Katsumoto Hosokawa was a Military leader of the middle Muromachi period.
Background
Katsumoto Hosokawa was born in 1430 in Japan.
The Hosokawa, followers of Ashikaga Takauji, were given posts in the Muromachi shogunate, and from the time Hosokawa Yoriyuki was appointed to the position of kanrei (chief administrator) so that he might act as assistant to Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, generation after generation of this family occupied important offices in the shogunate.
Career
Katsumoto held the position of kanrei for four years beginning in 1445, and again from 1452 to 1464.
In the eleventh month of 1464, Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, having no son of his own, adopted his younger brother Yoshimi as his son and heir and appointed Katsumoto to act as his guardian. The following year, however, the shogun’s wife, Hino Tomiko, gave birth to a son and called on Yamana Sözen, one of the powerful military leaders of the time, to help her have the child declared heir to the shogun.
In 1467 the two opposing factions drew up their forces in Kyoto, those of Hosokawa Katsumoto on the east side of the city, those of Yamana Sözen on the west, and the period of civil strife known as the Önin War began. But in the third month of 1473, long before the strife was brought to an end, Yamana Sözen, the commander of the western camp, died, and two months later Hosokawa Katsumoto fell victim to an outbreak of plague.