ABSTRACT
It was the rising power of the daimyo that destroyed the Ashikaga. & e continued growth of their feudal domains, each more and more like a state in miniature, needed only some form of leadership to turn Japan into a national political unit. & at was essentially the nature of the Tokugawa solution. & e Tokugawa founders started out as daimyo like any of the others. Over about a generation, a series of three exceptionally able leaders progressively conquered all their daimyo rivals. & ey superimposed their own dominance on what was still a largely unchanged feudal system. & e subject daimyo ran their domains (han) to a great extent on their own in return for formal submission to the Tokugawa shogun and periodic attendance at his court. Tokugawa
castles. Fighting between them became chronic, and with the + nal collapse of the Ashikaga in 1573, Japan dissolved into civil war.
