Hello, the episode you're about to listen to is part of a multi-part series introducing an overview

of Japanese history.

This is a repeat of one of the original projects the History of Japan podcast was built on,

and is intended to serve as an update and supplement to these original works.

After 10 years, my hope is to return to this approach and to do it a little bit better,

given the skills that I have improved in the intervening years.

If you haven't been doing so already, you should listen to these episodes sequentially,

starting with episode 501.

Without any further ado, enjoy the episode.

Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 520, The Age of Chaos.

We're now 20 episodes in the revised introduction to Japanese history at what is probably roughly the halfway point, and of course already two episodes behind where I wanted to be, to the absolute astonishment of long-time listeners

who know exactly how good I am at predicting how long things will take.

And to be up front, I had debated taking this episode to just advance our timeline, so to speak,

but there are some important

things left to say about the Sengoku period before we begin the process of leaving it behind.

So I'm just going to curse myself by definitely saying this is the halfway point and there's

no way I'm going to add more episodes later down the line, and that'll take us to a nice round 40,

so it's symmetrical at least.

And to be honest, I find this approach appealing, because, well, up until this point, we've been focusing on the stories of Great Clans and Dymeo in the Age of Warring States,

today is going to be all about the social and economic changes of the age of civil war.

These are very important in their own right, and also kind of the perfect thing for the halfway mark,

because many of these changes will be instrumental in shaping what comes next.

...