History UsefulNotes / SengokuPeriod

** ''Series/ToshiieToMatsu''[[/index]] (利家とまつ～加賀百万石物語～, 2002). A tale detailing the life and romance of Maeda Toshiie (a lifelong ally of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi), as well as his LadyOfWar wife Matsu. The first Taiga drama to have its own page on Wiki/TVTropes.

->''"It's time for: '''Who's Going to Be the Next Shogun?''' Usually it's the Shogun's kid, but the Shogun doesn't have a kid. So he tries to get his brother to quit being a monk and be the next shogun. He says okay. But then the Shogun has a kid. So now who's it gonna be? '''Vote now on your phones!''' And everyone voted so hard that the palace caught on fire and burned down (the shogun actually didn't care, he was off somewhere doing poetry).\\

And the whole country broke into pieces. Everyone is fighting with each other for local power, and it's anybody's game."''

* ''Manga/{{Ooku}}: The Inner Chambers'': while most of it is set in the JidaiGeki, it does briefly flash back to the tail end of this period during the Reverend Kasuga's early life [[spoiler:which shaped her future role as the instigator of the ElCidPloy that kicks off the manga.]]

The Sengoku Period (戦国時代, ''Sengoku Jidai''), or the "Warring States Period" (no, [[UsefulNotes/DynastiesFromShangToQing not that one]]) was a period stretching from the mid-fifteenth to the late sixteenth centuries. It is remembered as a time of bloody civil wars and political intrigue which paved the way for the rise of the modern nation of UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}. The last several decades in particular (known as the Azuchi-Momoyama Period) are regarded by many as some of the most crucial in Japanese history.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* The Roleplay/MSFHighForum has recently had a theme day that replicates this era.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* Many Creator/AkiraKurosawa films:

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]

** ''Aoi Tokugawa Sandai'' (葵 徳川三代, 2000), the first TurnOfTheMillennium series. Notable as the first series ever to be broadcast in HD, as well as having three central characters (i.e. UsefulNotes/TokugawaIeyasu, his successor Hidetada, and his grandson Iemitsu).
** ''Series/ToshiieToMatsu'' (利家とまつ～加賀百万石物語～, 2002). A tale detailing the life and romance of Maeda Toshiie (a lifelong ally of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi), as well as his LadyOfWar wife Matsu. The first Taiga drama to have its own page on Wiki/TVTropes.

[[index]]
* One of the [[GameMod mods]] that came bundled with ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}} III''[='=]s second expansion pack, ''Conquests'', is called "Sengoku: Sword of the Shogun," and is more or less ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: A ''Daimyo'' Is You. Unite Japan and become Shogun.

* ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis IV'' covers this era in its time frame with a special shogunate mechanism. Any daimyo who manages to capture Kyoto will reign as the shogun, those who are successful enough can unify Japan.
** A popular GameMod for ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis III'' features a series of scripted events designed to simulate the politics of Japan in this era.
[[index]]

The early Muromachi Period's strongest political figure was by far Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), the third shogun in line. Yoshimitsu established trade relations with China, ended the warring between the rival Northern and Southern Imperial Courts, was a great patron of the arts, and gave the feudal landlords - the daimyō - greater control over their lands. Unfortunately, Yoshimitsu's successors gradually became weaker and weaker, further decentralizing the government's power and placing more power in the hands of the daimyō. The decline of Ashikaga authority is metonymically illustrated in two Zen Buddhist temples they patronized: the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkaku-ji Kinkaku-ji]] (金閣寺, "Temple of the Golden Pavilion", built at the height of Yoshimitsu's authority and covered in gold leaf), and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkaku-ji Ginkaku-ji]] (銀閣寺, "Temple of the Silver Pavilion", commissioned by 8th Shogun Yoshimasa, but was never finished with its intended silver leaf coating due to his government's loss of resources and authority).[[note]]Ironically, it would be the more austere Ginkaku-ji that would survive in its original state--as the Kinkaku-ji, still beautiful but already deteriorating and losing its gold coating, would be burnt down in a notorious arson incident in 1950. Creator/YukioMishima would later interview the perpetrator and turn it into [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temple_of_the_Golden_Pavilion a novel]].[[/note]]\\\

* ''VideoGame/{{Nioh2}}'' takes place more towards the middle of the conflict as it primarily follows the exploits of Kinoshita Tōkichirō, later known as Hideyoshi and his friend-turned-enemy the player character.

Tokugawa Ieyasu abdicated in 1605, retiring soon after ascending to the shogunate, according to custom. He passed the rule down to his son (which also had the effect of securing a peaceful succession). Tokugawa just had one more matter to settle. He rounded up his troops one last time and marched on Osaka Castle in 1614. Osaka Castle was the home of Toyotomi Hideyori, Hideyoshi's rightful heir. Tokugawa laid siege to the castle until it burned to the ground in 1615, taking the last of the Toyotomi bloodline with it and thereby ending the last possible opposition to his rule, though notably, Tokugawa came into near death when a certain general under Hideyori, UsefulNotes/SanadaYukimura, made [[FoeTossingCharge a mad charge singlehandedly]] towards his camp and stepped a bit too close to deal the finishing blow to Tokugawa. Luckily for Tokugawa, Sanada's endurance reached his peak that after he declared that he's too tired to fight anymore and then either collapsed out of fatigue and died from his wounds, or Tokugawa's bodyguards came to the rescue and struck him down. Regardless of that, Tokugawa praised Sanada's burning warrior spirit and dubbed him Japan's #1 soldier.\\\

The early Muromachi Period's strongest political figure was by far Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), the third shogun in line. Yoshimitsu established trade relations with China, ended the warring between the rival Northern and Southern Imperial Courts, was a great patron of the arts, and gave the feudal landlords - the daimyō - greater control over their lands. Unfortunately, Yoshimitsu's successors gradually became weaker and weaker, further decentralizing the government's power and placing more power in the hands of the daimyō. The decline of Ashikaga authority is metonymically illustrated in two Zen Buddhist temples they patronized: the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkaku-ji Kinkaku-ji]] (金閣寺, "Temple of the Golden Pavilion", built at the height of Yoshimitsu's authority and covered in gold leaf), and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkaku-ji Ginkaku-ji (銀閣寺, "Temple of the Silver Pavilion", commissioned by 8th Shogun Yoshimasa, but was never finished with its intended silver leaf coating due to his government's loss of resources and authority).[[note]]Ironically, it would be the more austere Ginkaku-ji that would survive in its original state--as the Kinkaku-ji, still beautiful but already deteriorating and losing its gold coating, would be burnt down in a notorious arson incident in 1950. Creator/YukioMishima would later interview the perpetrator and turn it into [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temple_of_the_Golden_Pavilion a novel]].[[/note]]\\\

The early Muromachi Period's strongest political figure was by far Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), the third shogun in line. Yoshimitsu established trade relations with China, ended the warring between the rival Northern and Southern Imperial Courts, was a great patron of the arts, and gave the feudal landlords - the daimyō - greater control over their lands. Unfortunately, Yoshimitsu's successors gradually became weaker and weaker, further decentralizing the government's power and placing more power in the hands of the daimyō.\\\

All of this gave pretext to the Sengoku Period, which is traditionally marked as beginning with the Ōnin War (1467-1477). The Ōnin War began as a relatively local conflict over the succession of the Ashikaga shogunate which escalated into a decade-long war between rivaling warlords vying to control the shogunate. In the end, Kyoto was left practically burned to the ground and the Ashikaga shogunate held power in name only. For many years after, rivaling daimyō would fight for control of the puppet government - although by this point, controlling the court meant very little anyway, as virtually all actual power had been fractured among the many daimyō across Japan.\\\

The Sengoku Period is also the period which saw the rise of the ''shinobi'' -- the {{ninja}}. In reality, the ninja was never a crucial figure of Japanese history and only had any significance for a few decades of the Sengoku Period. Part of the problem is that there aren't many historical records of the ninja - really, we are not even exactly cerrtain what their training was like. Most shinobi were from the lower class of society, so they were usually not skilled in tactics like a samurai would be - although some ninja were ''{{ronin}}'' (masterless {{samurai}}), so again, who knows? We do know that the center of their training was always operating in ways that kept them unseen and undetected. They were first and foremost mercenaries, employed by the different warlords for reconnaissance and espionage. Once the Tokugawa rose to power in the 16th century, combat was highly codified with a great emphasis on honor and fair play, and so the ninja (who fought in secrecy, using whatever worked to their advantage) fell out of favor.[[labelnote:*]]Ironically, ninja were employed by Tokugawa Ieyasu and a few of his successors in several campaigns.[[/labelnote]] Many fables were written about the ninja during the UsefulNotes/MeijiRestoration, which romanticized "classic Japanese" culture, and that is where the myths that a ninja could walk on water, turn invisible, control nature, and use "ninja weapons" and martial arts came from. Thus the ninja became popular again, but it was at this point mainly a cultural icon (a phenomenon comparable to the history of the cowboy in American culture).

** ''Onna Jōshu Naotora'' (おんな城主 直虎, 2017). Telling the tale of Ii Naotora, matriarch of the Ii clan who eventually gained fame as Tokugawa Ieyasu's long-standing retainers.

This was also the only time in pre-modern Japan that the country had any sustained interaction with the Western world. The arrival of Portuguese ships in 1543 began a span of time known as the ''Nanban'' trade period, which lasted nearly a century. Soon after the Portuguese ships arrived came the Spanish and the Dutch, though most trade happened through the Portuguese. [[note]]A fact which was not pleasing to the other European powers and which later became one reason among many for UsefulNotes/TheDutchPortugueseWar.[[/note]] The effects of this trade were substantial: Japan was introduced to European fabrics, glassware, clocks, tobacco, and most important for its time, firearms. Provinces which traded with the West gained a significant advantage in military combat with the introduction of the arquebus and the cannon, especially since most Japanese fortifications of the time were made of wood and stone. The effect of this trade was also significant enough that there are still loan words in Japanese of Portuguese and Dutch origin, such as "''gomu''" from "''gom''" (Dutch for "rubber" or rubber materials), "''karuta''" from "''carta''" (Portuguese for playing cards) and "''pan''" from "''pão/pan''" (Portuguese/Spanish for "bread", respectively). It also gave the Japanese both the name and the basic recipe for ''tempura'' (from Latin ''tempora'' for "time", a reference to the Lenten fasting season during which the Catholic Portuguese and Spaniards would often eat fried fish and vegetables because they could not eat meat and battered deep-fried fish/vegetables were traditional in Iberia).

In 1338, Ashikaga Takauji seized control of UsefulNotes/{{Kyoto}} from the emperor of Japan and declared himself the shogun (roughly meaning "general", the position was comparable to a generalissimo, effectively a military ruler). This establishment of the Ashikaga shogunate marks the beginning of the Muromachi period of Japanese history,[[labelnote:*]]though some contest it should begin in 1333 with the ill-fated Kemmu Restoration,[[/labelnote]] so named because the new Ashikaga government was established in the Muromachi district of Kyoto.

The early Muromachi Period's strongest political figure was by far Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), the third shogun in line. Yoshimitsu established trade relations with China, ended the warring between the rival Northern and Southern Imperial Courts, was a great patron of the arts, and gave the feudal landlords - the daimyō - greater control over their lands. Unfortunately, Yoshimitsu's successors gradually became weaker and weaker, further decentralizing the government's power and placing more power in the hands of the daimyō.

All of this gave pretext to the Sengoku Period, which is traditionally marked as beginning with the Ōnin War (1467-1477). The Ōnin War began as a relatively local conflict over the succession of the Ashikaga shogunate which escalated into a decade-long war between rivaling warlords vying to control the shogunate. In the end, Kyoto was left practically burned to the ground and the Ashikaga shogunate held power in name only. For many years after, rivaling daimyō would fight for control of the puppet government - although by this point, controlling the court meant very little anyway, as virtually all actual power had been fractured among the many daimyō across Japan.

The first of Japan's three uniters, Oda Nobunaga, was born in 1534 in the Owari province (modern-day Aichi prefecture), possibly near the city of Nagoya. He was known in his youth for being strange and uncouth, though after the unexpected death of his father in 1551, he quickly proved his military chutzpah by killing his uncle and his brother, who challenged his right of succession. Nobunaga quickly reunited the Oda clan, and by 1559 - at the age of 25 - he had united the whole Owari province under his rule. Nobunaga quickly consolidated and expanded his power over the following decade. In the Battle of Okehazama, Nobunaga defeated the combined forces of the Imagawa and Matsudaira clans, which numbered about 40,000, with a force of only 3,000 by launching a surprise attack and using the poor weather conditions to his advantage. Breaking ties with the weakened Imagawa clan, the Matsudaira clan forged an alliance with the Oda, ending decades of hostility. Who was responsible for this alliance? Matsudaira Motoyasu, better known by his name later in life, Tokugawa Ieyasu. Several years afterward, Nobunaga further increased his power in the Siege of Inabayama Castle, where he took over the neighboring Mino province (modern-day Gifu), greatly extending the Oda clan's reach. At the conclusion of the battle, Nobunaga revealed his ambition for the first time: to conquer all of Japan.

The years following Takeda's death officially mark the beginning of the Azuchi-Momoyama Period[[labelnote:*]]named after the castles of Oda Nobunaga and his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi[[/labelnote]], although realistically it began with Nobunaga's conquering of Kyoto in 1568. Shortly after Takeda Shingen's death, he also deposed Ashikaga Yoshiaki, ending the Ashikaga shogunate for good. Nobunaga steadily gained territory on both the western and eastern fronts, gradually expanding his rule and solidifying his reputation as a ruthless and undaunted adversary. This also carried over into the realm of politics: Nobunaga was overall pretty indifferent toward religion, but he recognized the threat that some of the wealthy and/or affluent Buddhist temples could pose a threat to his rule. He suppressed certain sects of Buddhism, especially the Jōdo Shinshū (True Pure Land) Buddhists, who participated in peasant uprisings against the samurai landlords during his rule. In order to overall reduce the power and influence of the Buddhist priests, Nobunaga actually lent support to the Catholic missionary efforts in Japan (at this time, Christianity was still tolerated in Japan). His leniency towards Christianity would unfortunately not be a sympathy shared by his successors - but [[UsefulNotes/JapaneseChristian that's a story for another day]]. Other innovations and advancements from Nobunaga include the better implementation of pikes and castle fortifications in warfare, as well as the introduction of firearms (brought over by the Portuguese traders) and firearm brigades. He restructured the warrior class system and appointed his retainers and subjects based on ability rather than rank and heritage, as was the common practice of the day. He also laid the foundations for some of the policies his successors would establish by building castle towns as economic centers, encouraging a transition from an economy based on agriculture to one based on manufacture.

The winner of this scramble for power was the previously mentioned general Hashiba Hideyoshi. In only the two weeks after Nobunaga's death, he made a truce with the clan he was currently fighting in the Chūgoku region, marched his army toward Azuchi to intercept Mitsuhide's, and defeated them in the Battle of Yamazaki. Now in a position of power, Hideyoshi secured his leadership by supporting Nobunaga's infant grandson as his successor and proposing a co-leadership to the Oda clan. This quickly turned into to open combat against the Oda clan, but Hideyoshi held his own: by 1584, he had ended all dissent and had secured all of the Oda domain as his own.

Like Nobunaga before him, Hashiba Hideyoshi had never attained the title of shogun. In fact, he wasn't even of noble background: he was a common foot soldier who gradually rose through the ranks. So in 1585, he adopted himself into the Fujiwara clan. The Imperial court also showered him with official titles, and in 1586, the court officially gave Hashiba Hideyoshi the name he is better remembered by: Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Thus began the second phase of Japan's unification. Oda Nobunaga had already accomplished a lot of the, shall we say, aggressive negotiations, which left Hideyoshi with reinforcing the foundation and tying up the loose ends. From his base of power in Osaka castle, Hideyoshi continued his conquest on the borders of his territory, capturing the northern provinces and Shikoku in 1583 and Kyūshū in 1587. In 1590, Hideyoshi defeated his last opponents, the Hōjō clan of the Kanto region (modern-day Tokyo), in the Siege of Odawara, becoming the first general to unite all of Japan under his rule.

Though considered an 'interlude', it was an expensive endeavour, consisting of the largest military mobilization in pre-modern Japanese history, and its first major naval buildup. This concentrated effort would not be repeated again until the first Sino-Japanese War.

Korea was abandoned, but with the death of Hideyoshi, Japan now had a much bigger problem on its plate: who would succeed Hideyoshi? Hideyoshi had attempted to rectify this problem himself after the birth of his son Hideyori by banishing his nephew (and heir) Hidetsugu to Mt. Kōya and ordering him to commit ''seppuku'' in 1595. He then [[LeaveNoSurvivors mercilessly killed 31 of Hidetsugu's family members in Kyoto]], including [[WouldHitAGirl women]] and [[WouldHurtAChild children]]. Afterward, he assembled a Council of Five Elders to govern Japan as regents for his son, hoping that the balance of power between his five most powerful daimyō would prevent any conflict until his son came of age. [[DidntThinkThisThrough It didn't work.]]

Thus began the most important battle in Japanese history: the Battle of Sekigahara. The two sides were split into the Toyotomi loyalists (headed under Ishida and known as the "Western Army") and Tokugawa's supporters (headed under Ieyasu himself and known as the "Eastern Army"). The two armies numbered close to 200,000 men in total, with the Western Army numbering 120,000 and the Eastern Army numbering 75,000[[labelnote:*]]though by the time the fighting began, both forces were between 80,000-90,000 troops due to the arrival of reinforcements as well as some forces simultaneously being caught up elsewhere[[/labelnote]].

Ishida marched his troops from Osaka toward Gifu Castle, intending to use it as a staging area for when he would inevitably attack Kyoto. Since Tokugawa was marching from Edo in the east, there were only two main roads available to him, both of which also converged on Gifu Castle. Unfortunately for Ishida, he was delayed in reaching Gifu, as he was busy trying to capture Fushimi Castle, which was a halfway point between Osaka and Kyoto. By the time Ishida captured Fushimi and reached Gifu, Tokugawa's forces had arrived and taken the castle, forcing Ishida's troops to retreat. The Western Army marched southwest through inclement weather and stopped in Sekigahara, tired from the day's journey and with gunpowder wet from the rain.

Tokugawa had been trailing Ishida up to this point. On October 20th, he learned of the Western Army's position in Sekigahara and marched his forces in. Though Tokugawa had the advantage of marching under better weather, it was very foggy, and at dawn on the next day (October 21st) his advance guard ended up smacking into Ishida's army. Both sides panicked and withdrew, [[MexicanStandoff bracing their armies for battle]]. By 8 AM, the fog had cleared. Both sides issued last-second orders and the battle began.

Fukushima Masanori, the leader of Tokugawa's advance guard, charged from the left flank along the Fuji river into the Western Army's right-center. The ground was wet and muddy from the previous day's rain, so the fighting quickly devolved into chaos. To support the attack, Tokugawa then ordered attacks from his right and center on the enemy's left. In response, Ishida ordered his general of the unscathed center flank to support the right, but his general refused, as daimyō only obeyed the orders of respected commanders, which Ishida was not.

The Eastern Army's advance guard was gaining ground and pushing into the enemy's position, but this left them exposed from the side, and just across the Fuji river were [[TheCavalry more Western forces]] under the command of Otani Yoshitsugu. Otani was supported from the rear by Kobayakawa Hideaki, who was positioned on Mount Matsuo.

In the months leading up to the battle, Tokugawa approached multiple daimyō from the Western Army and promised them land and pardon after the battle if they should switch sides. Kobayakawa was one of the daimyō Tokugawa approached, and he agreed to defect. Unfortunately, he did not keep to his word during the battle and instead remained neutral, not attacking either side. As the fighting dragged on, Ieyasu grew impatient and ordered musket fire on Kobayakawa as an ultimatum. Kobayakawa made his choice and [[CavalryBetrayal defected to the Eastern Army]]. He ordered his 16,000 men to charge Otani's army, which you'd think would do a lot of good... except that Otani had a lot of men with a lot of dry gunpowder. His men simply turned their guns around and shot most of Kobayakawa's force dead.

Fortunately, the attack was not completely in vain. Otani was already engaged with several other Eastern armies, and Kobayakawa's army ended up being enough to overwhelm Otani's defenses. Seeing this, several more Western generals [[IFightForTheStrongestSide quickly defected]] mid-battle[[labelnote:*]]to be specific: Wakisaka Yasuharu, Ogawa Suketada, Akaza Naoyasu, and Kutsuki Mototsuna[[/labelnote]], thus turning the tide in the Eastern Army's favor. Fukushima and Kobayakawa began to press deep into the Western Army's exposed right flank toward the center. Ishida sounded the retreat and retracted what was left of his army to Mount Nangu, where he was betrayed again by one of his generals. The Western Army fell apart, and the Battle of Sekigahara was won.

The Battle of Sekigahara was the culmination of the political turmoil of the Sengoku Period - both on a literal and metaphorical level. It's easy to draw parallels between the decades of warlords backstabbing and changing sides on one another and the events of Sekigahara, where so many forces changed sides - even in the middle of battle - that some had no idea who they were fighting for or against. Amusingly, both sides also had forces which didn't participate in the battle because they arrived too late. If each side had been backed by their full host, who knows how the battle would have turned out?

In 1603, at the age of 60, Tokugawa Ieyasu was appointed shogun by the Emperor, becoming the first shogun since the deposition of the Ashikaga in 1573. He had outlived all of the other great men of his time, and could finally rule a united Japan, unchallenged. The beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate marks the beginning of the Edo Period of Japanese history, named after the city of Edo, which Tokugawa made the new capital - you know it today as Tokyo. Most historians mark the end of the Sengoku Period here, but just for completion's sake...

Tokugawa Ieyasu abdicated in 1605, retiring soon after ascending to the shogunate, according to custom. He passed the rule down to his son (which also had the effect of securing a peaceful succession). Tokugawa just had one more matter to settle. He rounded up his troops one last time and marched on Osaka Castle in 1614. Osaka Castle was the home of Toyotomi Hideyori, Hideyoshi's rightful heir. Tokugawa laid siege to the castle until it burned to the ground in 1615, taking the last of the Toyotomi bloodline with it and thereby ending the last possible opposition to his rule, though notably, Tokugawa came into near death when a certain general under Hideyori, UsefulNotes/SanadaYukimura, made [[FoeTossingCharge a mad charge singlehandedly]] towards his camp and stepped a bit too close to deal the finishing blow to Tokugawa. Luckily for Tokugawa, Sanada's endurance reached his peak that after he declared that he's too tired to fight anymore and then either collapsed out of fatigue and died from his wounds, or Tokugawa's bodyguards came to the rescue and struck him down. Regardless of that, Tokugawa praised Sanada's burning warrior spirit and dubbed him Japan's #1 soldier.

In 1338, Ashikaga Takauji seized control of UsefulNotes/{{Kyoto}} from the emperor of Japan and declared himself the shogun (a position comparable to a generalissimo, effectively a military ruler). This establishment of the Ashikaga shogunate marks the beginning of the Muromachi period of Japanese history,[[labelnote:*]]though some contest it should begin in 1333 with the ill-fated Kemmu Restoration,[[/labelnote]] so named because the new Ashikaga government was established in the Muromachi district of Kyoto.

Of course, Nobunaga still spent the better part of his time conquering Japan. By 1582, he had conquered the entire Kinai region (roughly equivalent to the modern-day Kansai region), the entire Hokurikudō region (along the Sea of Japan), the San'indō and San'yōdō regions (modern Chūgoku region), and roughly half of the Tōkaidō and Tōsandō regions. His territory spanned as far west and south as northern Kyūshū, as far east as the borders of the Kanto plain, and as far north as Shibata (along the western coast). From his home base of Azuchi castle, close to Kyoto, Oda began aggressively sending out his generals on campaigns to conquer the rest of Japan. Things seemed to be going pretty well, but it wouldn't last. One of Nobunaga's generals, Hashiba Hideyoshi requested reinforcements from Nobunaga for the siege of Takamatsu castle in the Chūgoku region. Nobunaga obliged and sent out most of the force he had with him, only leaving a few troops and his personal guard. Nobunaga had every reason to believe he was safe; after all, the biggest threats were at the borders of his territory, and he was at the heart of it. Another of Nobunaga's generals, Akechi Mitsuhide, seized this opportunity and marched on Azuchi castle, betraying his lord. Rather than surrender, Nobunaga committed ''{{seppuku}}'' (ritual suicide) as Akechi's men stormed the gates. Before dying, Nobunaga instructed his page, Mori Ranmaru, to burn the castle, so that his enemies could not take his head. His body was never found. After capturing Azuchi, Mitsuhide attacked Nobunaga's eldest son and heir, Nobutada, who also committed ''seppuku''. This essentially guaranteed that Nobunaga wouldn't have a blood successor. The reasons for Akechi's betrayal and the circumstances of Oda Nobunaga's death are the subject of much speculation, debate, and conspiracy theory. Some say that Akechi had a grudge against Nobunaga; others say he wanted Japan for himself; some even say he was working together with some of Nobunaga's other generals. Whatever the circumstances, the fruit of Akechi's betrayal was even shorter-lived than Nobunaga. The most powerful man in Japan just died and left all his territory behind, and news like that spreads fast. What followed was a mad scramble by each of Nobunaga's retainers to assemble a power base and seize Nobunaga's legacy for themselves.

The winner of this scramble for power was the previously mentioned general Hashiba Hideyoshi. In only the two weeks after Nobunaga's death, he made truce with the clan he was currently fighting in the Chūgoku region, marched his army toward Azuchi to intercept Mitsuhide's, and defeated them in the Battle of Yamazaki. Now in a position of power, Hideyoshi secured his leadership by supporting Nobunaga's infant grandson as his successor and proposing a co-leadership to the Oda clan. This quickly turned into to open combat against the Oda clan, but Hideyoshi held his own: by 1584, he had ended all dissent and had secured all of the Oda domain as his own.

Hideyoshi also enacted some heavy-handed policies to secure his rule. In 1587, he banned all Christian missionaries from Japan out of fear of possible dissent from the converted daimyō in Kyūshū. Since the daimyō who did convert mostly did so out of desire for stronger trade relations with the West, there was little complaint among the higher-ups about this. Among the lower classes, however, there was considerable dissent, and to make an example, Hideyoshi executed 26 Christians (a mix of Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries) in 1597 in Nagasaki[[labelnote:*]]they are venerated as martyrs in the Catholic Church as St. Paul Miki and Companions[[/labelnote]]. The next several decades would only become more and more difficult for the Japanese "''Kirishitans''", as they were called. Other precautions carried out by Hideyoshi included the destruction of many castles constructed during the Sengoku Period, the forbidding of samurai as active farmers (forcing them to move to castle towns), restrictions on inter-provincial travel, and the "Sword Hunt" of 1588, where he confiscated the weapons of all farms and religious institutions, only allowing members of the samurai class to bear arms. Hideyoshi's mindset was that more clearly divided social classes would be easier to control (taking their weapons away probably didn't hurt either). Not all of his policies were like this, however - some actually were positive, such as the banning of "unfree labor" (slavery). Hideyoshi also significantly balanced the power of the daimyō. He did this through the introduction of land and production surveys and a national census. Hideyoshi used these surveys to re-partition the land among the daimyō according to output of rice; provinces with greater yields of rice were given to his more trusted and higher-ranking daimyō. The positive effect of these policies were affirmed later on when, after taking over from where Hideyoshi started, Tokugawa Ieyasu would continue, consolidate and institutionalize many of them.

* ''VideoGame/{{Nioh}}''

** ''VideoGame/ShogunTotalWar''
** ''VideoGame/TotalWarShogun2''

Having united Japan and reorganized his infrastructure, Hideyoshi began turning his gaze across the sea and megalomaniacally boasted [[TakeOverTheWorld he would conquer the Ming dynasty in China]], and move the capital from Kyoto to Beijing. Though it was speculated that his ulterior motive was to exhaust the excessive military buildup resulting from continuous warfare that only recently concluded, which was taking a toll on the economy. Thus in 1590, Hideyoshi officially requested safe passage to China through Korea. However, Korea refused Hideyoshi's demands, and so from 1592 to 1598 Japan engaged in a sporadic series of invasions of Korea (known there as the Imjin War). Hideyoshi had a strong start - in 1592, he sent 200,000 men to capture Seoul, which they did in a matter of weeks. Kato Kiyomasa even managed to cross the Yalu into Manchuria, but was quickly routed by his Jurchen oppossion. Realizing the Japanese army was ill-suited to engage in open-field warfare, Kato Kiyomasa retreated back to Korea, thus marking Manchuria the furthest destination ever reached by the Japanese army during the Imjin War. News of Korea's debacle soon reached the Ming court, and in the following year, the Chinese army poured into Korea. The Chinese and its Korean allies soon recovered Pyongyang, and followed up with a march directly to Hanseong (modern day Seoul). After recovering Hanseong, the allied armies forced the Japanese to pull back, but the latter remained steadfast in their defenses, and attempted to force a stalemate. The war then entered into a period of truce when both Chinese and Japanese delegations, excluding the Koreans, negotiated peace-terms. Unfortunately, Hideyoshi's subordinate, Konishi Yukinaga and Chinese negotiator Shen Weijing conspired to meddle in the diplomatic process by forging correspondences. The result angered both sides, and another war soon became inevitable. A second invasion was then attempted in 1597. In both instances, Japan made decent territorial gains on land, and the Korean forces overall had great difficulty defeating the Japanese head-on. However, the Koreans were skilled in guerrilla warfare, and they used it to great effect: folks ranging from common citizens to aristocrats to warrior monks were arranged into guerrilla militias known as "righteous armies" which engaged in raids and surprise attacks on the Japanese. The Koreans were also effective at cutting off Japan's supply lines; special mention goes to Korean naval general Yi Sun-sin, who beat back the Japanese navy on multiple occasions despite being outnumbered, sometimes vastly so (the most famous of these instances being the Battle of Myeongyang). As the war dragged on, Chinese reinforcements continued flowing into Korea, and the Japanese were gradually beaten back. The Japanese made a final stand at the Battle of Sacheon in 1598. Japanese forces clashed with Ming Chinese and Joseon Korean forces until all parties had been beaten to exhaustion. Japanese forces managed to hold its position for a while, but realized it was only time before the entire army would be surrounded, trapped and eventually destroyed. The Japanese forces then proceeded to conduct an orderly retreat, and in 1598, Toyotomi Hideyoshi passed away, thus ending the Korean campaign.

[[UsefulNotes/JapaneseChristian As detailed elsewhere]], this was also the time during which Christianity first reached Japan. The first contact was made through the Catholic missionary [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Xavier St. Francis Xavier,]][[labelnote:note]]not to be confused with the also-well-known [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi St. Francis of Assisi]][[/labelnote]] who arrived with the Portuguese traders in 1549. The daimyō of southern Japan (on the island of Kyūshū), [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ctomo_S%C5%8Drin %C5%8Ctomo S%C5%8Drin]], saw an opportunity in Christianity to establish better trade relations with the Portuguese, and so most early missionary work -- contrary to the usual form of the time -- launched from the top and worked its way down to the commoners, rather than vice-versa (though the largest number of converts still came from the peasants). Nagasaki in particular was greatly affected by Christianity, as before the arrival of the Portuguese and the missionaries it was an insignificant fishing town. Thanks to increased trade between east and west, it gradually transformed into a major economic port and a Christian hub city in its part of the world. Ironically, the persecution and martyrdom of Christians several decades later was carried out primarily in Nagasaki -- although when Christianity went underground in Japan, most of these "hidden Christians" ("''kakure kirishitan''") lived in Nagasaki.

[[UsefulNotes/JapaneseChristian As detailed elsewhere]], this was also the time during which Christianity first reached Japan. The first contact was made through the Catholic missionary [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Xavier St. Francis Xavier,]][[labelnote:note]]not to be confused with the also-well-known [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi St. Francis of Assisi]][[/labelnote]] who arrived with the Portuguese traders in 1549. The daimyō of southern Japan (on the island of Kyūshū) saw an opportunity in Christianity to establish better trade relations with the Portuguese, and so most early missionary work -- contrary to the usual form of the time -- launched from the top and worked its way down to the commoners, rather than vice-versa (though the largest number of converts still came from the peasants). Nagasaki in particular was greatly affected by Christianity, as before the arrival of the Portuguese and the missionaries it was an insignificant fishing town. Thanks to increased trade between east and west, it gradually transformed into a major economic port and a Christian hub city in its part of the world. Ironically, the persecution and martyrdom of Christians several decades later was carried out primarily in Nagasaki -- although when Christianity went underground in Japan, most of these "hidden Christians" ("''kakure kirishitan''") lived in Nagasaki.

* ''Anime/SengokuOtome''

* ''Manga/StitchAndTheSamurai'' (yes, ''that'' [[Franchise/LiloAndStitch Stitch]])

* ''Manga/TonoAndStitch'' (yes, ''that'' [[Franchise/LiloAndStitch Stitch]])

This was also the only time in pre-modern Japan that the country had any sustained interaction with the Western world. The arrival of Portuguese ships in 1543 began a span of time known as the ''Nanban'' trade period, which lasted nearly a century. Soon after the Portuguese ships arrived came the Spanish and the Dutch, though most trade happened through the Portuguese.[[note]]A fact which was not pleasing to the other European powers and which later became one reason among many for UsefulNotes/TheDutchPortugueseWar.[[/note]] The effects of this trade were substantial: Japan was introduced to European fabrics, glassware, clocks, tobacco, and most important for its time, firearms. Provinces which traded with the West gained a significant advantage in military combat with the introduction of the arquebus and the cannon, especially since most Japanese fortifications of the time were made of wood and stone. The effect of this trade was also significant enough that there are still loan words in Japanese of Portuguese and Dutch origin, such as "''gomu''" from "''gom''" (Dutch for "rubber" or rubber materials), "''karuta''" from "''carta''" (Portuguese for playing cards) and "''pan''" from "''pão/pan''" (Portuguese/Spanish for "bread", respectively). It also gave the Japanese both the name and the basic recipe for ''tempura'' (from Latin ''tempora'' for "time", a reference to the Lenten fasting season during which the Catholic Portuguese and Spaniards would often eat fried fish and vegetables because they could not eat meat and battered deep-fried fish/vegetables were traditional in Iberia).

[[UsefulNotes/JapaneseChristian As detailed elsewhere]], this was also the time during which Christianity first reached Japan. The first contact was made through the Catholic missionary [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Xavier St. Francis Xavier,]][[labelnote:note]]not to be confused with the also-well-known [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi St. Francis of Assisi]][[/labelnote]] who arrived with the Portuguese traders in 1549. The daimyō of southern Japan (on the island of Kyūshū) saw an opportunity in Christianity to establish better trade relations with the Portuguese, and so most early missionary work - contrary to the usual form of the time - launched from the top and worked its way down to the commoners, rather than vice-versa (though the largest number of converts still came from the peasants). Nagasaki in particular was greatly affected by Christianity, as before the arrival of the Portuguese and the missionaries it was an insignificant fishing town. Thanks to increased trade between east and west, it gradually transformed into a major economic port and a Christian hub city in its part of the world. Ironically, the persecution and martyrdom of Christians several decades later was carried out primarily in Nagasaki - although when Christianity went underground in Japan, most of these "hidden Christians" ("''kakure kirishitan''") lived in Nagasaki.

The Sengoku Period is also the period which saw the rise of the ''shinobi'' - the {{ninja}}. In reality, the ninja was never a crucial figure of Japanese history and only had any significance for a few decades of the Sengoku Period. Part of the problem is that there aren't many historical records of the ninja - really, we are not even exactly cerrtain what their training was like. Most shinobi were from the lower class of society, so they were usually not skilled in tactics like a samurai would be - although some ninja were ''{{ronin}}'' (masterless {{samurai}}), so again, who knows? We do know that the center of their training was always operating in ways that kept them unseen and undetected. They were first and foremost mercenaries, employed by the different warlords for reconnaissance and espionage. Once the Tokugawa rose to power in the 16th century, combat was highly codified with a great emphasis on honor and fair play, and so the ninja (who fought in secrecy, using whatever worked to their advantage) fell out of favor.[[labelnote:*]]Ironically, ninja were employed by Tokugawa Ieyasu and a few of his successors in several campaigns.[[/labelnote]] Many fables were written about the ninja during the UsefulNotes/MeijiRestoration, which romanticized "classic Japanese" culture, and that is where the myths that a ninja could walk on water, turn invisible, control nature, and use "ninja weapons" and martial arts came from. Thus the ninja became popular again, but it was at this point mainly a cultural icon (a phenomenon comparable to the history of the cowboy in American culture).

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Saig%C5%8D Saigo-no-Tsubone]] (Lady Saigō)

* ''Manga/TonoToIssho''