Sengoku period

Japan during the Sengoku period.

The Sengoku period (戦国時代) was an important era (1467–1603) in Japanese history marked by near-constant civil war between individual clans, social upheaval, and political intrigue. The Sengoku period began with the Ōnin War in 1467 which brought instability and chaos across Japan as well as the long-term deterioration of the Ashikaga shogunate.

Background

Even before the Sengoku period began, the Ashikaga shogunate was heavily decentralized and failed to win the favor of many daimyō who lived in domains far from the capital of Kyoto, beginning to fight with each other over land and influence. Japan also suffered from earthquakes and famines at the beginning of the 14th century, which led to peasant uprisings against the Ashikaga clan. The final straw was a succession crisis within the shogunate over the birth of Ashikaga Yoshimasa's son Ashikaga Yoshihisa, which created friction with Yoshimasa's younger brother Ashikaga Yoshimi and his wife Hino Tomiko. It also directly led to the Ōnin War between the Hosokawa and Yamana clans, a conflict that quickly spread to the rest of Japan.

History

Amidst the chaos and inter-clan warfare that ravaged Japan, the Sengoku period saw the rise and fall of numerous daimyō, most notably the "three great unifiers" (三英傑)—Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu—and other figures such as Ōtomo Yoshishige, Date Masamune, and Imagawa Yoshimoto. It also saw the arrival of Portuguese traders in the island of Tanegashima in 1543, the first time that Japan had established full contact with the Western world, facilitating what became known as the Nanban trade.

Soon Japan would become the next battleground in the Assassin-Templar War, as the Assassins and Templars would attempt to establish a foothold in the country. Prior to its discovery by Europeans, Japan had no previously-known presence of Assassins or Templars. For the Templars, this newly discovered land was an opportunity to spread their ideology of a New World Order to millions of new minds after a series of defeats in Europe. Thus, the Templars assigned the Jesuit priests Francis Xavier and Alessandro Valignano to spread Templar doctrine under the guise of converting the Japanese to Christianity, specifically Roman Catholicism.

Seeking to counter this, the Assassins found allies in the ninja of the Iga and Kōga provinces, from whom they learned new techniques to their already-proficient repertoire of stealth abilities. Some daimyō, such as Ieyasu and Nobunaga, would cast their lot with the Assassins, while others like Uesugi Kenshin would willingly join the Templars in spite of their ties to foreign institutions like the Catholic Church. While many ninjas such as Hattori Hanzō became Assassins, some like Mochizuki Chiyome became Templars. Hanzō in particular would become a prolific figure in the Sengoku period, as he carried out the assassinations of Mori Motonari, Takeda Shingen, and Kenshin, all of whom were rival daimyō that posed a threat to his lord Ieyasu.

In 1573, Nobunaga eliminated the last vestiges of the Ashikaga shogunate after he overthrew Ashikaga Yoshiaki. By this point, the daimyō had come into possession of a Sword of Eden, which was recovered by his and Ieyasu's forces after the death of Shingen, its previous owner. Nobunaga also reneged on his promise of an alliance with the Assassins and decided to pursue his goal of reunifying Japan under the banner of the Oda clan, independent of the Brotherhood. This sudden betrayal greatly angered the Assassins, who decided to retrieve the Sword of Eden from Nobunaga.

In 1582, Nobunaga was betrayed and attacked at Kyoto's Honnō-ji temple by one of his generals, Akechi Mitsuhide, who had secretly joined the Shinbakufu, an organization founded by Yoshiaki to exact revenge on Nobunaga and regain his power. During the resulting chaos, Nobunaga, realizing his defeat was inevitable, committed seppuku, while his Sword of Eden was recovered by the Assassin and monk Yamauchi Taka, who gave it to the Chinese Assassin Liu Yan for transportation to China.

The activities of the Shinbakufu, who allied themselves with the Templars and stole the Imperial Regalia that had been entrusted to the Assassins by the late Emperor Go-Nara, soon caught the attention of the Iga kunoichi Fujibayashi Naoe and Nobunaga's former samurai Yasuke. Seeking retribution on the group for their own personal reasons, Naoe and Yasuke established their own league of allies called the Kakushiba ikki—unknowingly reviving an Assassin Guild of the same name that had operated decades prior. Together, Naoe and Yasuke eliminated the Shinbakufu and recovered the Imperial Regalia, while the latter also hunted down the Shinbakufu's Templar benefactors, the Portuguese merchants Duarte de Melo and Nuno Caro.

After the death of Oda Nobunaga, his vassal Toyotomi Hideyoshi became his successor and continued his master's goal of unifying Japan. Unfortunately for Hideyoshi, he too became a target of the Assassins, who sent Yamauchi Taka to kill him in 1598, the same year that the Imjin War ended in a Chinese-Korean victory over the Japanese.

With Nobunaga and Hideyoshi dead and Hanzō having been killed by rival ninja Fūma Kotarō, it fell to Ieyasu to unite the country and end the constant in-fighting that racked Japan. In 1600, Ieyasu successfully crushed the forces of Hideyoshi's vassal Ishida Mitsunari in the Battle of Sekigahara, a major turning point in Japanese history. In 1603, he would establish the Tokugawa shogunate, which would rule Japan for 250 years.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Memories (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed: Fragments – The Blade of Aizu
• Assassin's Creed: Visionaries (non-canon)
• Assassin's Creed: Shadows
  • Claws of Awaji
• Echoes of History (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed Roleplaying Game