tates of the Muromachi shogun measured only
15,798 cho* there were no less than eight daimyo more richly endowed.
They were:

*A cho at that time represented 3 acres. It is now 2.5 acres.

Daimyo Area of Estates in cho (3 acres)

(1) Yanada Takasuke 32,083

(2) Uesugi Akisada 27,239

(3) Ouchi Mochiyo 25,435

(4) Hosokawa Katsumoto 24,465

(5) Shiba Mochitane 23,576

(6) Sasaki Takayori 16,872

(7) Hatakeyama Yoshmari 16,801

(8) Sasaki Mochikiyo 16,725

If we examine the list still more minutely, we find no less than
twenty-two families, each of whose estates was equal to, or larger
than, one-half of the Muromachi manors. Some families consisted of
several branches whose aggregate properties represented an immense
area. This was notably the case of the Yamana; their five branches
held lands totalling 45,788 cho. The owners of such estates must not
be confounded with the high constables (shugo). Thus Yamana Sozen, as
the high constable of Harima province, held administrative authority
in fourteen districts covering an area of 10,414 cho, and if to this
be added the expanse of his fief, namely, 8016 cho, we get a total
nearly equal to the manors of Hosokawa Katsumoto. Again, Shiba
Yoshitoshi, in addition to owning 10,816 cho, officiated as tandai of
Kyushu, which gave him jurisdiction over another extent of 106,553
cho, though it is true that his authority was defied in the provinces
of Satsuma and Osumi. The military owner of one of these great
estates levied a revenue on a scale which will be presently
discussed, but the high constable was nominally empowered to collect
and transmit only such taxes as were payable to the Bakufu, namely,
the "military dues" (buke-yaku) and the "farmers' dues"
(hyakusho-yaku), whereof the former were originally assessed at two
per cent., and subsequently raised to five per cent., of a family
income; and the latter varied from one to two per cent, of a
homestead's earnings. So long as a high constable or a tandai was
loyal to the Bakufu, the latter received the appointed quota of
imposts; but in times of insurrection, the shugo or tandai
appropriated to his own purposes the proceeds alike of the buke-yaku
and the hyakusho-yaku.

Not merely inequalities of wealth operated to produce political
unrest. It has also to be noted that each great military family
supported a body of ar