Oda Nobunaga Noble
Oda Nobunaga (織田 信長, About this sound Oda Nobunaga , June 23, 1534 – June 21, 1582) was a powerful samurai daimyo and warlord of Japan in the late 16th century who initiated the unification of Japan near the end of the Warring States period. He lived a life of continuous military conquest, eventually conquering a third of Japan before his death in a 1582 coup. His successors were Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a loyal Oda supporter who would become the first man to unify all of Japan and was thus the first ruler of the whole country since the Ōnin War, and later Tokugawa Ieyasu, who would consolidate his rule under a shogunate, which ruled Japan until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.Nobunaga is remembered in Japan as one of the most brutal figures of the Sengoku period and was recognized as one of Japan's greatest rulers. Nobunaga was the first of three unifiers during the Sengoku period. These unifiers were (in order) Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (also called Hashiba Hideyoshi above) and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Oda Nobunaga was well on his way to the complete conquest and unification of Japan when Akechi Mitsuhide, one of his generals, forced Nobunaga into committing suicide in Honnō-ji in Kyoto. Akechi then proceeded to declare himself master over Nobunaga's domains, but was quickly defeated by Hideyoshi.
