Nobunaga Ends the Ashikaga Shogunate

1573

Oda Nobunaga formally deposed his puppet shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki after Yoshiaki plotted against him. A shogunate that had lasted two hundred and thirty-five years was over. Nobunaga ruled central Japan outright, wearing Western armor in his portraits and sealing documents with a motto meaning rule the realm by force. Japan was left without centralized military government for the first time in centuries, though Nobunaga's own authority proved equally fragile.