Oda Nobunaga was the de facto ruler of Japan and commanded the most formidable samurai force in the nation’s history. Born on June 23, 1534, in Owari Province, he was the heir of Oda Nobuhide, a powerful warlord known as the Tiger of Owari. But before he became the first great unifier of Japan, he was widely dismissed as a fool. During his childhood and teenage years, Nobunaga’s strange behavior earned him nicknames like “the delinquent of Owari” and “the great fool.
” He wore bizarre outfits, ate conspicuously in public, and showed no respect for Bushido, the samurai code of honor. His father’s retainers believed he was an embarrassment and worried about serving him in the future. In 1551, Nobunaga’s father died suddenly from illness. Nobunaga was about 17 at the time and became the clan head because his older brother was illegitimate.
His behavior at his father’s funeral reportedly made things worse: he arrived inappropriately dressed and threw incense at the altar, causing many retainers to favor his younger brother, Oda Nobuyuki, instead. Hirate Kiyohide, a loyal retainer who had served as Nobunaga’s guardian since childhood, performed seppuku, ritual suicide, in an attempt to prompt Nobunaga to change his conduct. He left a letter urging the young lord to reform. The sacrifice had a profound impact, and Nobunaga altered his behavior, gathering a force of a thousand soldiers to maintain order during the transition.
Perceiving weakness, the powerful Imagawa Yoshimoto sent an army to besiege Anjo Castle, where Nobunaga’s older brother resided. To save his brother’s life, Nobunaga surrendered a nine-year-old hostage, Matsudaira Takechiyo, who would later become known as Tokugawa Ieyasu. This cemented an alliance between the rival clans, though Nobunaga’s brother later conspired against him with another adversary. Nobunaga uncovered the plot but chose to pardon his brother.
In 1552, more vassals betrayed Nobunaga and defected to the Imagawa clan. Still known as the fool of Owari, he raised an army of 800 men and marched on Norami Castle, home of a treacherous samurai. His force was intercepted, and after two hours of fighting, Nobunaga lost his first battle. His uncle then betrayed him, but Nobunaga defeated him at the Battle of Moraki Castle and forced him to commit seppuku.
Nobunaga’s younger brother, Oda Nobuyuki, also conspired against him. Warned of the plot, Nobunaga pretended to be ill and had his brother and his entourage assassinated when they came to visit. By 1559, at around age 25, Nobunaga had eliminated all opposition within the Oda clan and established uncontested rule. Imagawa Yoshimoto had been a persistent adversary of Nobunaga’s father.
With the Ashikaga shogunate in decline, Yoshimoto amassed an army of 25,000 men to march on Kyoto and challenge the weakened government. In June 1560, Nobunaga’s scouts reported that Yoshimoto was encamped nearby, celebrating recent victories and largely unarmored due to the heat. Nobunaga had only about 2,000 men, but he decided to attack. At the Battle of Okehazama, according to legend, Nobunaga used a thunderstorm to mask his movements.
The Oda forces struck the heart of the Imagawa camp in a narrow valley, causing panic. Yoshimoto stepped out of his tent to investigate the commotion, only to realize the samurai before him were not his own. He was beheaded. Nobunaga gained great prestige from this victory, and many samurai and minor warlords pledged fealty to him.
In 1561, Nobunaga formed an unexpected alliance with Matsudaira Motoyasu, who later became known as Tokugawa Ieyasu. Nobunaga then turned his attention to Mino Province, ruled by the Saito clan. Saito Dosan, his wife’s father, had been a strong ruler but was murdered by his own son. Following internal strife, Nobunaga conquered Mino Province in 1567.
His retainer Kinoshita Tokichiro, later known as Toyotomi Hideyoshi, devised a plan to infiltrate the mountain fortress of Inabayama Castle. The castle fell, and Nobunaga renamed it Gifu Castle, making it his primary residence. In 1568, Nobunaga marched on Kyoto to install Ashikaga Yoshiaki as the new shogun. Yoshiaki’s brother, the previous shogun, had been murdered by Matsunaga Hisahide.
Nobunaga oversaw the transition and even refused the title of shogun’s deputy, despite great respect for Emperor Ogimachi. His refusal made many daimyo question his actions. Nobunaga changed the nature of Japanese warfare. He was one of the first daimyo to use muskets on a large scale, pioneered the use of long pikes, ironclad ships, and fortified castles.
He was known for his love of sumo and culture but disdained the gods, Buddhas, and other idols, being essentially an atheist. He prioritized merit over inherited titles, elevating people like Hideyoshi, who came from a peasant background, to positions of power based on ability. After Yoshiaki’s appointment as shogun, Nobunaga encouraged him to convene a banquet inviting all local daimyo. When Asakura Yoshikage declined, Nobunaga used this as justification to mobilize against him, resulting in the siege of Kanasaki in 1570.
Nobunaga’s own brother-in-law, Azai Nagamasa, honored his clan’s long-standing alliance with the Asakura and went to war against Nobunaga, forcing him to retreat. Later that year, at the Battle of Anegawa, the Oda and Tokugawa forces defeated the Azai and Asakura clans. But the shogun Yoshiaki grew dissatisfied with his level of authority. Nobunaga had introduced many articles that Yoshiaki was forced to accept, and it became clear that Nobunaga was treating him as a figurehead.
Yoshiaki allied himself with Matsunaga Hisahide, Azai Nagamasa, and Asakura Yoshikage. Infuriated, Nobunaga marched on Kyoto and set fire to the city, forcing Yoshiaki to flee. The exiled shogun was robbed by a common thief and became a Buddhist monk. This marked the end of the Ashikaga shogunate.
Nobunaga accumulated numerous titles over the following years, including Major Counselor and Minister of the Right. By 1576, he was the new shogun in all but name. Nobunaga had not forgotten his brother-in-law’s betrayal. In 1573, he launched sieges against the Asakura and Azai clans.
The Asakura were destroyed, and Azai Nagamasa was left with no option but to commit seppuku. Before his death, he entrusted his wife Oichi and daughters to Nobunaga, saving them from death. Nobunaga also went to war with his former ally Takeda Shingen, known as the Tiger of Kai. At the Battle of Mikatagahara in 1573, Shingen’s army annihilated the Tokugawa-Oda force, with Ieyasu barely escaping.
Shingen died the same year, and his son, Takeda Katsuyori, inherited his mantle. In 1575, at the Battle of Nagashino, Nobunaga introduced a strategy called three-stage shooting, where lines of musketeers fired in rotation to maintain a continuous rate of fire. The Takeda forces suffered around 10,000 casualties, including many of Shingen’s famed generals. In 1577, Nobunaga laid siege to Shigisan Castle, where Matsunaga Hisahide, the man responsible for the shogun’s murder, chose to end his own life rather than surrender.
Before his death, he told his son to prevent his head from falling into Nobunaga’s possession. The son jumped off the castle walls holding his father’s head, killing himself. Nobunaga was also at war with the Ikkō-ikki, a dangerous religious group of warrior monks, peasants, merchants, and local lords who opposed samurai rule. In 1570, Nobunaga laid siege to the fortress of Ishiyama Honganji, the base of the sect.
This became the longest siege in Japanese history, lasting ten years. Concurrently, Nobunaga’s forces fought at the sieges of Nagashima, where he suffered a significant defeat after a rainstorm rendered his musketeers useless. In 1574, he burned one fortress complex containing 20,000 men, women, and children to the ground, earning him the nickname “the Demon Lord of Owari. ”
By 1582, Nobunaga was at the height of his power, having defeated the Takeda clan.
After a campaign where Takeda Katsuyori and his remaining warriors were hunted down and massacred, Nobunaga had cemented his place as the most powerful daimyo in Japan. He was preparing invasions into other provinces as part of his mission to unify the entire country. Meanwhile, his general Hashiba Hideyoshi initiated an invasion of Bitchu Province and besieged Takamatsu Castle. As Mori reinforcements arrived, Hideyoshi requested support from Nobunaga, who mobilized six commanders, including Akechi Mitsuhide.
Nobunaga relocated to Honnoji, a temple he often frequented while in Kyoto, leaving himself relatively unprotected. Seeing this opportunity, Mitsuhide led his force of 13,000 soldiers toward Kyoto under the guise of following Nobunaga’s orders. Under cover of darkness, his men launched an assault on Honnoji Temple. The attack caught Nobunaga off guard.
He reportedly fought back with bows, then a spear, until he was wounded in the elbow. He then entered the back room, closed the door, and committed seppuku. His body was consumed by the fire engulfing the temple. The motives behind Mitsuhide’s actions remain shrouded in mystery, with over 50 theories proposed.
The prevailing belief during the Edo period was that Mitsuhide’s resentment stemmed from Nobunaga’s harsh punishments and tendency to belittle individuals. Mitsuhide soon met his end at the hands of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who inherited his old master’s mantle as the most powerful man in Japan. Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s story is one of the most incredible in Japanese history, rising from a peasant to become the most powerful man in Japan. Born in 1536 to a peasant warrior who died when he was seven, Hideyoshi had no samurai lineage.
Very little is known about his early life before 1570, when he first appears in surviving documents. He joined the Oda clan as a foot soldier in 1558, reportedly fighting at the Battle of Okehazama. Promoted to Nobunaga’s sandal bearer, Hideyoshi worked his way up through loyalty and ingenuity. He convinced Nobunaga to let him carry out military projects, including building a castle near the Saito clan’s fortress and later infiltrating Inabayama Castle with a small team.
Following this victory, he was made a lord, an unprecedented rise from peasant to noble. Hideyoshi served as a general in many of Nobunaga’s campaigns. In 1582, while besieging Takamatsu Castle and flooding it with diverted rivers, he received news that Nobunaga had been slain by Mitsuhide. He quickly made peace with the Mori clan and marched on Kyoto to seek vengeance.
He defeated Mitsuhide at the Battle of Yamazaki, then consolidated his position through the Battle of Shizugatake, where Shibata Katsuie was defeated and killed himself. Hideyoshi had eliminated all rivals. In 1585, Hideyoshi was given the clan name Toyotomi by the Imperial Court and built Osaka Castle as his stronghold. He continued Nobunaga’s dream of unifying Japan, conquering Shikoku and Kyushu.
The last major clan to oppose him was the Hojo, who surrendered after an unconventional siege at Odawara Castle. Hideyoshi had unified all of Japan, ending the Sengoku period. However, Hideyoshi then launched invasions of Korea and China in 1592 with an army of 225,000 soldiers. The campaigns resulted in staggering losses, including over 100,000 Japanese soldiers and over one million Korean soldiers and civilians.
Hideyoshi’s behavior grew increasingly erratic and paranoid, possibly due to illness or the death of his infant son. In 1595, Hideyoshi ordered the execution of his nephew Toyotomi Hidetsugu and his entire family, including women and children. The execution of 39 people shocked Japanese society. After losing his only adult successor and having alienated many daimyo, Hideyoshi created a Council of Five Elders to rule until his five-year-old son, Hideyori, came of age.
His last words to the council were reportedly, “I depend upon you for everything. I have no other thoughts to leave behind. ”
Hideyoshi died in 1598, ending his dream of conquering China. The chaos of the Sengoku period continued, and Tokugawa Ieyasu’s story would become legendary.
Born in 1543, Ieyasu was originally named Matsudaira Takechiyo. His father sent him as a hostage to the Imagawa clan as a guarantee of loyalty, but Oda Nobuhide intercepted the transport and kept him captive for three years. During this period, a six-year-old Ieyasu reportedly met a young Oda Nobunaga. In 1549, Ieyasu’s father was betrayed and killed.
Ieyasu was returned to the Imagawa clan as a hostage until he came of age. He became the leader of the Matsudaira clan at 15 and fought his first battle in 1558. When Imagawa Yoshimoto was killed at the Battle of Okehazama in 1560, Ieyasu seized the opportunity to return to his ancestral lands and reclaim his birthright. Ieyasu allied himself with Oda Nobunaga, and the two former enemies became friends.
He fought alongside Nobunaga in several campaigns, including the Battle of Anegawa. After Nobunaga was assassinated in 1582, Ieyasu faced the struggle for supremacy between Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Shibata Katsuie, wisely refraining from aligning with either. After Hideyoshi emerged victorious, Ieyasu became the second most powerful daimyo in Japan. Following Hideyoshi’s death in 1598, Ieyasu led an army to Osaka Castle, the residence of the young Hideyori.
The country split into two factions. In 1600, at the Battle of Sekigahara, Ieyasu’s forces defeated those loyal to Ishida Mitsunari. Several clans defected before the battle, and Ieyasu used cannons seized from a European ship, adding crucial firepower. In 1603, Ieyasu received the title of Shogun at age 60.
He had outlived Oda Nobunaga, Takeda Shingen, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. As shogun, he created the Tokugawa shogunate, which ushered in the Edo period, characterized by peace and economic growth. He oversaw diplomatic relations with European powers but later enacted a Christian expulsion edict in 1614. The only remaining threat to Ieyasu’s rule was Toyotomi Hideyori, now a young daimyo residing in Osaka Castle with support from samurai who opposed Ieyasu.
In 1614, Ieyasu laid siege to Osaka Castle. In 1615, the castle fell, and Hideyori and his mother met their end, extinguishing the Toyotomi line. Ieyasu died in 1616 at age 73.
The Tokugawa shogunate endured until 1868, leading Japan through a period of rapid economic growth.