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In the 1300's, the unity that had been achieved in Japan in the previous century broke down. Shoguns, or military leaders, in the north and south fiercely fought one another for power. Although these two rival courts later came back together at the end of the century, a series of politically weak shoguns let control of the country slip from their grasp. The whole land was torn by factional strife and economic unrest. It would be centuries before Japan would again be unified. This political unification and emergence from political discord would occur under the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Painting of the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu