prince Tsunenaga escaped briefly during the confusion of the general sack but was recognized and captured as he tried to flee to Somayama. After being taken to Heian-kyo, the thirteen-year-old Prince was held in confinement along with his brother Prince Narinaga until both were poisoned, almost certainly by order of Takauji.

One of Emperor Go-Daigo’s greatest advantages in this conflict was the sheer number of sons he had available to deploy around the nation in an attempt to rally regional elites to his banner. While I am certainly not defending Takauji’s decision to have some of them killed, it is worth noting that it was their father who was putting them in this position to become threats to the Bakufu in Heian-kyo, moving them around the nation like pieces on a shogi board.

Kitabatake Akiie’s northern army, meanwhile, progressed southward at a snail’s pace, owing both to the frequency of Ashikaga-allied ambushes as well as their desire to disrupt the Ashikaga troops in Kanto. They attacked enemy strongholds and raided along the way. Takauji’s son Yoshiakira raised a meager force to defend Kanto but they were driven away at the river Tonegawa. At the end of 1337, Kitabatake Akiie and his army occupied Kamakura.

In the spring of 1338, Akiie’s army ventured westward, toward the Yoshino mountains where they hoped to be reinforced for a final push into Heian-kyo. In Totomi, however, they met with stiff resistance from Ashikaga partisans, and so they opted for a northward path through Mino Province in central Chubu. In the western part of Mino, they were met by an army led by Ashikaga Tadayoshi and Ko Morofuyu. The two forces clashed on March 22 at a place which would later be known by a different name: Sekigahara. Akiie appears to have been somewhat careful about over-committing his troops, as his army managed to press forward in spite of the engagements and slip away.

Finally the loyalist army under Akiie arrived in Nara after fighting their way through Iga province. The casualties caused by the running battles must have been minimal, for the army still planned to march on Heian-kyo after resting and regrouping in the old capital. The Bakufu flushed them out of Nara by sending an army against them led by Ko Moronao. Akiie and his troops fled to Kawachi province while Prince Norinaga flew to Yoshino.

In spite of their harrowing journey, the loyalist army under Kitabatake Akiie was able to regroup in Kawachi and plan their next move. In April, Akiie decided that the time had come to put an end to the new Bakufu. His army marched on Tenno-ji, one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan which lies about ten miles southwest of Heian-kyo.

At this point, Ashikaga Tadayoshi involved himself, using Toji temple in Heian-kyo as a headquarters while he rallied the Bakufu-allied samurai to assault the loyalist incursion. He arranged for Emperor Komyo to be placed in protective custody, a move that indicates he was uncertain about his army’s ability to defeat Kitabatake Akiie’s army. It turned out that he was being needlessly cautious.

The strength of the loyalist army led by Akiie was sapped through the constant fighting and demoralized over the activities of their enemies. The Bakufu army now being assembled against them was filled with fresh troops who were eager to perform well and earn rewards from combat. That army drove the loyalists out of Tenno-ji temple and proceeded to rout Akiie’s forces in every engagement thereafter. After a brief spell trying to reorganize in Izumi province on the central western coast of Kansai, Kitabatake Akiie was killed in battle at a place called Ishizu as the remnant of his army was likewise crushed and scattered.

In truth, the capital garrison was never really in danger from Akiie’s rag-tag troops, but nonetheless the Ashikaga loudly celebrated their great victory over Retired Emperor Go-Daigo’s cronies as though they had defeated the Hojo clan again. The propaganda was extremely effective for the time being, and even Emperor Komyo seemed impressed. It is possible that being placed under armed guard made the sovereign feel that the danger was more immediate than it actually was, but nonetheless he moved to reward Ashikaga Takauji for his service in protecting the capital and the rightful sovereign.

At long last, the title which he had so earnestly sought was within his grasp. In the summer of 1338, Ashikaga Takauji was officially granted the title of Seii-Tai-Shogun, thus legitimizing his Bakufu and reinvigorating his partisans.

While this elevation was an impressive culmination of years of service and battlefield success, it did not signal the end of the conflict between the Northern and Southern Courts. The Nanboku-Cho wars would continue, for the time being, and Nitta Yoshisada was still causing trouble in northern Kansai.

In the summer of 1338, Ashikaga Takauji sent orders to Shiba Takatsune, a partisan from Kyushu who had been granted authority in Echizen, to attack Somayama fortress where Nitta Yoshisada had been hiding out. Takatsune’s attempt at a siege did not turn out as well as Kanegasaki, however, and soon the local samurai along with Nitta Yoshisada were driving the besiegers back. The Bakufu army took shelter in a fortress called Kuromaru, meaning “Black Fortress,” where they awaited reinforcements from Heian-kyo which were led by Hosokawa Akiuji.

Among Nitta Yoshisada’s troops were some Sohei warrior monks from Heisenji monastery. The story goes that the Shiba clan had secretly bribed this contingent of Sohei to abandon the siege and return to Heisenji and that Nitta Yoshisada rushed with his bodyguards to the gap which their defection had created. As they neared the spot, the Hosokawa reinforcements came upon them by accident and unleashed volleys of arrows into their ranks. We can safely conclude that, one way or another, Nitta Yoshisada died during this encounter. According to a popular folk tale, Yoshisada’s horse was felled by an arrow and he was trapped beneath it. As arrows struck around him, and no doubt impacted his armor and perhaps even wounded him, Nitta Yoshisada drew his sword and in a final, triumphant movement, chopped off his own head.

Regardless of the details of Nitta Yoshisada’s passing, by mid-August of 1338, Ashikaga Takauji had been named Seii-Tai-Shogun and his primary rivals serving the Southern Court were dead. One could be forgiven for believing that this conflict between the two courts would soon end in favor of the Northern Court, but sadly the fighting would continue for many years more.

While we tend to follow the activities of the national leaders in this podcast, I always try to make time for the common people wherever I can. The Muromachi Period was not the worst time in Japanese history to be a commoner, and it will be worth our time to take a break from the fighting and focus instead on the social and economic developments of the Early Muromachi, as well as its considerable legacy in the realm of Japanese art. Next time, we will do just that, exploring the many innovations of the Early Muromachi Period both artistic and economical.