Ōuchi Masahiro and the Rise of Yamaguchi

Abstract This chapter provides a new narrative of the debilitating Ōnin War (1465–78) and recasts the struggle as one for supremacy between the Ashikaga and the Ōuchi, revealing how the war ended with the next Ōuchi lord, Masahiro, abandoning his father’s warrior government, but receiving Ashikaga recognition of his extensive rites. Furthermore, it recounts the urban expansion of Yamaguchi and explores how it, rather than the capital of Kyoto, became the center of court-based rituals of governance. It then argues that the period is best characterized not as “Warring States” but rather a dual polity, with complementary political centers at Kyoto and Yamauguchi. Likewise, the chapter explains how they initiated economic regulations concerning coinage. After showing how Masahiro rewrote the Ōuchi past, recalibrating claims of ethnicity through forging records, the chapter explains how he patronized Shinto and deified his father as a god.