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Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, Episode 107, The Lair of the Wolves.

This week, I want to talk about one of the big turning points in the history of medieval Japan.

If you were to divide the era of samurai rule over Japan, based on political stability, you'd get three very distinct periods.

First, a period of feudal development, spanning the time from the rise of the samurai in the 1100s, to the collapse of the second Bakufu, the Ashkaga Bakufu, in 1467.

Second, a period of civil war from that collapse until the rise of the Tokugawa,

the third and final Samurai government in 1600, and then finally a period of centralized

bureaucratic feudalism under the Tokugawa from 1600 to 1868. What I want to talk about today is the transition from the first period, the period of development,

to the second period, the period of civil war.

The war that caused a teetering Ashikaga government to implode in on itself and which pitched

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