Sengoku Period (jan 1, 1467 – jan 1, 1615)

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The Sengoku Period would be the longest civil war in the nations history, where approximately 100 local factions (known as daimyo) would be in a long power struggle within each other to see who would come to rule the entire nation.

The Sengoku Period is mostly agreed to have been a consequence of the Onin War, where the two clans Hosokawa Katsumoto and Yamana Sozen (their Clan names are respective to their family names) had a dispute over the succession of the Ashikaga Shogunate, whom they had family ties to.

It had began over the question of who would succeed the 8th Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, whom had no heir. To counteract this problem, Yoshimasa had asked for his brother Yoshimi to abandon his life as a monk in order to be titled as his heir in 1464. Problems would soon arrive in 1465 as Yoshimasa would soon have a son, Ashikaga Yoshihisa. This would immediately cause friction between the two claimants of the title, especially on Hino Tomiko, the mother of Yoshihisa.

In order to secure her son's position as the future shogun, Tomiko had sought the political and military aid of the local daimyo, and had successfully rallied the Yamano Clan (under Yamano Sozen) to her aid. In contrast Yoshimi had managed to call the Hosokawa Clan to his aid. Conflict would soon erupt within Kyoto and the regions surrounding, destroying both clans and crumbling the central authority of the Shogunate.

With no form of government that could influence all of Japan, it soon fell to the hands of the daimyo to lead and decide who would be the next ruler of all Japan.

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