The Ashikaga shogunate (Ashikaga bakufu 1336 1573) was a feudal military dictators

hip ruled by the shoguns of the Ashikaga family.

This period is also known as the Muromachi period and gets its name from the Mur
omachi street of Kyoto where the third shogun Yoshimitsu established his residen
ce.

Beginning
During the preceding Kamakura period (1185 1333), the Hojo clan enjoyed absolute p
ower in the governing of Japan. This monopoly of power, as well as the lack of a
reward of lands after the defeat of Mongol invasion led to simmering resentment
among Hojo vassals. Finally, in 1333, the Emperor Go-Daigo ordered local govern
ing vassals to oppose Hojo rule, in favor of Imperial restoration, in the Kemmu
Restoration.
To counter this revolt, the Kamakura bakufu ordered Ashikaga Takauji to quash th
e uprising. For reasons that are unclear, possibly because Ashikaga was the de f
acto leader of the powerless Minamoto clan, while the Hojo clan were from the Ta
ira clan the Minamoto had previously defeated, Ashikaga turned against the Kamak
ura bakufu, and fought on behalf of the Imperial court.
After the successful overthrow of the Kamakura bakufu in 1336, Ashikaga Takauji
set up his own bakufu in Kyoto.
North and South Court
After Ashikaga Takauji established himself as the Seii Taishogun, a dispute aros
e with the Emperor Go-Daigo on the subject of how to govern the country. That di
spute led Takauji to cause Yutahito, the second son of Emperor Go-Fushimi to be
installed as Emperor Komyo. Go-Daigo fled, and the country was divided between a
North Court (in favor of Komyo and Ashikaga), and a South Court (in favor of Go
-Daigo). This period of North and South Courts (Nanboku-cho) continued for 56 ye
ars, until 1392, when the South Court gave up during the reign of Ashikaga Yoshi
mitsu.

Government Structure
In part because Ashikaga Takauji established his shogunate by siding with the Em
peror against the previous Kamakura shogunate, the Ashikagas shared more of the
governmental authority with the Imperial government than the Kamakura shogunate
had. Thus, it was a weaker shogunate than the Kamakura shogunate or the Tokugawa
shogunate. The centralized master-vassal system used in the Kamakura system was
replaced with the highly de-centralized daimyo (local lord) system, and the mil
itary power of the Ashikaga shogunate depended heavily on the loyalty of the dai
myo.

Fall of the Shogunate

As the daimyo increasingly feuded among themselves in the pursuit of power in th
e Onin War, that loyalty grew increasingly strained, until it erupted into open
warfare in the late Muromachi period, also known as the Sengoku Period.
When the last effective Ashikaga shogun Yoshiteru was assassinated in 1565, an a
mbitious daimyo, Oda Nobunaga, seized the opportunity and installed Yoshiteru's
brother Ashikaga Yoshiaki as the 15th Ashikaga shogun. However, Yoshiaki was onl
y a puppet shogun.
The Ashikaga shogunate was finally destroyed in 1573 when Nobunaga drove Ashikag
a Yoshiaki out of Kyoto. Initially, Yoshiaki fled to Shikoku. Afterwards, Yoshia
ki sought and received protection from the Mori clan in western Japan. Later, To
yotomi Hideyoshi requested that Yoshiaki accept him as an adopted son and the 16
th Ashikaga Shogun, but Yoshiaki refused.
The Ashikaga family survived the 16th century, and a branch of it became the dai
myo family of the Kitsuregawa domain.