4

Although the Ōnin War ostensibly was fought to decide whether Ashikaga Yoshimi (Yoshimasa’s half brother) or Ashikaga Yoshihisa (his son) would succeed Yoshimasa as shogun, it was essentially a struggle between the Hosokawa and Yamana families for control of Japan. The fighting dragged on for ten years. It was largely confined to Kyoto and resulted in the almost complete destruction of the only large city in Japan. Accounts written by people who remembered the appearance of Kyoto at the height of its glory described their shock when returning after the war, they saw how terribly the city had been ravaged. Of course, many cities all over the world have since been shattered by street fighting or bombing, but if the buildings are of brick or stone, at least hollow shells remain as reminders that a city once stood there. In Kyoto, however, the buildings were made of wood, and nothing was left after the fighting except the occasional storehouse with earthen walls and a few temples that had miraculously escaped the fires. The desolation was almost total.

If one examines a map of Kyoto showing the sites of the principal buildings before the outbreak of war, one cannot fail to be struck by how close together they were. The distance separating the main residences of the Yamana and Hosokawa clans could be walked in minutes, and from either of these mansions to the shogun’s Palace of Flowers and the imperial palace was a bare twenty minutes’ walk. Despite the closeness of the headquarters of the warring factions, the Hosokawa clan was known as the Eastern Army, and the Yamana clan was called the Western Army, as if they were situated in quite different parts of Japan. The headquarters were given these names simply because they were somewhat to the east or the west of the center of the city.¹ Later, the terms acquired another meaning: the Yamana clan drew its strength from the provinces of western Honshū (as well as of Shikoku and most of Kyūshū), whereas the Hosokawa soldiers were mainly from eastern Japan.

There was a lull in the fighting after the first encounter at the Kami Goryō Shrine between factions of the Hatakeyama family. On the third day of the third month (April 6), a great party was held at the shogun’s palace to celebrate the annual spring festival. Some three thousand people attended, all dressed in magnificent robes and carrying swords decorated with gold and mother-of-pearl. The splendor of the gathering was so dazzling that some people wondered whether the expense might not bankrupt the country.

After offering their holiday greetings at the shogun’s palace, the celebrants proceeded to the Imadegawa Palace of the shogun’s half brother and designated successor, Yoshimi, to express their loyalty. But although Yamana Sozen and many daimyos allied with the Yamana took part in the festivities, the Hosokawa were conspicuous by their absence.² They were busy with day-and-night planning sessions and other preparations for war and could not spare the time to attend a feast.

The decision of the Hosokawa to attack the Yamana seems to have been precipitated by the plea made by the lay priest Jiken. In the first month of 1467, when Hatakeyama Masanaga had begged Hosokawa Katsumoto for help against his cousin Yoshinari, Jiken had tearfully implored Katsumoto not to intervene. Now, once again in tears, he begged quite the opposite, that Katsumoto avenge the humiliating defeat that Masanaga had suffered because the Hosokawa had failed to lend their support. Jiken urged Katsumoto to wipe out the disgrace to the family name.³

Masanaga, who had been in hiding ever since his defeat by the Yamana clan, at this point showed up at Katsumoto’s camp, ready for action. Soon troop commanders and men from many parts of the country joined the sixty thousand vassals of imperial and shogunal troops in Kyoto; Hosokawa Katsumoto could count on a total of 161,500 mounted men. According to Ōnin ki, Yamana Sozen had only 116,000 riders at his disposal, but despite their numerical inferiority, the Yamana men controlled six of the seven approaches to the city.⁴

Fighting between the two clans erupted at dawn on the twenty-sixth day of the fifth month (June 27) of 1467, when Hosokawa soldiers opened fire on Yamana forces. The engagement ended in a minor victory for the Yamana, but a disproportionately large number of houses belonging to both sides were consumed in fires that spread to many parts of the city. As yet, however, the shogunate was not involved, and Yoshimasa’s position was not known. He sent messengers to both sides commanding them to stop the warfare. But at the same time, he ordered Ise Sadachika to bring his forces to Kyoto, an indication that he feared the fighting would not end soon. Probably he foresaw that the shogunate would need reinforcements in the event of a major showdown between the Yamana and Hosokawa clans.

Yoshimasa had earlier exiled Sadachika from the capital when he discovered that he had falsely accused Yoshimi of plotting to seize power, but he probably still considered Sadachika as his mentor and hoped that he might save the country from all-out civil war. At first Yoshimasa refused to take sides, but in the sixth month he clarified his position by ordering Yoshimi and Katsumoto to attack the Yamana clan.

Hino Tomiko and her brother, Hino Katsumitsu, who favored the Yamana and opposed Yoshimi, strongly opposed this decision, but Yoshimasa held firm and bestowed on Katsumoto the shogunal banner to fly over his headquarters. Yoshimi, named as commanding general, opened the attack on the Western Army, now stigmatized as rebels. In a battle fought on the eighth day of the sixth month, the Eastern Army was victorious. Supposing that this victory signified that the Western army had been crushed, Yoshimasa sent a memorandum to its generals urging them to surrender. Some obeyed and shifted their allegiance to the Eastern Army, and others withdrew altogether from the fighting. Encouraged by these defections, the Eastern Army attacked the residences of major supporters of the Western Army. Huge fires were started that gutted much of the city.

Advantage in the fighting seemed to be on the side of the Hosokawa, but the Western Army held on, heartened by reports that an army under the command of Ōuchi Masahiro would soon arrive in the capital. On the twenty-third day of the eighth month, Masahiro’s army, said to be thirty thousand men strong, occupied the Tōji and the southern part of the city, giving Yamada Sōzen’s army superiority at least for the moment. Katsumoto responded by asking both Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado and Retired Emperor Go-Hanazono to move to the Muromachi Palace, the seat of the shogunate. Go-Tsuchimikado took with him the imperial regalia. The Eastern Army could claim to be the emperor’s troops,⁵ but the reinforcements had made the Western Army stronger.

Ashikaga Yoshimi, who had valiantly fought against the Western Army, was worried by the apparent improvement in the Yamana clan’s fortunes. He suspected that Yoshimasa might secretly be favoring the Yamana; Tomiko certainly was. He reasoned that if he gave further support to the Hosokawa, this might damage his relations with Yoshimasa and hurt his chances of succeeding him as shogun. Yoshimi therefore decided to remove himself temporarily from the scene of the fighting and to await further developments. He made his way to the foot of Mount Hiei, where his wife had taken refuge, and from there went on to Ise, where he accepted the hospitality of the provincial governor.

Yoshimasa was dismayed to learn of Yoshimi’s flight. Regardless of Yoshimi’s reasons for turning his back on the fighting, the effect was to make Yoshimasa, who up to this point (in keeping with his vow) had supported Yoshimi’s candidacy as the next shogun, shift his support to the cause of his son, Yoshihisa.

A major battle of the Ōnin War was fought in the tenth month of 1467 between the Yamana and Hosokawa clans for possession of the Shōkoku-ji. This Zen temple, founded by Ashikaga Takauji, was of particular importance to the Ashikaga family. Because it was situated very close to the Palace of Flowers, the Yamana clan believed that occupying the temple would serve to drive a wedge between the palace and the Hosokawa residence. The fighting initially favored the Yamana, who had the covert help of a priest of the Shokoku-ji who set fires inside the temple. Smoke from the burning buildings hovered over the shogun’s palace, arousing fear of an imminent enemy attack.

In a state of panic, Tomiko and the other ladies of the shogun’s household anxiously wondered how to escape, but Yoshimasa, unruffled by these fears and looking exactly as he always did, went on enjoying a drinking party. A retainer, sure that the impending battle would be his last, came before Yoshimasa to ask for a cup of saké from his hand, saying that it would be his reward for a lifetime of service and a keepsake to take to the afterworld. Yoshimasa complacently bestowed the desired cup of saké, which the man lifted reverently, saying, “The kindness of my lord this day will repay me for offering my hundred years of life.” He went off and soon afterward was killed in the fighting. Yoshimasa remained undisturbed.⁶

Poems by the priest Ikkyū that were composed at this time describe the scenes of battle and destruction he witnessed. Although he never tired of condemning the falseness of the society in which he lived, he maintained his reverence for the imperial family and worried about its fate during the fighting. His reverence also induced him to attribute victories won by the Eastern Army to the virtue emanating from the court.⁷ In his poem “After the Fire in the Capital,” written some months after the Shokoku-ji had been destroyed in the fire, he found hope in the survival of the imperial palace amid the devastation of the war:

Cold ashes pile high in the streets of the capital.

Only in the second month have flowers and spring grasses sprouted.

But the lovely palaces stand, untouched by events,

And the emperor’s envoy has brought a thousand years of peace.⁸

His poem “Celebrating the Victory of the Imperial Forces over the Rebels on New Year’s Day” exulted over the Eastern Army’s victory in an attack staged at night on New Year’s Day of the second year of Ōnin (1468):

On New Year’s day, after crushing the enemy,

Everywhere men raised loud songs of triumph.

A million soldiers of the imperial court

And not one had lost so much as a single hair.⁹

Yoshimasa’s feelings about the war were expressed quite differently, as in this waka:

 

hakanaku mo	Forlorn though the hope,
nao osamare to	Still I believe that somehow
omou kana	Peace will be restored.
kaku midaretaru	Although it is so confused,
yo woba itowade	I don’t despair of the world.10

 

Yoshimasa’s poem suggests he believed that the disturbance would go away even if he did nothing. His attitude recalls Fujiwara Teika’s “Reports of disturbances and punitive expeditions fill one’s ears, but I pay them no attention. The red banners and the expeditions against traitors are no concern of mine.”¹¹ An expression of indifference to the commotion raised by ignorant soldiers was perhaps admissible in an aristocrat like Teika, but Yoshimasa was the shogun, the commander of those fighting on his side. His detachment made meaningless the loss of lives.

Haga Kōshirō, who was deeply aware of Yoshimasa’s role in fostering Japanese culture, wrote,

Yoshimasa, as a statesman, and especially as the shogun during an age of confusion whose vortex was the great upheaval of the Ōnin and Bunmei eras, was a total failure. He bears at least a part of the responsibility for the outbreak of the great conflict, and his political record could be described quite literally as a series of failures; there is no room to defend him.¹²

Yoshimasa undoubtedly realized that he was an incompetent shogun. When his confidants sent him a flattering memorial acclaiming him in extravagant terms as “father and mother to the people” and describing in glowing terms his success at quelling military disturbances, he replied that the praise was excessive and untrue to the facts, and he ordered them to correct the memorial. Haga believed that as a ruler, Yoshimasa was no more than a “robot” without independence of spirit or leadership, an irresponsible, self-abandoned “onlooker.”¹³

With respect to the culture of his time, however, Yoshimasa displayed extraordinary leadership, and the culture of which he was a great patron lasted long after the battles of the Ōnin War had been forgotten. Yoshimasa would be remembered for his encouragement of aesthetic tastes that, transmitted to the Japanese people, became indispensable to their culture. When one speaks today of Nihon no kokoro—the soul of Japan—one is likely to be referring to elements of Japanese cultural preferences that were encouraged by Yoshimasa.

Yoshimasa’s involvement in the Ōnin War was minimal. Although he could not have avoided feelings of apprehension when the flames engulfing the city of Kyoto approached his palace, he did nothing to terminate the warfare. The destruction was almost total, as Ikkyu’s poem “On the Warfare of the Bunmei Era”¹⁴ suggests:

One burst of flame and the capital—gilt palaces and how many mansions—

Turns before one’s eyes into a wasteland.

The ruins, more desolate by the day, are autumnal.

Spring breezes, peach and plum blossoms, soon become dark.¹⁵

Casualties were heavy. Ikkyū’s poem “Mourning Those Killed in Action” describes the battlefields:

Demons with red faces, their hot blood aroused,

Their fierce cries all but sundered heaven and earth.

Now, defeated in battle, heads sliced from trunks,

Their souls are doomed to eternal oblivion.¹⁶

The fighting finally ended in the eleventh month of 1477. The commander of the Western Army, Ōuchi Yoshihiro, losing interest in a meaningless conflict, set fire to his encampment and marched away from Kyoto along with his remaining generals.

During the ten years of the fighting, Yoshimasa, seemingly indifferent to the course of the war, devoted himself to cultivating the arts. He has been compared with Hui-tsung (1082–1135), the last emperor of the Sung dynasty and the founder of the first Chinese academy of painting.¹⁷ One Western authority on Chinese history wrote about Hui-tsung, “Although neither a wise nor successful ruler, the Emperor was both a devoted patron of the arts and a painter of high rank himself. He lavished upon pictures and ceramics the care and attention which he denied to affairs of state.”¹⁸ Hui-tsung took refuge in the arts from the factional disputes at his court and the menace of invasion by uncivilized tribes. He consecrated himself to the pursuit of aesthetic elegance.

Almost everything written about Hui-tsung’s taste and manner of life could be said equally about Yoshimasa, whose love of the arts enabled him to remain serene even when battles raged around him. Hui-tsung made an unfortunate alliance with a tribe of northern barbarians whom he judged to be the less dangerous of two tribes threatening China; but before long they turned on him, and he died an exile in Manchuria. Yoshimasa was spared this kind of humiliation by his refusal to become involved during the Onin War. Instead, his greatest failing—his incompetence as a military leader—was his salvation.

The culture to which Yoshimasa so greatly contributed is known today as Higashiyama, from the section of Kyoto where he built the retreat where he lived from 1483 to 1490. Yoshimasa obviously did not create the new culture single-handedly. Unlike Hui-tsung, he is not known today as a master of painting, calligraphy, and poetry, though he was highly competent in the latter two arts.¹⁹ Rather, Yoshimasa’s greatest gift was his exceptional ability to detect talent in other people and his readiness to employ them, regardless of their social station.

In creating a new culture after the end of the Ōnin War, Yoshimasa was helped by daimyos from the provinces who had acquired a taste for culture as the result of giving refuge during the war to poets and artists who had fled the capital. Yoshimasa was helped also by learned Zen monks whom he consulted less on religious than on aesthetic matters. Ever since he was a young man, long before the outbreak of the Ōnin War, he had been closely involved with artistically gifted monks. For example, when he was thinking of giving names to three small pavilions in the garden of the Takakura Palace, he asked Zuikei Shūhō, the outstanding poet-priest of the time, to recommend some suitable names. Zuikei immediately suggested several, but Yoshimasa rejected them. Two other learned priests joined Zuikei in poring over books of Chinese poetry and prose in search of appropriate phrases that might be used in naming the buildings. They came up with a number, but Yoshimasa still was not satisfied. He directed them to give names that more specifically alluded to the special features of the moon and the mountains as observed at the garden of the Saihō-ji, the model for the new garden. For fifty days, the priests continued to mull over names for the buildings until Yoshimasa, after having repeatedly rejected the names proposed by the priests, at last accepted three.

Next, Yoshimasa asked another learned priest, Kikei Shinzui, who was also a celebrated calligrapher, to inscribe the names, but he repeatedly found fault with the examples submitted—either the characters were the wrong size or the style of calligraphy did not please him. Kikei wrote the same characters again and again, until at last they accorded fully with Yoshimasa’s taste. Next, the names of the pavilions, in Kikei’s handwriting, were carved on wooden plaques that would be hung over the entrances to the pavilions. Yoshimasa gave minute directions on the depth of the carving and the colors to be used in decorating the characters. Finally, he gave orders concerning the angles at which the plaques would be hung.

Even though Yoshimasa had chosen the most qualified men for each of the various artistic tasks, he did not leave the execution of a plaque (or the planning of a building or garden) to professionals but insisted that each creation meet his own conception of beauty. At times this annoyed men who were confident of their artistic skill, but Yoshimasa did not yield. He never tired of giving directions concerning the effects he desired. Many people—ranging from daimyos, Zen priests, rich merchants, and hermits all the way down to outcasts—participated in creating the Higashiyama culture, but ultimate guidance was provided by Yoshimasa, especially after construction started on his retreat.

Yoshimasa’s aesthetic preferences were clearly revealed in the works he chose for his collection of Chinese paintings. He favored ink painters of the Southern Sung and Yüan periods, especially Ma Yüan, Hsia Kuei, and Li T’ang. These painters, all members of the academy founded by Emperor Hui-tsung, were especially popular in Japan, as we know from the large number of their paintings imported in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Works by Chinese Zen masters like Mu Ch’i and Liang K’ai were rated higher in Japan than in China. Japanese painters, many of them Zen priests, initially copied the works of the Chinese masters more or less slavishly but gradually made the imported styles their own.

The greatest Japanese painter of the Higashiyama era was undoubtedly Sesshū (1420–1506), though he did not work in Kyoto because of the prolonged warfare.²⁰ Many other painters of importance created works of art for Yoshimasa, notably Kanō Masanobu (ca. 1434–ca. 1530), the founder of the Kanō school.

The Higashiyama taste, though its creation was chiefly indebted to the shogun (rather than to the emperor or members of the nobility), was aristocratic. It was typified by the Silver Pavilion (Ginkaku-ji), a nickname that implicitly contrasted its simple, subdued elegance with the brilliance of Yoshimitsu’s Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji). The Golden Pavilion was coated with shining gold leaf, but there was nothing silvery about the Silver Pavilion. Instead, the differences between the two buildings were symbolized by their names: Yoshimitsu’s unconventional and sometimes even vulgar taste was symbolized by the glitter of gold, whereas Yoshimasa preferred the austerity of Chinese ink paintings to more obviously artistic effects. And because gold is more precious than silver, the Silver Pavilion suggests a decline in the fortunes of the shogun and of all Japan, even though the unadorned beauty of Yoshimasa’s pavilion is closer to the hearts of the Japanese today than is Yoshimitsu’s palatial temple.

Although the Gold and Silver Pavilions differed enormously, both were profoundly indebted to Chinese examples. The admiration of China displayed by the shoguns of the Muromachi period from Yoshimitsu’s time on verged on idolatry. But when the Ashikaga shoguns renewed official trade relations with China after a lapse of centuries, the object was profit rather than the acquisition of culture. Takauji encouraged trade with China in the hopes of making huge profits, and he was not disappointed. In 1342 a ship sent to China with Japanese wares returned loaded with cash.²¹ Takauji’s ostensible purpose in promoting this trade with China was to raise money for completing the Tenryū-ji, a temple he had founded at the request of the Zen master Musō Soseki. Ships sent to China, then ruled by the Yüan (or Mongol) dynasty, were accordingly known as Tenryū-ji ships.

The early years of the Ming dynasty, after the Mongols were expelled from China, corresponded to the age of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. Emperor Hung-wu, the founder of the Ming dynasty, sent three missions to Japan. The first announced his enthronement and his taking Great Ming as the name of his dynasty.²² Hung-wu was attempting to bolster the prestige of his regime by persuading neighboring countries to acknowledge that they were tributaries of China.

Hung-wu’s second mission to Japan carried an imperial rescript stating his grave concern about the raids by Japanese pirates on coastal cities.²³ He threatened the Japanese: “If you insist on committing robbery and piracy, We shall order Our fleet to sail to the different islands to arrest each of the outlaws and shall proceed into the land to bind their kings with ropes.” He demanded that the Japanese declare their loyalty to China; otherwise, they should expect war.²⁴

Hung-wu’s missions, beginning with the first (in the eleventh month of 1368) were intercepted by Prince Kanenaga (d. 1383), a son of Go-Daigo and leader of Southern Court supporters who had not yet been subdued by Yoshimitsu. Kanenaga probably never saw the first, friendly letter from Hung-wu and was therefore annoyed by the harsh rescript. The third letter, sent to Japan in 1370, stated in conclusion,

If a small country of barbarians, alien to Us, is not content with its lot and deliberately violates the way of Heaven by frequently coming to create disturbances, this inevitably incurs the hatred of spirits and men, and can hardly be tolerated by Heaven. Would it not be well for you to change your mind and obey Our orders so that we might mutually keep the peace?²⁵

The tone was highly displeasing to the Japanese, but Kanenaga, hard-pressed and perhaps hoping for China’s help in his losing fight, responded favorably. Even after the Chinese discovered that Kanenaga was not the king of Japan, they continued to address him as such until 1386 when Hung-wu broke relations with Japan. The initiative for reestablishing relations later came from Japan.

By 1396 Yoshimitsu had destroyed most of the last remnants of Southern Court resistance and had established himself as the master of all Japan. He now was able to turn his eyes abroad, and in the following year, in the hopes of establishing trade and cultural relations with China, he sent a first embassy.²⁶ Four years later, in 1401, Yoshimitsu sent a second embassy, this one with a message couched in deferential terms asking for the renewal of the friendly relations between Japan and China that had existed ever since Japan was founded. Gifts were sent, and although they were not designated as tribute, that surely was how the Chinese interpreted them. The gifts included a thousand taels in gold, swords, horses, fans, and armor.

Two Chinese ambassadors returned the visit, in 1402 reaching Hyōgo, where they were met by Yoshimitsu himself. The Chinese ambassadors, appreciating Yoshimitsu’s deferential language, replied with genial flattery. The emperor’s rescript, also couched in friendly terms, included the words: “Japan has always been called a country of poems and books, and it has always been in Our heart.”²⁷ From then on, the exchange of embassies became routine.

The Chinese government agreed to allow one tribute-bearing ship from Japan every ten years. But this restriction was generally ignored, and ships often traveled between the two countries. Articles imported from China included works of art, religious and literary books, and what were known as karamono (Chinese things), the unusual and precious wares of a country whose civilization had reached a far higher stage of development than Japan’s, as Yoshimitsu recognized.

In the hopes of being richly rewarded by the Chinese court, Yoshimitsu agreed to destroy the Japanese pirates who had been plundering the Chinese coast. He carried out this promise with severity. As George Sansom related, “According to a credible account, one of the first missions under the new trade agreement presented a number of captives to the Emperor of China. His Majesty politely returned them to the Japanese leaders, who had them boiled alive.”²⁸

In 1403 Yoshimitsu accepted from the Chinese emperor the title of King of Japan. The imperial rescript sent by Emperor Chien-wen stated in part, “You, Minamoto Dogi,²⁹ King of Japan, with a heart ever with the Imperial Household and holding true to your love of your ruler, have sent envoys to come to the Court, crossing over the waves and billows.”³⁰ The rescript, though friendly in tone, revealed that no less than Hung-wu, Chien-wen considered himself to be the overlord of Japan. According to Chinese accounts, Yoshimitsu was given a crown and robes of state, confirming his status as a lesser monarch and a loyal ally of the Middle Kingdom. In later times, as we have seen, his willingness to accept the title of king from the Chinese court would arouse the fierce indignation of Japanese patriots.

In his role as a vassal of the Chinese emperor, Yoshimitsu offered tribute of swords, fans, and works of artisan craftsmanship and received in return far more valuable gifts—silver, jade, silks, brocades, pearls, and the like. The Chinese stipulation that tribute missions visit their country only once in ten years seems to have been inspired by the imbalance between the simple offerings made by tributary countries and the lavish gifts that the Chinese, as the suzerain state, felt obliged to provide. The Japanese were struck dumb with amazement when they saw the splendor of the first shipment of Chinese gifts.³¹

Yoshimitsu was happy to refer to himself as the king of Japan in the letters he sent to the Chinese court.³² Although he behaved as a despot in Japan, his letters to China were obsequious. Entranced with China, he wore Chinese clothes at court, and before reading messages received from the Chinese court, he would always light incense in reverence. Yoshimitsu behaved like a vassal of the Middle Kingdom not only in the language he used in documents sent to the Chinese court but also in the privacy of his palace.

Yoshimitsu’s successor, Yoshimochi, was far less worshipful of China. In 1411 he refused to receive a Chinese envoy who brought a letter and a gift of money from Emperor Yung-lo. According to Sansom, “His own explanation was that Yoshimitsu, after being attacked by the disease which was to prove fatal, had vowed never again to offend the national deities by receiving envoys from a foreign country.”³³ In 1418 Yung-lo sent Yoshimochi another letter, politely but firmly reproving him for not behaving properly as a vassal and warning that the Chinese army and navy were far stronger than those of the Mongols, whose attacks on Japan had been repulsed 150 years earlier. In reply, Yoshimochi declared that he would not receive any further missions from the Chinese court. Official intercourse between the two countries, terminated in 1419, was not restored during Yoshimochi’s lifetime. A modern Chinese scholar well described the difficulty of establishing and maintaining official relations between Ming China and Japan in terms of the difference in their attitudes with respect to trade:

For the Japanese, trade was, perhaps, the raison d’être for tributary relations otherwise undesirable and humiliating. For the Chinese government, trade was an annoying aspect of the system, to be limited as much as possible. It regarded the periodic Japanese missions as primarily of a symbolic tributary character and was anxious to restrict the numbers of members of Japanese embassies, as well as the quantities of merchandise they brought with them to China.³⁴

Relations with China were renewed by Yoshimochi’s successor, Yoshinori. In 1432 the Chinese emperor Hsüan-te sent a rescript to Yoshinori through the king of Ryūkyū urging the new shogun to follow the example of Yoshimitsu and promising to treat the Japanese generously. Yoshinori responded favorably, sending a priest of the Tenryū-ji as his ambassador.

Japan gradually came to depend on China for such essentials of modern life as coins. Most of the coins in circulation were Eirakusen, so called because they had been struck during the reign of Emperor Yung-lo (1403–1424), pronounced Eiraku in Japan. In 1464, for example, Yoshimasa sent an envoy to the Ming court asking for copper coins, reminding the Chinese that in the Yung-lo era the Japanese had received a great quantity of these coins. The coins had since become scarce, causing economic hardship because the expansion of internal trade in Japan had increased the need for currency beyond the country’s capacity to mint coins.

The fact that the coins bore the name of a foreign ruler did not bother the Japanese. Although they did not adopt the Chinese calendar or take Chinese-style names, as the Koreans did, they were profoundly indebted to the Great Ming dynasty, and this was a source of pride and not of shame.

The situation did not change during Yoshimasa’s reign. In 1453, when a Japanese envoy left for China, he took with him a memorial from Yoshimasa that said in part, “I, your subject, Minamoto Yoshinari, following respectfully the will of my forefathers, have succeeded to the rulership of this poor country. I am preserving this distant land for the sole purpose of being your outer defenses. On account of many internal troubles, I have delayed presenting tribute.”³⁵

Yoshimasa, no less than his grandfather, was ready to identify himself as a vassal of the Great Ming. Paradoxically, the Higashiyama era—broadly speaking, the fifty or so years between Yoshimasa’s accession to the post of shogun and his death in 1490³⁶—was marked by a steady Japanization of cultural forms borrowed from China and the emergence of a distinctively Japanese aesthetic that persists to this day.