History of Japan, 1333-1615 Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Muromachi Bakufu

Although the term was not used while Takauji himself was alive, the government of his descendants is known as the Muromachi Bakufu. Muromachi is a district of Kyôto which, from the time of the third Ashikaga Shôgun, Yoshimitsu, was the headquarters of the Bakufu.

Kitayama is the site of Yoshimitsu's famous palace, and is the name given to the culture that developed during his time. "Kemmu" was the Imperial era name of the years 1334-1336, during which Go-Daigo had briefly been "restored" to power. His short tenure is known as the Kemmu Restoration. The Edo Bakufu belongs to a much later era; it refers to the Shôgunate of the Tokugawa family, dating from 1603

Answer: The battle of Minatogawa

Kusunoki Masashige, one of the greatest generals in the history of Japan, advised Go-Daigo not to directly confront the Ashikaga forces as they advanced north toward Kyôto, but his advice was not followed, and he was ordered to meet the enemy at Minatogawa, near the modern city of Kobe. Loyal to the end, Masashige obeyed his Emperor and met his death in the resulting defeat.

The battles of Okehazama and Nagashino are key dates in the career of Oda Nobunaga, the warlord who would begin the process of re-unifying Japan in the sixteenth century. The battle of Sekigahara, perhaps the most significant in Japan's history, sealed the triumph of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the warlord who completed the process of re-unification.

Answer: The Northern and Southern courts

Yoshino, Go-Daigo's mountainous base in Nara, is south of Kyôto, hence the term "Northern and Southern" to describe the two courts. The war between them dragged on for half a century, long after both Go-Daigo and Takauji were dead. By 1392, the Southern court had been worn down by the Muromachi Bakufu and agreed to re-unify with the Northern court.

Answer: He contributed Japanese troops to Chinese military campaigns

When Yoshimitsu established trade links with China, Japanese swords were one of the top items that the smaller partner had to sell to the larger being then, as now, prized for their magnificent workmanship. In return for the opening of trade links, Yoshimitsu agreed to suppress the wakô, the Japanese pirates who plagued the coasts of China and Korea. In 1404, the Ming rewarded him by recognizing him as the "King of Japan". Yoshimitsu responded by declaring himself the vassal of the Ming Emperor.

Japanese troops have certainly fought in China on a large scale, but only as enemy invaders to the best of my knowledge. Certainly the Chinese in the early fifteenth century, fresh from throwing the Mongols out of their country, were in no need of help from foreign troops.

Answer: Daimyo

The word "Daimyô" is written with the characters for "great" and "name". The "name" here refers to "name-fields" i.e. privately owned plots of land. The Shugo became powerful by acquiring large chunks of their provinces, hence "Daimyô" is best translated as "great landowner".

These original Daimyô, sent into the provinces by the Ashikaga, were members of great samurai families. They are sometimes called "Shugo-Daimyô" to distinguish them from the "Sengoku-Daimyô"; samurai from obscure and low-ranking families who took advantage of the breakdown of central government in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to carve out provincial empires for themselves.

Answer: It was fought in Kyôto itself

The Ônin War was fought in the streets and mansions of Kyôto, leaving the city, by 1477, a heap of ruins. Prior to this, the rivalries of the great families had been fought out in the provinces, and could be safely ignored by the Bakufu. The devastation of Kyôto, the political and spiritual heart of the country, destroyed the Ashikaga Shôguns as credible rulers, and precipitated the breakdown of central authority. Japan now entered the Sengoku Period - the era of fully independent regional warlords.

Guns would not be used in Japan until 1543, when they were introduced by the Portuguese. No foreign mercenaries played a role in this or, as far as I am aware, any other civil war in Japan. The two sides in the Ônin War were the Hosokawa and Yamana families. The Hosokawa leader, Katsumoto, was not the son of his rival, Yamana Sôzen, but he was his son-in-law, having married Sôzen's daughter in an unsuccessful attempt to improve their relationship.

Answer: Sengoku

"Sengoku" literally translates as "warring states", and thus is not really applicable to the Japan of this time, which was a single state ripped apart by internal conflict. However in this, as in much else, the Japanese borrowed a Chinese term that described an era of actual warring states on the mainland and used it to denote their period of anarchy.

Answer: Ikkô-Ikki

The Ikkô-Ikki, or "single-minded leagues", established themselves as a powerful force in Japan in 1488 when they took overthrew the samurai of Kaga Province and began to rule it by themselves. Composed of peasants and monks, the Ikkô-Ikki presented a challenge to the feuding warlords for almost a hundred years.

Rennyo was the monk who founded the Hongan temple, the spiritual center of Jôdô-shinshû, although he was careful never to openly support his radical followers. "Yakiuchi" refers to the act of storming an enemy building and burning it down - a traditional form of rebellion in Japan. A naginata is a long pole with a curved blade, a weapon favored by Ikkô-Ikki adherents.

Answer: Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen

Kenshin, the Daimyô of Echigo Province, and Shingen, the Daimyô of Kai, were said to have enjoyed their rivalry. At the fourth battle of Kawanakajima they came face to face when Kenshin and his men stormed Shingen's headquarters. Luckily for Shingen (who was armed only with a fan), the duel was interrupted before Kenshin could get too many sword strokes in. Shingen features prominently in Kurosawa Akira's film "Kagemusha".

Answer: Owari

Making up the western half of modern-day Aichi Prefecture, Owari came under the control of the Oda clan in the days of Nobunaga's father. When Nobunaga finally established himself as its unquestioned master, by 1560, it was a small, unimportant province that unfortunately sat on the strategic route to Kyôto for any important warlord coming from the east. In 1560 Imagawa Yoshimoto, the Daimyô of Suruga, marched into Owari on his way to Kyôto and, to general surprise, was defeated and killed by Nobunaga - the first step on the young prodigy's road to power.

Mikawa was the province of Imagawa's vassal, Matsudaira Motoyasu, who would later be known as Tokugawa Ieyasu, and is arguably the most significant figure in the history of Japan. Ômi was the province of Asai Nagamasa, Nobunaga's brother-in-law, who would one day make the terrible mistake of double-crossing him.

Answer: Hideyoshi was his vassal and Ieyasu was his ally

Hideyoshi was born in Owari province, under the power of the Oda clan. His father, though he took part in the clan's battles, had no samurai ancestry. Hideyoshi began as Nobunaga's servant and rose, thanks to his military prowess, to be his most trusted general.

Ieyasu was a samurai, the Daimyô of Mikawa Province. In his youth, he fell under the domination of Imagawa Yoshimoto, the powerful Daimyô of Suruga, and accompanied the latter when he attacked Nobunaga in 1560. After Nobunaga's defeat of Imagawa, Ieyasu and Nobunaga joined forces, with Ieyasu the junior partner. It was an alliance that served both men well, and that was never broken.

Answer: Tokyo

Hardly anyone had heard of Edo before Ieyasu relocated there in 1590. By moving to the east, however, Ieyasu was able to detach himself from the turbulence of Hideyoshi's reign and develop Edo into a powerful and effective base for his new domain; one that was ready to govern the country when Hideyoshi was dead and Ieyasu's turn came.

By the eighteenth century, under Ieyasu's descendants, Edo was the largest city in the world. It remains the heart of modern-day Japan.

Answer: He invaded Korea

Hideyoshi, who grew up as an illiterate peasant, was ignorant about the world outside Japan. In the 1590's, failing to appreciate the vast scale of China, he decided to follow his conquest of Japan with a further conquest of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming tributary state of Korea, as it has before and since, found itself a convenient stepping-stone between its two powerful neighbors. Hideyoshi's two attempts to seize Korea were initially successful, but soon bogged down under the Ming counterattack. After Hideyoshi's death in 1598, his generals lost little time in calling the invasion off.

Answer: The battle of Sekigahara

Anti-Ieyasu sentiment gathered around Hideyoshi's top bureaucrat, Ishida Mitsunari. Mitsunari was not a great general, but opposition to the Tokugawa was such that many important warriors did rally to his cause. The armies met on October 21 at Sekigahara, in modern-day Gifu Prefecture. A hard-fought battle, it was eventually won by treachery when one of Mitsunari's allies, having been persuaded beforehand by Ieyasu, changed sides and attacked his own army's rear.

Although this was not yet the end of Hideyoshi's family, the battle effectively delivered control of Japan to Ieyasu.

Answer: Ôsaka

In Ôsaka today can be seen a replica of the great castle that Hideyoshi built there, where his unfortunate son died in 1615. Along with him died his mother Yodo, the niece of Oda Nobunaga, whose mother, father, stepfather and brother had died at the hands of the first two great unifiers of Japan. She and her son now died at the hands of the third.

This was the end of the Toyotomi, and the beginning of the rule of the Tokugawa family, which would govern Japan until 1868 - presiding over a period of peace lasting more than 250 years.