Momoyama art (1573-1615), named after the hill on which Hideyoshi builds his castle at Fushima, south of Kyoto, flourishes during this period.

It is a period of interest in the outside world, the development of large urban centers, and the rise of the merchant and leisure classes.

Ornate castle architecture and interiors adorned with painted screens embellished with gold leaf reflect daimyo power and wealth of the period.

Depictions of the "southern barbarians"—Europeans—are exotic and popular.

Powerful military leaders arise between 1560 and 1600 to defeat the warring daimyo and unify Japan.

Three major figures dominate the period in succession: Oda Nobunaga (1534-82), Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98), and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616), each of whom emerges as a major overlord with large military forces under his command.

As their power increases, they look to the imperial court in Kyoto for sanction.

In 1568 Nobunaga, who had defeated another overlord's attempt to attack Kyoto in 1560, marches on the capital, gains the support of the emperor, and installs his own candidate in the succession struggle for shogun.

Backed by military force, Nobunaga is able to control the bakufu.

Initial resistance to Nobunaga in the Kyoto region comes from the Buddhist monks, rival daimyo, and hostile merchants.

Surrounded by his enemies, Nobunaga strikes first at the secular power of the militant Tendai Buddhists, destroying their monastic center at Mount Hiei near Kyoto and killing thousands of monks in 1571.

By 1573 he has defeated the local daimyo, banished the last Ashikaga shogun, and ushered in what historians call the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573-1600), named after the castles of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi.

Having taken these major steps toward reunification, Nobunaga now builds a seven-story castle surrounded by stone walls at Azuchi on the shore of Lake Biwa.

The castle is able to withstand firearms and becomes a symbol of the age of reunification.

Nobunaga's power increases as he enfeoffs the conquered daimyo, broke down the barriers to free commerce, and drew the humbled religious communities and merchants into his military structure.

He secures control of about one-third of the provinces through the use of large-scale warfare and he institutionalizes administrative practices, such as systematic village organization, tax collection, and standardized measurements.

At the same time, other daimyo, both those Nobunaga had conquered and those beyond his control, build their own heavily fortified castles and modernize their garrisons.

In 1577 Nobunaga dispatches his chief general, Hideyoshi, to conquer twelve western Honshu provinces.

The war is a protracted affair, and in 1582, when Nobunaga leads an army to assist Hideyoshi, he is assassinated.

Oda Nobunaga, having spent the past two years conquering Mino, in 1564 has his sister, Oichi, marry Azai Nagamasa, a daimyo in northern Omi province, ...

...then invades Ise to the south.

Although his forces are unable to completely conquer the city, his able general Toyotomi Hideyoshi persuades most of the provincial daimyos to throw in with Nobunaga.

Kano Eitoku, official painter to Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, develops an opulent style of mural painting that makes lavish use of gold leaf and bold decorative forms.

Eitoku executes these works, such as his 1566 screen series of birds and flowers of the four seasons for the Jukoin temple at Daitoku-ji, Kyoto, on large-scale screens and sliding doors for the castles of his patrons.

Hideyoshi, after destroying the forces responsible for Nobunaga's death, is rewarded with a joint guardianship of Nobunaga's heir, who is a minor.

By 1584 Hideyoshi has eliminated the three other guardians, taken complete control of Kyoto, and become the undisputed successor of his late overlord.

A commoner by birth and without a surname, Hideyoshi is adopted by the Fujiwara family, given the surname Toyotomi, and granted the tide kanpaku, representing civil and military control of all Japan.

By the following year, he has secured alliances with three of the nine major daimyo coalitions and continued the war of reunification in Shikoku and northern Kyushu.

In 1590, with an army of two hundred thousand troops, Hideyoshi defeats his last formidable rival, who controls the Kanto region of eastern Honshu.

The remaining contending daimyo capitulates, and the military reunification of Japan is complete.

Oda Nobunaga, in order to consolidate his hold on the shore of Lake Biwa near the capital, builds for his headquarters a magnificent castle at Azuchi in 1576.

He meanwhile promotes a new economic policy by abolishing the collection of tolls on the roads and from the guilds, both of which have been privileged sources of income for the local daimyo.

Nagao Torachiyo was the third son of the head of Echigo province in northeastern Japan.

With the death of his father in 1543, the family's control of the area had begun to disintegrate.

Torachiyo had not only restored order to the area but also gained control of neighboring provinces, becoming one of the most powerful warriors on the Kanto Plain in central Honshu.

Uesugi Norimasa, who had inherited the position of kanrei, or governor-general, of Kanto and whose family had long been the most powerful in the area, had been defeated in 1552 by the Hojo clan and had taken shelter with Torachiyo, whom he had adopted as his son.

Torachiyo had then changed his surname to Uesugi.

He had received many of the hereditary vassals of the Uesugi family, and he had also become involved in a series of battles with the eastern warlords of the Hojo and Takeda families for control of the Kanto region.

Uesugi's battles with the noted general Takeda Shingen had resulted in no permanent gain for either side, however.

Meanwhile, Oda Nobunaga had become the strongest military leader in Japan, and in 1573 he had overthrown the shogunate and begun to consolidate his control over the capital.

The only warrior strong enough to challenge Oda is Uesugi, and in 1577 he agrees to undertake an expedition to restore the shogunate.

He dies, however, before the expedition can get under way.

The Mori family had first achieved prominence in the early sixteenth century when some vassals of the Ouchi family, then the dominant power in west Honshu and probably the most powerful warriors in all Japan, had revolted against the Ouchi's autocratic rule.

Under the leadership of Mori Motonari (1497–1571), his family, though not directly involved in the uprising, had been able to profit by the revolt, and in 1557 he had become the new overlord of west Honshu.

Motonari's grandson, Mori Terumoto, had become the major opponent of Nobunaga when the great warrior made his bid to reunify Japan.

After a two-year siege against Bessho Nagaharu, a retainer of the Mori clan, the Hideyoshi clan in 1580 captures Miki, a city in western Honshu, Japan, that had developed around a castle built by Bessho Naganori in 1468.