Japanese History · Chronicle VII of XI
安土桃山 · The Unifiers
Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and the reunification of Japan, ending at the battle of Sekigahara.
Oda NobunagaPolitical
Oda Nobunaga marches into the capital and begins the ruthless reunification of a shattered Japan.
A minor lord of daring and cruelty, Nobunaga made himself the strongest man in Japan through gunpowder tactics and terror. He crushed rival warlords, broke the armies of the militant Buddhist monasteries — burning Mount Hiei — and welcomed European guns and missionaries as tools against his enemies.
Oda NobunagaMilitary
At Nagashino, Nobunaga's massed gunners cut down the famous cavalry of the Takeda, proving the new warfare.
Sheltering some three thousand gunmen behind wooden palisades, Nobunaga broke the celebrated Takeda horsemen with rolling volleys of fire. The battle became a symbol of how firearms and disciplined foot soldiers had overturned the age of the mounted samurai, and it confirmed Nobunaga's dominance of central Japan.
The Honnō-ji IncidentMilitary
Betrayed by his general Akechi Mitsuhide, Nobunaga is trapped at the Honnō-ji temple and dies as it burns.
With Japan almost in his grasp, Nobunaga was surprised in Kyoto by a treacherous vassal and took his own life amid the flames. His ablest general, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, avenged him within days and seized his mantle — a peasant-born soldier now poised to complete the unification of the realm.
Toyotomi HideyoshiPolitical
Master of Japan, Hideyoshi disarms the peasantry and freezes the social order between warrior and farmer.
Having unified the country by 1590, Hideyoshi set out to secure it. His famous "sword hunt" stripped weapons from commoners, and his surveys fixed each person as either samurai or peasant. These measures ended the social fluidity of the warring states and laid the groundwork for the rigid order of the Tokugawa peace.
The Korean InvasionsMilitary
Hideyoshi hurls vast armies against Korea in a bid to conquer Ming China, only to be ground down and repulsed.
In two great campaigns Japanese armies overran much of Korea but could not hold it. The Korean admiral Yi Sun-sin devastated their fleets with his armoured "turtle ships," Ming armies poured in, and guerrillas harried the invaders. The wars ended in withdrawal on Hideyoshi's death in 1598, having brought ruin to Korea and glory to none.
The Battle of SekigaharaMilitary
Tokugawa Ieyasu triumphs at Sekigahara, the decisive battle that leaves him the undisputed master of Japan.
After Hideyoshi's death, his followers split, and the greatest lords gathered on a misty field in two vast coalitions. A well-timed defection turned the battle to Ieyasu, who shattered his rivals in a single day. Within three years he would take the title of shogun and found a dynasty that ruled Japan for over two and a half centuries.
