Ashikaga Yoshiaki


Ashikaga Yoshiaki was the 15th and final shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate in Japan who reigned from 1568 to 1573. His father, Ashikaga Yoshiharu was the twelfth shōgun, and his brother, Ashikaga Yoshiteru was the thirteenth shōgun.

Biography

The absence of an effective central authority in the capital of Japan had lasted until the warlord Oda Nobunaga's armies entered Kyoto in 1568, re-establishing the Muromachi shogunate under the puppet shōgun Ashikaga Yoshiaki to begin the Azuchi–Momoyama period. Ashikaga Yoshihide, the fourteenth shōgun, was deposed without ever entering the capital. His childhood name was Chitosemaru.
Most historians consider 1573 to have been the year in which the Ashikaga shogunate ended. The power of the Ashikaga was effectively destroyed on August 27, 1573, when Nobunaga drove Yoshiaki out of Kyoto. Yoshiaki became a Buddhist monk, shaving his head and taking the name Sho-san, which he later changed to Rei-o In.
Some note that Yoshiaki did not formally relinquish his empty title; and for this reason, the empty shell of the shogunate could be said to have continued for several more years. Despite a renewed central authority in Kyoto and Nobunaga's attempt to unify the country, the struggle for power among warring states continued. Yoshiaki acted as rallying point for anti-Oda forces. He even raised troops himself, and sent them to fight against Oda Nobunaga's army during the Ishiyama Hongan-ji War. Even after Oda Nobunaga had died in 1582, the former shogun continued his efforts to regain power. According to historian Mary Elizabeth Berry, Yoshiaki still resisted Nobunaga's de facto successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi by 1590.

Family

Significant events shape the period during which Yoshiaki was shōgun:
The span of years in which Yoshiaki was shōgun are more specifically identified by more than one era name or nengō.