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However, the military and civil government soon came to a head. [[Ashikaga Takauji]], one of the generals who had placed Go-Daigo back on the throne, disobeyed an Imperial command, and eventually marched on Kyôto. Emperor Go-Daigo fled, supported by [[Nitta Yoshisada]] and others. War raged across the country. Eventually, Go-Daigo submitted to Takauji, in [[1336]], but he would continue to oppose the Ashikaga Bakufu. He eventually fled with his supporters to Yoshino, in the south, while Takauji, had another Emperor installed in Kyôto. Thus began the [[Nanbokucho Period]], or era of Southern and Northern Courts.
However, the military and civil government soon came to a head. [[Ashikaga Takauji]], one of the generals who had placed Go-Daigo back on the throne, disobeyed an Imperial command, and eventually marched on Kyôto. Emperor Go-Daigo fled, supported by [[Nitta Yoshisada]] and others. War raged across the country. Eventually, Go-Daigo submitted to Takauji, in [[1336]], but he would continue to oppose the Ashikaga Bakufu. He eventually fled with his supporters to Yoshino, in the south, while Takauji, had another Emperor installed in Kyôto. Thus began the [[Nanbokucho Period]], or era of Southern and Northern Courts.
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As the shogunate was based in Kyoto, and was relatively politically weak, and thus reliant on the imperial court and court nobility in certain respects, much political interactions took place over banquets, or otherwise within cultural social situations. [[Noh]] theater and various forms of poetry, among other arts, benefited considerably from this situation, developing into more mature, defined forms.<ref name=ikegami106>[[Eiko Ikegami]], ''Bonds of Civility'', Cambridge University Press (2005), 106.</ref>
===Nambokucho===
===Nambokucho===
==Economy and Trade==
==Economy and Trade==
The use of [[currency]] became more widespread than ever before during this period, with much taxes being paid in coin, and a majority of documented sales contracts involving the exchange of coin, rather than such deals being made purely through the barter of goods and services.<ref name=ikegami106/>
While not as extensive or intensive as in later developments in the [[Tokugawa period]], the Muromachi period saw considerable expansion of the specialization of labor, with the greater development of various crafts and other professions, as well as the expansion of domestic and overseas trade networks, greater flow of commodities, and so forth, as well as a certain degree of urbanization, especially in Kyoto. ''[[Za]]'' and other guild structures also emerged in this period as merchants and craftsmen organized into associations with one another for mutual protection, and other sorts of benefits. Self-governing organizations within Kyoto neighborhoods emerged, too, out of these developments.<ref name=ikegami106/>
As for overseas trade, the Muromachi period saw the only formal diplomatic relations and [[tribute]] trade between any Japanese state and the Chinese Imperial court since the [[Nara period]]. The Ashikaga shogunate, certain powerful temples, and a few powerful samurai clans (including the [[Ouchi clan|Ôuchi]], [[Otomo clan|Ôtomo]], and [[Hosokawa clan]]s) engaged in official authorized trade in Chinese ports, through a [[kango boeki|tally trade]] system. Much smuggling, [[wako|piracy]], and other trade also took place, and so exchanges across the region were quite active, even outside of official trade.
==Popular Culture==
==Popular Culture==
A number of officially patronized and popular arts developed in the Muromachi period, particularly in Kyoto, and particularly in conjunction with samurai patronage or simply with the shogunate's presence amplifying Kyoto's position as a cultural center.
In addition to official samurai patronage of Noh, [[tea ceremony]], various forms of poetry, calligraphy, and painting, and martial arts, Kyoto began to see the expansion of popular spectatorship of certain arts, as performance troupes organized into ''za'', and took part in paid performances (''kanjin'') held in the riverbanks or other marginal areas, made less marginal by these officially authorized events. Though officially sanctioned, however, these performances, and the marginal spaces where they were held, continued to be associated with spiritual pollution and marginality. When, in a famous incident in [[1349]], the stands collapsed under an excited crowd, killing over one hundred people at a ''[[dengaku]]'' performance attended by the shogun & ''[[kanpaku]]'', there was much criticism that the shogun was perhaps too infatuated with such petty entertainments.<ref>Ikegami, 107-108.</ref>
Though [[Zen]] Buddhism was introduced to Japan in the Kamakura period, arts associated with it saw considerable development and prominence in the Muromachi period, with the Zen painting of [[Sesshu|Sesshû]], [[Shubun|Shûbun]], and [[Josetsu]], all Muromachi era painter-monks associated with the Kyoto temple of [[Shokoku-ji|Shôkoku-ji]], becoming some of the most famous and treasured ink paintings in the Japanese canon today.
==Society==
==Society==