Ashikaga Shogunate - Fall of The Shogunate

Fall of The Shogunate

As the daimyo increasingly feuded among themselves in the pursuit of power in the Ōnin War, that loyalty grew increasingly strained, until it erupted into open warfare in the late Muromachi period, also known as the Sengoku Period.

When the shogun Yoshiteru was assassinated in 1565, an ambitious daimyo, Oda Nobunaga, seized the opportunity and installed Yoshiteru's brother Ashikaga Yoshiaki as the 15th Ashikaga shogun. However, Yoshiaki was only a puppet shogun.

The Ashikaga shogunate was finally destroyed in 1573 when Nobunaga drove Ashikaga Yoshiaki out of Kyoto. Initially, Yoshiaki fled to Shikoku. Afterwards, Yoshiaki sought and received protection from the Mōri clan in western Japan. Later, Toyotomi Hideyoshi requested that Yoshiaki accept him as an adopted son and the 16th Ashikaga Shogun, but Yoshiaki refused.

The Ashikaga family survived the 16th century, and a branch of it became the daimyo family of the Kitsuregawa domain.