sengoku

The Sengoku period (Japanese: 戦国時代, Hepburn: Sengoku Jidai, lit. 'Warring States period') is the period in Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. Though the Ōnin War (1467) is generally chosen as the Sengoku period's start date, there are many competing historiographies for its end date, ranging from 1568, the date of Oda Nobunaga's march on Kyoto, to the suppression of the Shimabara Rebellion in 1638, deep into what is traditionally considered the Edo period. Regardless of the dates chosen, the Sengoku period overlaps substantially with the Muromachi period (1336–1573).
The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the feudal system of Japan under the Ashikaga shogunate. Various samurai warlords and clans fought for control of Japan in the power vacuum, while the Ikkō-ikki emerged to fight against samurai rule. The arrival of Europeans in 1543 introduced the arquebus into Japanese warfare. Japan ended its mission to the Ming China in 1547, which had been carried out 19 times since 1401 due to the need for trade. Oda Nobunaga dissolved the Ashikaga shogunate in 1573 and launched a war of political unification by force, including the Ishiyama Hongan-ji War, until his death in the Honnō-ji Incident in 1582. Nobunaga's successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi completed his campaign to unify Japan and consolidated his rule with numerous influential reforms. Hideyoshi launched the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592, but their eventual failure damaged his prestige before his death in 1598. Tokugawa Ieyasu displaced Hideyoshi's young son and successor Toyotomi Hideyori at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and re-established the feudal system under the Tokugawa shogunate.
The Sengoku period was named by Japanese historians after the similar but otherwise unrelated Warring States period of China. Modern Japan recognizes Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu as the three "Great Unifiers" for their restoration of central government in the country.

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