Sengoku daimyo

Sengoku daimyō ( Japanese. 戦 国 大名 ) were the warlords of the Sengoku period ("time of the warring countries / empires") in the history of Japan in the 15th and 16th centuries, who were named daimyō ("prince") due to their large land holdings were designated.

Reasons for the emergence of the Sengoku daimyo

The central imperial court in Kyoto was entangled in intrigues and power struggles and thus weakened. At the same time, economic production in the estates increased. More remote areas, especially the Kanto plain , were settled for the first time and were difficult to control. The newly reclaimed land there did not have to be taxed due to a law to combat famine to promote reclamation. As a result, the local feudal lords at court became more and more influential and achieved that their positions became hereditary and they only had to be formally confirmed. The feudal lords were particularly supported by simple warriors. Due to famine, riots and robber gangs, there were multiple waves of arms and the only way the court could keep the peace was by asking the feudal lords for help.

Due to the economic and military decentralization process in Japan, they gained more influence than their predecessors, the Shugo daimyō , in the Ashikaga shogunate . This process weakened the court aristocracy Kuge and strengthened the Buke warrior class .

In the end of the Sengoku period, in which the rivals eliminated each other step by step, the individual remaining lords became more and more powerful and can definitely be compared with princes . With the preservation of this power they ultimately wanted to achieve supremacy over the entire country and an unification of a state under their own banner.

List of Sengoku daimyo (selection)

Map of Japan around 1570, the height of the Sengoku period. From west to east: Shimazu (violet), Ryūzōji (turquoise), Ōtomo (orange), Mōri (yellow), Chōsokabe (green, south), Amago (green, north), Miyoshi (violet), Oda (pink), Azai (orange), Asakura (turquoise), Tokugawa (yellow), Takeda (violet), Uesugi (green), Hōjō (orange), Ashina (turquoise), Satake (yellow), Date (orange), Mogami (violet) and Nambu (yellow).

• Takeda Shingen
• Uesugi Kenshin
• Oda Nobunaga
• Toyotomi Hideyoshi
• Tokugawa Ieyasu
• Azai Nagamasa
• Chosokabe Motochika
• Date Masamune
• Hōjō Ujiyasu
• Imagawa Yoshimoto
• Katō Kiyomasa
• Maeda Toshiie
• Miyoshi Nagayoshi
• Mōri Motonari
• Atomo Sōrin
• Saitō Dōsan
• Sanada Masayuki
• Shimazu Yoshihiro
• Tachibana Ginchiyo
• Tachibana Muneshige
• Ukita Hideie

Familys

Already in the Ashikaga shogunate Shugo daimyo for the court:

• Satake
• Imagawa
• Takeda
• Toki
• Rokkaku
• Ōuchi
• Shimazu

Newly ascended nobility from the position of Shugodai (deputy Shugo):

• Asakura
• Amago
• Nagao
• Miyoshi
• Chosokabe
• Jimbo
• Hatano
• Oda
• Matsunaga

Newly ascended nobility from the position of Jizamurai ( fortified farmers ):

• Mōri
• Tamura
• Ryūzōji

Newly ascended nobility from the lower offices of the Shogunate and previous Rōnin :

• Later Hōjō
• Saitō

Newly ascended nobility from the lower offices of Kokushi and Kuge :

• Tosa Ichijō

literature

• Philip C. Brown: State, Cultivator, Land: Determination of Land Tenures in Early Modern Japan Reconsidered. In: Journal of Asian Studies 56, No. 2, 1997, pp. 421-444.
• John Whitney Hall: Materials for the Study of Local History in Japan: Pre-Meiji Daimyō Records. In: Journal of Asiatic Studies 20, 1957, pp. 187-212.
• John Whitney Hall: Feudalism in Japan - A Reassesment. In: Comparative Studies in Society and History 5, 1962, pp. 15–51.
• Kōzō Yamamura (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Japan. Volume 3: Medieval Japan. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1993.

Remarks

1. ↑ George Sansom: A history of Japan to 1334 . Stanford University Press, 1967, pp. 234-239 .
2. ↑ John Whitney Hall: The Japanese Empire . Fischer, Frankfurt 1968, p. 82-83 .