Ashikaga Yoshiakira

Ashikaga Yoshiakira (1330–1367), son of Takauji, was the second shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate. As a child named Senjuō he was left in Kamakura as a Hōjō hostage in 1333, and when his father turned on the Hōjō, warriors storming the city rallied under his name.

Recalled to Kyoto during the Kannō disturbance to replace his uncle Tadayoshi, he fled in 1352 when Southern Court troops seized the capital and captured the Northern Court's imperial family. He retook it and enthroned Emperor Go-Kōgon without the imperial regalia, succeeding his father as shōgun in 1358.

In 1361 his steward Hosokawa Kiyouji defected to the south, which briefly held Kyoto. In 1367 he entrusted his young son Yoshimitsu to Hosokawa Yoriyuki and died, buried beside the Southern Court warrior Kusunoki Masatsura.