The Ōnin War: In 1467, a Mother's Obsession to Make Her Son Shōgun Burned Kyoto

In 1467 (Ōnin 1), in Kyoto. The conflict over the succession of the Ashikaga shogunal house at last developed into a great war that drew in the daimyō.

Hino Tomiko, consort of the eighth shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, sought to make her son Yoshihisa the next shōgun.

But Yoshimasa had already, in the days when he had no natural son, set his younger brother Yoshimi as heir.

A mother's passion and the shogunal house's promise collided head-on, and the capital of Kyoto was engulfed in the flames of war between the Eastern and Western armies.

The eighth shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimasa long had no natural son. So Yoshimasa returned his younger brother Yoshimi to lay life, set him as heir, and made Hosokawa Katsumoto his guardian.

But in 1465, his consort Tomiko bore a boy, Yoshihisa. Now that her own child had been born, Tomiko wished to make Yoshihisa shōgun.

It was a mother's natural feeling, but it overturned the promise of succession already fixed.

Within the shogunal house, two candidates for the succession had arisen.

Tomiko sought Yamana Sōzen as the backer of her son Yoshihisa. Meanwhile Yoshimi, set as heir, was supported by Hosokawa Katsumoto.

As it happened, the shogunate's men of power, Hosokawa and Yamana, had long been contending for leadership.

The shogunal house's succession problem joined with the conflict of these two great forces and, drawing in the daimyō, blazed up at a stroke.

One mother's passion had cast fire into the powder magazine of the age.

In 1467, the Eastern army of the Hosokawa and the Western army of the Yamana clashed in Kyoto.

The fighting did not end in a year, but continued for as long as eleven years. The streets of Kyoto became a burnt field through repeated arson and pillage, and the mansions of the nobles and the temples and shrines alike were reduced to ashes.

This is the Ōnin War. The single-minded passion of a mother who wished to make her son shōgun became, unintentionally, the trigger of a great war that would end the Japanese Middle Ages themselves.

Tomiko, in the midst of this war, would stand on the front stage of politics.