Japan between 1573 and 1651 underwent massive political and social transformation. The warlord Oda Nobunaga began the process of reunifying the archipelago after nearly a century of civil war, a process that was completed by his junior ally Toyotomi Hideyoshi. More conflict, both domestic and international, led to a third warlord, Tokugawa Ieyasu, positioning himself and his family as the new dynasty of military leaders who ruled a thoroughly pacified Japan beginning in 1603. His son, the second shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, and grandson, the third shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, successively overcame diverse barriers to Tokugawa hegemony and incrementally established the early modern system that is often anachronistically assumed to have begun with Ieyasu. Their emphasis on pageantry, political immobility, strict control of borders, persecution of independent religion, and the constant threat of violence defined Tokugawa rule and allowed a fragile peace to persist until the mid-nineteenth century.

This chapter examines the chain of events that led to the utter ruination of Ichijōdani in 1573, arguing that the Asakura were not mere roadblocks to the glorious process of unification, but central political actors exploring an alternative vision of prosperous, provincial rule. Their decimation at the command of Oda Nobunaga, part of larger campaign of genocidal violence, meant more than the elimination of a warlord family or even a provincial city. A “small universe” of meaningful lives, unique spaces, and powerful creations that is key to understanding the rich diversity of medieval Japan was, in that act of destruction, erased.