It becomes a wonder how the estate system survived at all given the depredations it suffered at the hands of the warriors. There were two reasons why it survived in the attenuated form described above: one, was the existence of the Muromachi regime that consistently upheld the estate system in the face of warrior incursions. As described earlier, Ashikaga Takauji tried to make sure that the limits set on the warriors by the half-tax measure was not exceeded, but he failed to circumvent arrangements like the "shugo" contract that really denuded the noble of his estate and its income. The half-tax measure itself did not protect the noble from the outright takeover of the estate at the hands of the samurai, even if the latter were required to hand over a portion to fulfill the half-tax law. In the end, it was the Muromachi administration that made sure that the samurai paid their portion of income to the nobles.