The Sengoku Period

No one knows who fired the first shot, but fighting broke out between the two sides in a neighborhood of Kyoto and spread throughout the entire city. This conflict is called the Onin War, because the Nengo era name at the time was Onin, and marked the total end of Ashkaga political power. Many Daimya tried to gain the upper hand by taking it over Kyoto, hoping to use the symbolic authority of the Bakufu and the Emperor to their advantage. The actual details of the fighting of the Sengoku period are extremely complex and really not worth getting into.