n.

Associated with the Ashikaga shogunate is a financial device known in
history as tokusei, a term signifying "virtuous administration."
Originally imported from China, the tokusei meant nothing more than
a temporary remission of taxes in times of distress. But during
the financial straits to which the country was reduced after the
Mongol invasion, the Hojo deemed it necessary to afford relief to
landowners who had mortgaged their property, and thus, in 1297, a
law--tokusei-rei--was enacted, providing that eviction for debt must
not be enforced. Under the Ashikaga, the tokusei received a still
wider import. It was interpreted as including all debts and pecuniary
obligations of any kind. In other words, the promulgation of a
tokusei ordinance meant that all debtors, then and there, obtained
complete relief. The law was not construed exactly alike everywhere.
Thus, in Nara a debtor must discharge one-third of his obligation
before claiming exemption, and elsewhere a nominal sum had to be paid
for release. Naturally, legislation so opposed to the fundamental
principles of integrity led to flagrant abuses. Forced by riotous
mobs, or constrained by his own needs, the Muromachi shogun issued
tokusei edicts again and again, incurring the hot indignation of the
creditor class and disturbing the whole economic basis of society.
Yoshimasa was conspicuously reckless; he put the tokusei system into
force thirteen times.

EXTRAVAGANCE AND INCOMPETENCE OF YOSHIMASA

It is stated in the records of the Onin era (1467-1469) that
Yoshimasa subordinated his duties altogether to his pleasures, and
that his thoughts seemed to turn wholly on banquets and fetes. His
favourites, especially females, had the control of affairs and were
the final arbiters in all important matters. Thus, a domain which had
been in the undisputed possession of a family for generations might
be alienated in favour of any claimant sufficiently unscrupulous and
sufficiently rich to "commend" his title, and a judgment delivered by
a court of law in the morning was liable to be reversed in the
evening by the fiat of the ladies in the Muromachi "palace."
Stability of policy had no existence. In a period of twenty-four
years (1444-1468), three sentences each of punishment and pardon were
pronounced in the case of the Hatakeyama family, and in twenty years,
Yoshikado and Yoshitoshi of the Shiba sept were each punished and
pardoned three times. In Kyoto it became a cu