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A group of islands off the eastern coast of Asia, east and northeast of Korea. The region has hosted a strongly homogeneous culture for all of recorded history. . Two comments... Regarding names; the list records regnal styles used after the death or retirement of the ruler, not personal names. Although I would prefer to use the names in use during the lifetime of their possessors, I retain the regnal title since that is more widely recognized. Both are given in the latest era. From the traditional founding of the nation, to the modern era. Includes lists of Shoguns and the Shikken. A selection of Daimyos are included, to wit: Aizu, Aki, Amako, Arima, Asai, Asakura, Bizen, Choshu, Chosokabe, Date, Echizen, Hachisura, Hikone, Hizen, Hojo, Hosokawa, Inaba-Hoka, Kaga, Kii, Kuroda, Maeda, Matsudaira, Mito, Mori, Mutsu, Oda, Otomo, Ouchi, Owari, Ryuzoji, Satake, Satsuma, Satsuma-Kagashima, Satsuma-Sadowara, Sendai, Shimazu, So, Takada, Takeda, Todo, Tokugawa, Tosa, Toyotomi, Tsugaru, and Uesugi. There are also notes on the Ainu, Chuzan, Deshima, Hokkaido, Hokuzan, Nanzan, the Ryukyu Islands, Uchima, and Wa. |
The DAIMYOS
Here are notes on the leaders of some of the major Japanese daimyo clans, who were more or less independent during the decline of the Ashikaga Shogunate in the 15th and 16th centuries. After the fall of the Ashikaga in 1573, these clans were entirely independent and waged war on one another to gain the shogunate for themselves. The unification of Japan began under Oda Nobunaga in the early 1580's. After his death the Toyotomi clan continued the process but were displaced by the rise of the Tokugawa. In 1600 Ieyasu Tokugawa defeated a coalition of rival clans at Sekigahara, forcing them to submit to his rule and bringing all of Japan under the control of the Shogunate once again. He ruled informally until 1603, when he was declared Shogun. Though he resigned his office in 1605, he continued to hold most of the power in Japan until his death in 1616.
Provincial localities
The AINU The aboriginal inhabitants of Japan, they reside mainly on Hokkaido and, in Russia, on Sakhalin. They live by hunting, fishing, small-scale farming, and more recently by tourism. Their language and physical morphology are entirely unrelated to other east Asian peoples; their traditional religion is a shamanistic animism centered around a Bear Cult. They have been gradually pushed further and further north by succeeding extensions of Japanese control over the islands, and now are in much reduced numbers. They have never held a definite state in the sense usually catalogued by this archive. Nevertheless, from time to time Ainu leaders have emerged under one circumstance or another, which the following list notes.