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 521, Reunification Part 1.

The story of the end of the Civil Wars and of Japan's reunification after the Sengoku era begins in O'Owari province,

now Aichi Prefecture, nestled along the coastal road between the Canto Plains and Kyoto.

And were you a gambling person in the 1550s with no foreknowledge of what is to come?

This probably would not be the place you'd point to as the base from which the country would be brought back under unified rule. The preeminent family of the

area lacked the wealth and resources of some of the other great clans of the age, and did not

even fully control the province in which they were based. Indeed, the Oda clan, as they were known, had very humble roots.

Later, in the time-honored tradition of all who rose to greatness within the samurai class,

they would pay a well-heeled Kyoto aristocrat to forge a more illustrious genealogy for the family,

which went back to Tyrano Kiyomori.

One presumes a deliberate slight to the Ashkaga Shoguns, because remember, they traced

their ancestry back to Kiyomori's ancient rivals in the Sewa Minamoto.

However, that genealogy is almost definitely a fiction intended to boost the prestige of the

...