whittle down

Ōnin War

The was a civil war from 1467 to 1477 during the Muromachi period in Japan. A dispute between Hosokawa Katsumoto and Yamana Sōzen escalated into a nationwide war involving the Ashikaga shogunate and a number of daimyo in many regions of Japan.

The war initiated the Sengoku jidai, "the Warring States Period". This period was a long, drawn-out struggle for domination by individual daimyo, resulting in a mass power-struggle between the various houses to dominate the whole of Japan. It was during this time, though, that there would emerge three individuals who would later be considered the three great daimyo of the Sengoku Period, and who would eventually unite Japan under one rule; they were Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.



Both Yamana Sōzen and Hosokawa Katsumoto died in 1473, and even then, the war continued on, neither side figuring out how to end the war. However, eventually the Yamana clan lost heart as the label of "rebel" was at last having some effect. Ōuchi Masahiro, one of the Yamana generals, eventually burnt down his section of Kyoto and left the area. It was by 1477, some ten years after the fighting had begun, that Kyoto was now nothing more than a place for mobs to loot and move in to take what was left. Neither the Yamana clan nor the Hosokawa clan had achieved its aims, other than to whittle down the numbers of the opposing clan.

During this whole ordeal, the shogun was not instrumental in alleviating the situation. While Kyoto was burning, Ashikaga Yoshimasa spent his time in poetry readings and other cultural activities, and in planning the Ginkaku-ji, a Silver Pavilion to rival the Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, that his grandfather, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, had built.

The Ōnin War, and the shogun’s complacent attitude towards the war, "sanctioned" private wars and skirmishes between the other daimyo. No part of Japan was untouched by violence. Although the battles in Kyoto had been abandoned, the war had spread to the rest of Japan. In Yamashiro Province, the Hatakeyama clan had split into two parts that fought each other to a standstill. This stalemate, as well, was to have serious consequences. In 1485, the peasantry and ji-samurai (lesser samurai) had had enough, and revolted. Setting up their own army (the 'Ikki'), they forced the clan armies to leave the province. The Ikki were becoming a powerful force, much more than simply an armed mob. By 1486 they had even set up a provisional government for Yamashiro province.





Scholars disagree on the appropriateness of the term "Warring States Period" (which is the Chinese term borrowed by the Japanese in calling this period "sengoku jidai"). Many argue that since Japan was essentially intact, the Emperor and shogunate remaining at least nominally in command of the whole country, it really wasn't a "warring states" period at all, but a "warring warlords" period. However, others such as Mark Ravina, Mary Elizabeth Berry, and Conrad Totman argue that the kuni (provinces) were not unlike quasi-independent states, and that the term is thus more or less appropriate.


Ōnin Ki




'Now the city that you know
Has become an empty field,
From which the skylark rises
And your tears fall.'




Warfare begins



  • Ravina, Mark (1995). "State Building and Political Economy in Early Modern Japan," Journal of Asian Studies, 54:4, 997-1022.
  • George Sansom, Sansom. (1961). A History of Japan, 1334-1615. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0542-0 (cloth) ISBN 0-8047-0525-9
  • Turnbull, Stephen R. (1996). The Samurai: A Military History.. London: Routledge. ISBN 1-8734-1038-7

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