ABSTRACT
The Önin War rendered the already weakened Ashikaga bakufu so powerless that it existed in name only. This also presaged a radical change in the politics of Japan, bringing about new power alignments. Most of the great shugo daimyö ceased to exist, with the notable exceptions of the Takeda and Imagawa in the East and the Ötomo and Shimazu who were securely entrenched in the island of Kyushu. The shugo daimyö were replaced by the sengoku daimyö who consolidated economic and military power bases within their own domains to embark on their own ambitious courses of conquest of the nation. Not all of the sengoku daimyö survived to the end of the warring period. It was aperiod of gekokujö, or the lower supplanting the upper, and they in turn were often replaced by their own subordinates.
