This article is an attempt to clarify the transformation that took place in military operations under the Muromachi shogunate after the violent protests for the remission of the debts that took place around Kyoto in 1441 (Kakitsu-no-Ran), from the time when the shogun's administrative advisors (kanrei) took control of the shogunate until Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa assumed leadership. Day to day military affairs during the "kanrei regime" were administered by Bakufu functionaries (bugyonin) and members of the kanrei's personal entourage (uchishu). However, in the midst of the political instability that followed the uprising, it became difficult to gain a consensus among the feudal lords (daimyo) and thus organize an allied army made up of troops led by provincial military governors (shugo). There-fore, regional conflicts that arose during this time would be pacified by local samurai (kokujin) from the nearby provinces coming to the support of the military governor of the province in question. In 1455, when Yoshimasa established firm control of the shogunate, the military system was reorganized mainly by Kanrei Hosokawa Katsumoto and the shogun's close advisor Ise Sadachika, meaning that in addition to the conventional "kanrei route" of reporting incidents to the shogun, a new route was established through Sadachika. However, between 1456 and 1461, the former route gave way to the latter, to the extent that the kanrei's position in military affairs became unclear, while Sadachika became Yoshimasa's advisor in military decision making and information reporting. During that time, troops under allied command of military governors were often deployed to quell regional conflicts, a widespread practice which caused mutiny among troops discontented over conscription, as local-based samurai were being conscripted repeatedly, to a degree of exhaustion. The period from the beginning of Yoshimasa's regime until 1460 was also a time marked by dysfunctionality in the Bakufu's system of military mobilization. It was for the purpose of correcting this problem that coercion was used to muster local-based samurai into service for the shogunate. Yoshimasa's efforts to pacify unruly provincial feudal lords, take back and directly manage proprietorships of religious institutions and mobilize local-based samurai met with failure, and he wound up faced with the rebellion of 1467 (Onin-no-Ran) without a solid military organization made up of those political forces. Yoshimasa's over-reliance on Sadachika had sorely weakened the military role of the kanrei in the Bakufu and caused its eventual hollowing out by the outbreak of the rebellion. The Hosokawa family was forced to conduct its functions as kanrei in isolation from the Bakufu's central bureaucracy. And although Yoshimasa was able to regain his control of the Bakufu through such extreme polarization and the efforts of Ise Sadamune, the Muromachi shogunate would never again play the leading role in conducting military operations.

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