After the outbreak of the Ōnin War in 1467, the power of the Ashikaga Shogunate effectively collapsed, marking the start of the chaotic Sengoku period.

Nobunaga overthrew Yoshiaki and dissolved the Ashikaga Shogunate in 1573, launching a war of conquest to politically unify Japan by force from his base in Azuchi.

His successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi completed Nobunaga's campaign of unification and enacted reforms to consolidate his rule, marking the end of the Sengoku period.

One attempt to overthrow the bakufu (the Japanese term for the shogunate) was made in 1560 by Imagawa Yoshimoto, whose march towards the capital came to an ignominious end at the hands of Oda Nobunaga in the Battle of Okehazama.

Internal squabbling, however, prevented them from acting swiftly to legitimatize their claim to power, and it was not until 1568 that they managed to install Yoshiteru's cousin, Ashikaga Yoshihide, as the next shōgun.

Resistance in the form of rival daimyōs, intransigent Buddhist monks, and hostile merchants was eliminated swiftly and mercilessly, and Nobunaga quickly gained a reputation as a ruthless, unrelenting adversary.

The newly installed shōgun Ashikaga Yoshiaki also was extremely wary of his powerful nominal retainer Nobunaga, and immediately began plotting against him by forming a wide alliance of nearly every daimyō adjacent to the Oda realm.

This included Oda's close ally and brother in-law Azai Nagamasa, the supremely powerful Takeda Shingen, as well as the monk warriors from the Tendai Buddhists monastic center at Mount Hiei near Kyoto (who became the first major casualty of this war as it was completely destroyed by Nobunaga).

Even after Shingen's death, there remained several daimyōs powerful enough to resist Nobunaga, but none were situated close enough to Kyoto to pose a threat politically, and it appeared that unification under the Oda banner was a matter of time.

Nobunaga, making a stop-over in Kyoto on his way west with only a small contingent of guards, was attacked by one of his own disaffected generals, Akechi Mitsuhide, and committed suicide.

What followed was a scramble by the most powerful of Nobunaga's retainers to avenge their lord's death and thereby establish a dominant position in negotiations over the forthcoming realignment of the Oda clan.

The situation became even more urgent when it was made known that Nobunaga's oldest son and heir, Nobutada, killed himself, leaving the Oda clan with no clear successor.

Quickly negotiating a truce with the Mōri clan before they could learn of Nobunaga's death, Hideyoshi now took his troops on a forced march toward his adversary, whom he defeated at the Battle of Yamazaki less than two weeks later.

Having gained the support of other senior retainers, including Niwa Nagahide and Ikeda Tsuneoki, Sanpōshi was named heir and Hideyoshi appointed co-guardian.

He was adopted by the Fujiwara clan, given the surname Toyotomi, and granted the superlative title kanpaku, representing civil and military control of all Japan.

Hideyoshi attempted to provide for an orderly succession by taking the title taikō, or "retired Kanpaku (Imperial regent)", in 1591, and turned the regency over to his nephew and adopted son Toyotomi Hidetsugu.

[See also 3] During the peace talks that ensued between 1593 and 1597, Hideyoshi, seeing Japan as an equal of Ming China, demanded a division of Korea, free-trade status, and a Chinese princess as consort for the emperor.

As such, the domestic political situation in Japan became unstable, making continuation of the war difficult and causing the Japanese to withdraw from Korea.

[9] Hideyoshi had on his deathbed appointed a group of the most powerful lords in Japan—Tokugawa, Maeda, Ukita, Uesugi, and Mōri, to govern as the Council of Five Elders until his infant son, Hideyori, came of age.

Generally regarded as the last major conflict of both the Azuchi–Momoyama and the Sengoku period, Ieyasu's victory at Sekigahara marked the end of Toyotomi's reign.

The ornate castle architecture and interiors adorned with painted screens embellished with gold leaf were a reflection of a daimyō's power but also exhibited a new aesthetic sense that marked a clear departure from the somber monotones favored during the Muromachi period.

Although China rebuffed his efforts to secure trade concessions, Hideyoshi's commercial missions successfully called upon present-day Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand in red seal ships.