Akamatsu Mitsusuke

Akamatsu Mitsusuke (1381–1441) was a military commander who held the shugo posts of the three provinces of Harima, Bizen and Mimasaka under the Muromachi shogunate. He made his name in history by assassinating the sixth shogun, Ashikaga Yoshinori, in the Kakitsu Incident of 1441. Mitsusuke's unprecedented act of killing a shogun gravely damaged the authority of the Muromachi shogunate and was one of the distant causes that paved the way to the Ōnin War.

The Akamatsu clan, Mitsusuke's family, was a distinguished house. Through its service in aiding Ashikaga Takauji during the upheavals of the Nanbokuchō period, it had obtained shugo posts, including in Harima. However, under the autocratic rule of Ashikaga Yoshinori (whose high-handed politics were also described as “terror for all”), many shugo daimyō suffered purges and pressure, and Mitsusuke was among those targeted. Frightened by the reduction of his domains and the repression of his kin, Mitsusuke is said to have resolved to assassinate Yoshinori, striking first.

On the 24th day of the 6th month of Kakitsu 1 (1441), Mitsusuke invited Yoshinori to his residence, claiming it was to celebrate the victory in the Yūki War. During a banquet at which sarugaku was being watched, he had armed men burst in to kill Yoshinori (the Kakitsu Incident). However, this rebellion could not be called a success. The large army of the shogunate invaded Harima, and after Mitsusuke had holed up in Kinoyama Castle (Tatsuno, Hyōgo Prefecture), he took his own life in the 9th month of the same year.

In terms of swords, the Akamatsu clan, as shugo, governed Bizen Province, which was home to production centers of renowned swordsmiths such as Bizen Osafune.