Oda Nobunaga
Sengoku-era daimyo who ended the Muromachi shogunate in 1573 and won at Nagashino with massed musketeers, opening the way to unification before his death in the Honnōji Incident
Son of the Owari warlord Oda Nobuhide, he was called “the fool of Owari” for his eccentric youth. He made his name in 1560 by surprising Imagawa Yoshimoto’s large army at Okehazama, and allied with Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1562. Taking Mino in 1567, he moved his base to Gifu and adopted the seal “rule the realm by force”. He fought the Ishiyama Hongan-ji for ten years until its surrender in 1580, and built Azuchi Castle on Lake Biwa. In 1582, attacked by Akechi Mitsuhide at the Honnōji, he took his own life amid the flames.
