Prelude - the Onin War The Ashikaga Shogunate had been the
undisputed rulers or the Japanese isles for exactly 75 years
when a trivial dispute regarding the succession escalated into a
full blown civil war that eventually rendered the bakufu
Muromachi district in Kyoto reduced to a smoking pile of debris.
Itself founded by Ashikaga Takauji on the defeated remains of
the first warrior government in Kamakura, the Ashikaga family
had overcome both provincial insurrection and imperial
restoration on its quest to establish buke control over the
sacred isles of Japan. Although referred to as a singular
entity, the War of Onin and Bummei (named so on account of the
period names of the 11 year long war ) was, for all intents and
purposes, a succession of armed conflicts centred around the
Ashikaga’s capital of Kyoto and fought between various loose
coalitions of “eastern and western” military provincial
governors known as shugo. Ostensibly fought over the right of
succession following either the death or retirement o