Ashikaga Tadayoshi

Ashikaga Tadayoshi (1306–1352), younger brother of the shōgun Takauji, ran the Ashikaga regime's government while Takauji commanded its armies; the pair were called the two shōguns. After the Hōjō fell he governed Kamakura for Prince Nariyoshi, and when the Nakasendai rebellion overran the city in 1335, he killed the imprisoned Prince Moriyoshi and fled.

He shaped much of the 1336 Kenmu Shikimoku, and a disciple of Musō Soseki, he expanded the Five Mountains temples. In 1349 his feud with the steward Kō no Moronao broke into the Kannō disturbance, and he was forced to take Buddhist vows.

He joined the Southern Court in 1350 and beat Takauji in 1351, taking Kyoto and Kamakura; but Takauji made peace with the south and turned on him. Defeated and held in a Kamakura monastery, he died suddenly in 1352; the Taiheiki says he was poisoned.