was a member of the

Ōuchi clan was one of the most powerful and important families in Western Japan during the reign of the Ashikaga shogunate in the 12th to 14th centuries. Their domains, ruled from the castle town of Yamaguchi, comprised six provinces at their height, and ...

and general in the

Ōnin War The , also known as the Upheaval of Ōnin and Ōnin-Bunmei war, was a civil war that lasted from 1467 to 1477, during the Muromachi period in Japan. '' Ōnin'' refers to the Japanese era during which the war started; the war ended during the Bun ...

, serving

Yamana Sōzen was originally before becoming a monk. Due to his red complexion, he was sometimes known as ''Aka-nyūdō'', "the Red Monk". He was one of the ''daimyōs'' who fought against Hosokawa Katsumoto during the Ōnin War in Heian-kyō. Biography Yam ...

. He battled numerous times with Yamana's rival,

Hosokawa Katsumoto was one of the Kanrei, the Deputies to the Shōgun, during Japan's Muromachi period. He is famous for his involvement in the creation of Ryōan-ji, a temple famous for its rock garden, and for his involvement in the Ōnin War, which sparked th ...

, at one point commanding 20,000 men and 2,000 boats, moving his troops by land as well as by sea. These battles took place mostly in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

, but also across the Hosokawa family's holdings, and other territories. In 1473, both Yamana and Hosokawa died, but Ōuchi refused to lay down his arms until the Shogunal succession was decided. He even refused a direct order from the Shōgun himself. Finally in 1475, after most other ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...

s'' had submitted to the Shōgun's rule, Ōuchi did the same, and returned to his home in Kyoto. There, he destroyed his own home, and possibly the Shōgun's Nijō Palace as well, blaming it on ''

ashigaru were infantry employed by the samurai class of feudal Japan. The first known reference to ''ashigaru'' was in the 14th century, but it was during the Ashikaga shogunate (Muromachi period) that the use of ''ashigaru'' became prevalent by various ...

'' in his diary. Ōuchi then left the city, establishing himself in his family's ancestral domains of Yamaguchi and seeking to recreate the depth of Kyoto culture there. He decorated his castle lavishly with artwork imported from China and Korea, as well as Japanese art. He also invited a number of famous artists to his home, including Sesshū, who painted the Long Scroll (Chōkan) for him in 1486.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ouchi Masahiro Daimyo 1446 births 1495 deaths Ōuchi clan