Sengoku period

In turn, events sometimes allowed common samurai to rise to the rank of sengoku daimyo; these included Hōjō Sōun (the first to do so), and Uesugi Kenshin, a Shugodai (守護代, deputy Shugo) who attained power by weakening and eventually replacing his lord.

[4][5] The most spectacular example of a sengoku-era rise is often considered to be that of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who rose from a peasant background to successively become a samurai, sengoku daimyo, and kampaku (Imperial Regent).

[7] During this period, although the Emperor of Japan was officially the ruler of the state and every lord swore loyalty to him, he was largely a marginalized, ceremonial, and religious figure who delegated power to the shōgun, a noble who was roughly equivalent to a military dictator.

In 1477, the war ended when the western lords, including Hatakeyama Yoshinari and Ōuchi Masahiro, withdrew their armies from Kyoto.

[9][12] The war devastated two-thirds of Kyoto, destroying many aristocratic and samurai residences, Shinto shrines, and Buddhist temples, and undermining the authority of the Ashikaga shoguns, greatly reducing their control over the various regions.

[8] Historians often consider the Ōnin War, a ten-year conflict wrought by political turmoil, to be the trigger for what would come to be known as the Sengoku period.

[2][11] There are several events which could be considered the end of it: Nobunaga's entry to Kyoto (1568)[16] or abolition of the Muromachi shogunate (1573)[17] or entry into Azuchi Castle (1576), Hideyoshi's promulgation of the Sōbujirei (ja) law prohibiting war (1587), the siege of Odawara (1590), the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate (1603), the siege of Osaka (1615), or the suppression of the Shimabara Rebellion (1638).

[1] The old, well-known definition is that the Onin War initiated the Sengoku period in 1467; and that it ended in 1568, when Oda Nobunaga entered Kyoto in support of Ashikaga Yoshiaki.

Around this time, civil wars began to occur frequently throughout the country, and Buddhist temples in various regions grew as armed forces.

He gained the sengoku daimyo Uragami Muramune as an ally and fought Hosokawa Harumoto in a war called Daimotsu kuzure (大物崩れ) in 1531, but was defeated.

According to several historical books, including Luís Fróis' Historia de Japam, he fought hard with naginata and tachi during a raid, defeating many of his enemies, but eventually ran out of strength and was killed.

[25] Mōri Motonari was a sengoku daimyo who pacified the Chūgoku region and is famous for his parable of the "Three Arrows", which explains the importance of clan unity.

He also invaded the territory of Takeda Shingen, who ruled Kai and Shinano Provinces from 1553 to 1573, and fought in the Battle of Kawanakajima five times between 1553 and 1564.

Kenshin used this as an opportunity to seize Hojo Ujiyasu's territories one by one, and cornered the Later Hōjō clan at the Siege of Odawara in 1561, but was unable to defeat them.

With the introduction of guns, a standing army of ashigaru (足軽, foot soldier) became essential to victory in war, making it impossible for small local lords to remain independent, and lands were consolidated under sengoku daimyo with vast territories, and battles between sengoku daimyo became more intense.

[30] He built Azuchi Castle at a strategic distribution point, brought several gunsmithing centers under his control, and established friendly relations with the Portuguese and merchants in Sakai, which had become an international port.

[31][32][33] In and around the Kinai, the most politically important region in Japan, Oda Nobunaga allied with Tokugawa Ieyasu to increase his power.

Nobunaga defeated Imagawa Yoshimoto at the Battle of Okehazama in 1560 and moved to Kyoto in 1568 to support the 15th shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiaki.

[2] Though a peasant by birth, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had risen through the ranks of ashigaru (足軽, foot soldier), samurai, and sengoku daimyo under Nobunaga to become the most capable general of them all.

In 1582, Hideyoshi defeated Shibata Katsuie and Oda Nobutaka, who had been enemies over Nobunaga's succession, at the Battle of Shizugatake, and in 1583 he began construction of Osaka Castle.

In 1586, he became Kampaku (関白, Imperial Regent) and Daijō-daijin (太政大臣, Chancellor of the Realm) for the first time in history, although he was not a native-born aristocrat.

[35][36] Date Masamune was a one-eyed warlord, a famous sengoku daimyo who is often said to have had the potential to unite the country if only he had been born 20 years earlier.

He was later interrogated by Hideyoshi on suspicion of inciting a peasant uprising and participating in the rebellion of Toyotomi Hidetsugu, but he defended himself with his usual courage and dignity and was not punished.

In 1613, he sent Hasekura Tsunenaga as an ambassador to Europe, where he was granted an audience with the Pope Paul V.[37][39] The upheaval resulted in the further weakening of central authority, and throughout Japan, regional lords, called daimyōs, rose to fill the vacuum.

In the course of this power shift, well-established clans such as the Takeda and the Imagawa, who had ruled under the authority of both the Kamakura and Muromachi bakufu, were able to expand their spheres of influence.

This phenomenon of social meritocracy, in which capable subordinates rejected the status quo and forcefully overthrew an emancipated aristocracy, became known as gekokujō (下克上), which means "low conquers high".

[40] One of the earliest instances of this was Hōjō Sōun, who rose from relatively humble origins and eventually seized power in Izu Province in 1493.

Building on the accomplishments of Sōun, the Hōjō clan remained a major power in the Kantō region until its subjugation by Toyotomi Hideyoshi late in the Sengoku period.

[citation needed] Well-organized religious groups also gained political power at this time by uniting farmers in resistance and rebellion against the rule of the daimyōs.

The monks of the Buddhist True Pure Land sect formed numerous Ikkō-ikki, the most successful of which, in Kaga Province, remained independent for nearly 100 years.