Oda Nobunaga

Nobunaga was born in Owari province (modern Aichi prefecture), the son of Oda Nobuhide, a minor warlord of the Oda clan.

Nobunaga's marriage to Nohime sealed a political alliance between the Oda clan and Saito Dosan, the warlord of neighboring Mino province.

After Oda Nobuhide's death in 1551, the young Nobunaga overcame rival kinsmen and consolidated leadership of the clan and, by 1560, of Owari province.

With a vastly outnumbered force, Nobunaga launched a surprise attack that killed the powerful daimyo Imagawa Yoshimoto, catapulting him to national prominence.

Nobunaga entered the capital in 1568 in support of Ashikaga Yoshiaki, making himself the dominant power behind the shogunate.

In a campaign against militant Buddhist opposition, Nobunaga's forces burned the great Tendai monastic complex of Enryaku-ji, killing many of its inhabitants.

After Yoshiaki turned against him, Nobunaga drove the shogun from Kyoto in 1573, effectively ending the Muromachi shogunate.

Allied with Tokugawa Ieyasu, Nobunaga deployed thousands of arquebusiers behind palisades to shatter the famed Takeda cavalry, a landmark in Japanese military history.

Nobunaga began constructing the lavish Azuchi Castle in 1576 as the seat of his power, giving its name to the Azuchi-Momoyama period.

Betrayed by his retainer Akechi Mitsuhide, whose troops surrounded him at the Honno-ji temple, Nobunaga died in the burning temple, by tradition taking his own life.