mid-1400, Japan faced the biggest political crisis of its history.
Japan was administered by a state Shogun (the stronger general, Supreme Council of the Emperor, but often more powerful than the latter), from which depended daimyo, local rulers who gave large tracts in administration of land. The feuds were
autonomous centers of power, had their emissaries customs and tax, its own code of laws and could count only on themselves to impose themselves on weaker neighbors.
Only 30 out of 250 estates were powerful enough at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Ashikaga shogunate was unable to gain the loyalty of many daimyo, especially the more independent they had their domains away from the capital Kyoto, and these estates had begun to exert a strong political and military influence, as to threaten and put in discussion of the shogunate. The process that led to this new balance of power is said gekokujo "abusing subordinates superiors." The Age or
Sengoku Warring States Period began at the outbreak of the War of Onin (1467-1477). Initially, this war was just un conflitto locale fra due daimyo, i più potenti, gli Hosokawa e gli Yamana; presto però il conflitto si estese anche alle altre regioni.
La guerra scoppiò nel 1467 e in pochi mesi devastò Kyoto. Nel settembre 1467 Yamana trovò l'alleanza di un altro potente daimyo, Ouchi Masahiro e il conflitto si allargò. Alla fine del 1467 non c'era ancora un vincitore. Alla morte di Yamana e di Hosokawa, nel 1473, il conflitto andò mano mano soegnendosi e cessò del tutto nel 1477, lasciandosi alle spalle migliaia di morti e Kyoto devastata.
Dopo la guerra di Onin gli Ashikaga persero il loro potere diventando burattini della famiglia Hosokawa. Quando, nel 1493, il reggente Hosokawa fece deporre lo shogun Yoshitane Ashikaga mettendo power to another family member, Yoshizumi, began a new conflict. In 1499
Yoshitane obtain the support of Ouchi. In 1507 Matsumoto, regent of Hosokawa, Yoshizumi was assassinated in 1508 and was forced to flee, then returned to the shogunate Yoshitane.
Matsumoto's death the two sons began a war of succession and the family lost its power. Duarnte the next 50 years, many daimyo take advantage of the crisis to establish their own independent domains.
Among the battles that took place during this period we must remember those between the Takeda and Uesugi clan, including Tokugawa Ieyasu, who unified the western part of Japan and the wars of Nobunaga Oda (1534-1582) in which Japan found at least partial unification.
Born in 1534 in the province of Owari, Nobunaga in 1560 consolidated under his rule all the small clans of the region. He then allied himself with Tokugawa Ieyasu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi that serve him until his death. In 1567 he won the battle of Okehazama extending its dominion over the region of Owari. Captured Kyoto in 1568 and was elected as the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki, a puppet in his hands. After a number of other companies was assassinated in 1582, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu his death they divided the provinces and this brought the beginning of a new civil war. In 1590 Hideyoshi began the campaign of Korea, officially to expand the empire, but in reality to weaken their political opponents engaged in a war abroad. Initially, the samurai were the best, but when China began to engage in conflict ended the dream of conquest.
Hideyoshi died and was formed The Council of Five Regents that was intended to give the empire to his successor once he became of age, this advice was essentially a senate composed of 5 daimyo, mutual opponents that they would not never granted. Hideyoshi, however, had underestimated a representative: Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Within two years after Hideyoshi's death the empire was again split. They had formed two factions, one of Ieyasu made up of about 80,000 samurai and that of Ishida Mitsunari, another member of the council, with 110,000 men. In the famous battle of Sekigahara of 1600 killed about 40,000 and Ieyasu Samurai triumphed by putting an end to the bloodiest period in the history of the empire.
He was granted the post of shogun was born in 1603 and who will administer the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan until the second half of the nineteenth century. The 1603 is the date on which, by convention, the Sengoku period ends and begins the Edo period.
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