50 Fun Facts About Sengoku Period

Which animal's name did Oda Nobunaga give as a nickname to his slightly built general Toyotomi Hideyoshi?

Monkey, or Saru, was Nobunaga's unflattering name for the low-born retainer who would finish his master's work and rule all Japan.

In a saying about Japan's three unifiers, which bird does the patient Tokugawa Ieyasu wait to hear sing?

Cuckoo is the bird in all three versions: Oda Nobunaga kills it for staying silent, Toyotomi Hideyoshi makes it sing, and Ieyasu simply waits.

Which man of African origin reached Japan with an Italian Jesuit in 1579 and went on to serve Oda Nobunaga?

Yasuke was given a sword, a house and a stipend, and he fought beside his lord's heir on the day Nobunaga died in 1582.

Which general turned on Oda Nobunaga at Honno-ji temple in 1582, only to fall at Yamazaki days later?

Akechi Mitsuhide held power for less than two weeks, and why he betrayed his lord remains one of Japanese history's great mysteries.

Which battle of 1600 turned when Kobayakawa Hideaki switched sides, opening Tokugawa Ieyasu's path to rule Japan?

Sekigahara was decided in a single day, and within three years its winner was shogun, founding a line that ruled Japan for two and a half centuries.

Travellers from which European country, driven ashore on Tanegashima in 1543, brought Japan the matchlock gun?

Portugal's guns were quickly copied by a local swordsmith, and Japanese matchlocks took the island's name: tanegashima.

Which Chinese classic gave Takeda Shingen the wind, forest, fire and mountain motto flown on his war banner?

The Art of War tells an army to march like the wind, stand like a forest, raid like fire and hold like a mountain. The banner cut that to four characters.

Which commodity is Uesugi Kenshin said to have sent his landlocked rival Takeda Shingen during a trade blockade?

Salt reached Kai from Echigo after another clan blocked the supply, and Kenshin is credited with saying he fought with the sword, not with salt.

Which castle's fall in 1615 wiped out the Toyotomi clan and removed the last rival to Tokugawa rule?

Osaka Castle was begun by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1583 on the site of a fortified temple, and it took two Tokugawa campaigns to bring it down.

Which one-eyed northern warlord wore a helmet topped with a huge crescent moon and founded the city of Sendai?

Date Masamune lost the sight of his right eye to smallpox as a child and became known as the One-Eyed Dragon.

Which country did Toyotomi Hideyoshi invade in 1592 and again in 1597 as a first step towards conquering China?

Korea was meant to be a stepping stone to the Ming empire, but the armies were ordered home after Hideyoshi died in 1598.

Which 1980 Akira Kurosawa film follows a thief trained to impersonate the dying warlord Takeda Shingen?

Kagemusha means 'shadow warrior', a political decoy, and the film shared the Palme d'Or at Cannes with All That Jazz.

Which retainer, credited with saving Tokugawa Ieyasu's life, shares his name with the swordsmith in Kill Bill?

Hattori Hanzo led men from Iga, the ninja heartland, and a gate of Tokyo's Imperial Palace still carries his name.

Which settlement in the Kanto did Tokugawa Ieyasu make his base in 1590 after giving up his home provinces?

Edo was barely a town when he arrived, but as the seat of his shogunate it grew into a great city and was renamed Tokyo in 1868.

Which colour of lacquered armour marked out the elite troops led by Tokugawa Ieyasu's general Ii Naomasa?

Red lacquer covered the armour of the akazonae, elite troops who had served the Takeda clan before passing to Ii Naomasa's command.

Which gilded, portable structure did Toyotomi Hideyoshi have carried to Kyoto's palace to host Emperor Ogimachi?

A tea room covered in gold travelled wherever Hideyoshi went, and even its kettle and bowls were made of gold.

Which clan, based at Odawara Castle, bore a three-triangle crest that resembles the Triforce of the Zelda games?

Hojo lords borrowed their name and scale crest from an earlier ruling family, and held the Kanto until Toyotomi Hideyoshi's siege of 1590.

Which civil war of 1467 to 1477 left Kyoto in ruins and is taken as the start of the Sengoku period?

The Onin War grew out of succession quarrels among the great houses, and the shogun spent it planning his Silver Pavilion while the capital burned.

Which clan's shogunate ended in 1573 when Oda Nobunaga drove its last shogun, Yoshiaki, out of Kyoto?

Ashikaga shoguns had held the title since 1338, yet Yoshiaki owed his office to Nobunaga, who had installed him as a puppet.

On which mountain near Kyoto did Oda Nobunaga destroy the warrior monks' great monastery of Enryaku-ji in 1571?

Mount Hiei had been a seat of armed Buddhist power for centuries, and Nobunaga's troops are said to have killed monks, women and children alike.

Which port did the lord Omura Sumitada open to European ships in 1571 and later hand over to the Jesuits?

Nagasaki was run by the Jesuits for a few years after 1580, until Toyotomi Hideyoshi reached Kyushu and put the port under his direct control.

On which island shrine, famed for its 'floating' torii gate, did Mori Motonari crush a rival army in 1555?

Itsukushima, also called Miyajima, is held so sacred that the shrine and island were ritually purified after the fighting.

Which objects is Mori Motonari said to have handed his three sons to show that a united family cannot be broken?

Arrows snap easily one at a time but not as a bundle of three, the lesson went, though it probably never took place.

Oda Nobunaga reportedly signed a letter to Takeda Shingen with which fearsome title 'of the Sixth Heaven'?

Demon King is said to have been Nobunaga's mocking reply to a rival who had signed himself as a head priest, and video games still cast him as a demon lord.

Which class did Toyotomi Hideyoshi's sword hunt of 1588 disarm, with the metal promised for a Great Buddha hall?

Peasants lost their swords, spears and guns, which drew a hard line between those who worked the land and those who fought.

At which 1575 battle did Oda and Tokugawa gunners behind wooden fences break Takeda Katsuyori's cavalry?

Nagashino is remembered for massed matchlock fire, and within seven years of the defeat the once-feared Takeda clan had been wiped out.

At which battle of 1560 did Oda Nobunaga's outnumbered force use a thunderstorm to surprise an army of 25,000?

Okehazama turned a little-regarded regional lord into one of Japan's front-running warlords in a single afternoon.

On which plain in Shinano did Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin fight five battles without a decisive winner?

Kawanakajima's fiercest clash came in 1561, when Kenshin is said to have burst into Shingen's headquarters and been parried with a signalling fan.

Which clan of Satsuma had almost conquered all of Kyushu when Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded in 1587?

Shimazu lords kept Satsuma after submitting, and nearly three centuries later their domain played a leading part in toppling the Tokugawa.

Tokugawa Ieyasu spent much of his boyhood as a hostage of which powerful clan of Suruga Province?

Imagawa power crumbled after its lord fell in battle in 1560, when many of the clan's officers defected to its neighbours.

Which lavish castle did Oda Nobunaga build from 1576 on a hill above the eastern shore of Lake Biwa?

Azuchi stood complete for only three years before it was destroyed in the turmoil after Nobunaga's death, yet an era of Japanese history carries its name.

Which clan's crest of six coins echoed the fare that Japanese tradition buries with the dead?

Sanada coins stand for the tolls of the six paths of rebirth, and the clan's best-known son died fighting for the Toyotomi in 1615.

Into which clan of Mikawa Province was Tokugawa Ieyasu born, years before he adopted his famous surname?

Matsudaira stayed in use under the shogunate: only the heir of a Tokugawa house took the grand new name, while his brothers kept the old one.

From which province, around the modern city of Nagoya, did the Oda clan rise to dominate central Japan?

Owari had splintered into many small territories before Oda Nobunaga reunified it and began his campaigns from Kiyosu Castle.

The three-leaf crest of the Tokugawa clan is usually described in English as showing the leaves of which plant?

Hollyhock is the customary English name for the crest's aoi leaves, although the plant really shown is a kind of wild ginger.

Which tree supplied the crest of Toyotomi Hideyoshi that now serves as the emblem of Japan's prime minister?

Paulownia was a private symbol of the imperial family before Hideyoshi's clan adopted it, and after the Meiji Restoration it became the government's crest.

Which Toyotomi official led the Western Army against Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1600 and was beheaded in Kyoto?

Ishida Mitsunari had been one of Hideyoshi's five top officials, and generals who resented his wartime reports on them turned against him.

Which clan was led by Dosan, the ruthless 'Viper of Mino', whose daughter Nohime married Oda Nobunaga?

Saito Dosan was long said to have risen from oil merchant to lord of Mino, though research now suggests the merchant was his father.

Which sister of Oda Nobunaga was married to Azai Nagamasa in an alliance that her husband later broke?

Oichi is said to have warned her brother by sending a sack of beans tied at both ends, a hint that he was about to be trapped front and rear.

Which leagues of Buddhist believers overthrew the governor of Kaga in the 1480s and ran the province themselves?

Ikko-ikki rule in Kaga was the first time commoners had governed a Japanese province, and it lasted until Oda Nobunaga's armies crushed the leagues.

The Japanese name Sengoku jidai, used for the age of rival clans from 1467, translates literally as which period?

Warring States is the literal meaning of Sengoku, a name shared with a similar age of rival kingdoms in ancient Chinese history.

Which foot soldiers, named for being 'light of foot', did Japan's warlords arm with long spears and matchlocks?

Ashigaru could rise high in the Sengoku period: Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who ended up ruling Japan, was the son of one.

Which clan, raised up by Oda Nobunaga's general Toshiie, became Japan's richest after the Tokugawa?

Maeda lands in Kaga, Noto and Etchu were rated at well over a million koku, second only to the holdings of the shoguns.

Which clan of Tosa, led by Motochika, unified the island of Shikoku just before Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded it?

Chosokabe Motochika surrendered to an invasion force of some 100,000 men in 1585 and was allowed to keep only his home province.

Which court title of imperial regent did Toyotomi Hideyoshi gain in 1585 by being adopted into a noble family?

Kampaku had never before been held by a man who was not born a noble, and once he retired from it Hideyoshi was known as the Taiko.

Which term, meaning 'the low overcome the high', describes Sengoku retainers who toppled their own lords?

Gekokujo was not a Sengoku coinage: the word began in Sui-dynasty China and was already in use in Japan in the Kamakura age.

Which Buddhist god of war did Uesugi Kenshin revere so deeply that followers thought him its avatar?

Bishamonten's name supplied the single character on one of Kenshin's war banners, and he prayed at the god's shrine before setting out to fight.

Which clan ruled Echizen from the valley town of Ichijodani until Oda Nobunaga razed it in 1573?

Asakura lords had given refuge to cultured exiles from war-torn Kyoto, and their town grew to more than 10,000 people before it was destroyed.

Which label did the Tokugawa give the 'outside' lords who became their vassals only after the victory of 1600?

Tozama lords were treated as outsiders for generations, and two of their domains, Satsuma and Choshu, went on to lead the overthrow of the Tokugawa.

Which retirement castle of Toyotomi Hideyoshi near Kyoto is also called Momoyama, a name later given to an era?

Fushimi was furnished as a palace rather than a fortress, and building began in 1592, soon after Hideyoshi passed the regency to his nephew.