was, in truth, the final success. The decade of
comparative quiet that ensued on the main island proved to be the
calm before the storm.

The most prominent figures in the closing chapter of the great
dynastic struggle are Hosokawa Yoriyuki and Yamana Mitsuyuki. When
the second Ashikaga shogun, Yoshiakira, recognized that his days were
numbered, he summoned his trusted councillor, Hosokawa Yoriyuki, and
his son Yoshimitsu, and said to the latter, "I give you a father,"
and to the former, "I give you a son." Yoriyuki faithfully discharged
the trust thus reposed in him. He surrounded his youthful charge with
literary and military experts, and secured to him every advantage
that education could confer. Moreover, this astute statesman seems to
have apprehended that if the cause of the Southern Court were not
actually opposed, it would die of inanition, and he therefore
employed all his influence to preserve peace. He endeavoured also to
enforce strict obedience to the economical precepts of the Kemmu
code, and altogether the ethics he favoured were out of harmony with
the social conditions of Kyoto at the time and with the natural
proclivities of the young shogun himself. In fine, he had to leave
the capital, too full of his enemies, and to retire to his native
province, Awa.

During ten years he remained in seclusion. But, in 1389, a journey
made by the shogun to Miya-jima revealed so many evidences of
Yoriyuki's loyalty that he was invited to return to Kyoto, and with
his assistance the organization of the Ashikaga forces at Muromachi
was brought to a high state of efficiency, partly because the astute
Yoriyuki foresaw trouble with the Yamana family, which was then
supreme in no less than ten provinces, or nearly one-sixth of all
Japan. In 1391 Yamana Ujikiyo and his kinsman Mitsuyuki took the
field against Kyoto under the standard of the Southern Court. He
commanded a great army, and there resulted a desperate struggle known
in history as the Meitoku War, after the name of the year-period when
it occurred. The Yamana leader was killed and his army completely
routed. In the following year, the great Hosokawa Yoriyuki died. He
had lived to see the ten provinces recovered from Yamana rule and
partitioned among the Muromachi generals.

But he expired just before the final triumph to which his genius had
so materially contributed. For within a few months of his demise the
War of the Dynasties came at last to a close. The