Yoriyuki acted as advisor and regent to Yoshiakira's son Yoshimitsu ASHIKAGA, who was still a child, and carried out policies like experimenting with a new hansei (half-tax) law, which was designed to protect existing land holdings, and he attempted to negotiate with the Southern Court, but he also became embroiled in a religious conflict between Mt. Hiei, the powerful old Buddhist sect, and Nanzen-ji temple, a center of the rising new Zen sect; he opposed the Mt. Hiei faction because he was supporting the Nanzen-ji faction, yet he also clashed with Nanzen-ji's own powerful religious leaders, for example, when he opposed chief priest Myoha Shunnoku's seclusion from public life.
頼之は義詮の子で幼少の足利義満を補佐し、半済令の試行や南朝との交渉などの政策を実施するが、旧仏教勢力の比叡山と新興禅宗の南禅寺との対立においては南禅寺派を支持していたため叡山派と対立し、南禅寺の住職春屋妙葩が隠棲して抗議するなど宗教勢力とも対立していた。