Ashikaga Yoshiteru

Ashikaga Yoshiteru

Ashikaga Yoshiteru ( Jap.足利義輝; * 31 March 1536 ; † 17th June 1565 ) was the 13th shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate and ruled from 1546 bis 1565 the late Muromachi period in Japan . He was the eldest son of the 12th Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiharu . His mother was a daughter of Konoe Taneie , who would later be called Keijuin ( 慶寿 院 ). His younger brother Ashikaga Yoshiaki became the 15th and final shogun.

Life

After his father Ashikaga Yoshiharu was forced to resign in 1546 because of a political battle with Hosokawa Harumoto , Yoshiteru Seii Taishōgun was , however, a puppet of the Hosokawa, like his father. Yoshiteru was only 11 years old at the time and the inauguration ceremony took place in Sakamoto in Ōmi province outside the capital Kyoto .

After Yoshiteru was in office, his father Yoshiharu made an agreement with Harumoto in order to be able to return to Kyoto. However, Harumoto's follower Miyoshi Nagayoshi broke with Harumoto and ran over to Hosokawa Ujitsuna and a war broke out between the two Hosokawa, as a result of which Yoshiteru, Yoshiharu and Harumoto were expelled from Kyoto. In 1550 Yoshiharu died in Provinzmi province without being able to return to Kyoto.

In 1552 Yoshiteru made peace with Nagaharu in order to be able to return to Kyōto. The following year, however, Yoshiteru and Harumoto began a war against Nagayoshi in an attempt to break his influence. With the help of Rokkaku Yoshikata , the war initially went well for Yoshiteru, but in 1558 he had to leave Kyōto because of a counterattack by Nagayoshi. After the victory, Nagayoshi did not insist on killing Yoshiteru in order not to get the reputation of having killed a Shogun. Instead, he made peace to have Yoshiteru back in Kyoto under his influence. Nagayoshi officially became an advisor to Yoshiteru, who, however, was ultimately only his powerless vicarious agent.

Surrounded by daimyo , who wanted to use the authority of the shogun for their own purposes, Yoshiteru managed to consolidate the authority of the shogun with diplomatic means.

Through his attempts to negotiate a peace between such well-known daimyo as Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin , Shimazu Takahisa and Ōtomo Yoshishige and Mōri Motonari and Amago Haruhisa , the authority of the shogun was again recognized by various daimyo. He had few resources, but gave his Kanji 輝 to various samurai such as Mōri Terumoto on the right occasion , in order to take something similar to a godfather to them.

Yoshiteru was respected for his actions and many scholars regard him as the last effective shogun. Oda Nobunaga and Uesugi Kenshin were among the many daimyo and samurai who traveled to Kyoto to pay their respects to the Shogun.

In 1564 Nagayoshi died of illness and Yoshiteru saw an opportunity to gain full power of a shogun. Matsunaga Hisahide and three other members of the Miyoshi family council , who wanted to act in the background like Nagayoshi, were however right to use any means to take Yoshiteru's power and use Ashikaga Yoshihide as a puppet.

In 1565, Hisahide, three Miyoshi and Miyoshi Yoshitsugu besieged a cluster of buildings that would later become Nijō Castle and where Yoshiteru lived. Yoshiteru loved Kenjutsu and had been taught the art of fighting with the katana from Kamiizumi Nobutsuna and Tsukahara Bokuden . He pulled out over a dozen katanas that had been given to him by various daimyo, and it is said that he personally killed a large number of the enemies while throwing one priceless katana aside as it broke in battle was. Without the help of daimyo, who were able to come to his aid in time, the few troops under Yoshiteru were overrun by the overwhelming force of the Miyoshi. Yoshiteru died by Seppuku Yoshiteru's mother is said to have died on the same day.

Three years later, his cousin Ashikaga Yoshihide became the 14th Shogun.

Because of his inner strength and the skills with the katana, with which he practiced regularly, Yoshiteru Kengō Shogun ( 剣 豪 将軍 ) was called and was closer to a samurai and warlord than it was hardly a Shogun since Ashikaga Takauji . His personal conduct was highly valued, but having been killed in spite of all his activities destroyed the shogunate's lack of recognition and authority.

The waka that Yoshiteru is said to have left when he died shows how far his dreams went and how little his achievements were:

五月 雨 は 露 か 涙 か 不如 帰
我 が 名 を あ げ よ 雲 の 上 ま で

Samidare wa Tsuyu ka Namida ka Hototogisu
Waga na o ageyo Kumo no Ue made.

The May rain falls, is it my tears or the mist that surrounds me?

Hototogisu (a cuckoo ( Cuculus poliocephalus ) whose kanji can also be read as never to return ) takes my name and rises above the clouds.

literature

• E. Papinot: Historical and geographical dictionary of Japan. Rutland, Vermont, Tokyo, 1992, ISBN 0-8048-0996-8

Individual evidence

1. ↑ E. Papinot: Historical and geographical dictionary of Japan, p. 34 gives the year 1535 as the year of birth and 1545 as the beginning of the reign.
2. ↑ E.Papinot: Historical and geographical dictionary of Japan, S. 35