Oda Nobunaga

Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) was the first individual to attempt to unify Japan at the end of the Warring States period; his ultimate goal, though he never realized it, was to bring all of Japan "under a single sword" (tenka-fubu ). Like so many others in the history of Japan, he rose from an obscure family through ruthless ambition to become one of the most powerful men in Japan. His rise to power was slow and deliberate …

…unifying the country; just as he was on the verge of success, he was assassinated by two of his generals at the age of forty-eight. Although he had eliminated the wild card of the Mt. Hiei monks, there remained much to do. The hardest task would be to restructure the country to guarantee a lasting peace among the warring feudatories. That task largely fell to the hands of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the "Wealth of the Country."