Sengoku Jidai 351 Sengoku Jidai Exterior view of the mausoleums of Sultan Selim II and Sultan Murad III in Constantinople sequently signed a fairly short-lived treaty of friendship with the Ottomans Selim and his vizier also had dreams of building a canal to connect the Red Sea to the Mediterranean but that too failed to materialize Although not apparent at the time, the era of Ottoman expansion was almost over and other powers were soon to emerge on the global scene Like his forebears, Selim was a patron of the arts and he commissioned the noted Ottoman architect AbdulMenan Sinan to build what became his masterpiece, the great Selimye mosque at Edirne In 1575, Selim suffered a concussion from a fall while in a drunken stupor and died soon thereafter Further reading: Creasy, Edward S History of the Ottoman Turks Beirut: rep Khayats, 1961; Shaw, Stanford History of the Ottoman Empire, 1280–1808 London: Cambrdige University Press, 1976; Woodhead, Christine “Selim II,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Ed., Vol I Leiden: Brill, 1995 Janice J Terry The 100 years from the end of the 15th to the end of the 16th century is known in Japan as the Sengoku Jidai, the Warring States Era (or Era of the Country at War), named after a period in China during the third century c.e The Ashikaga Shogunate, established in 1338, and headquartered in Kyoto, enjoyed approximately a century of power The shogunal government, or bakufu, was, however, unstable because it depended on deputies to look after its interests in the provinces and became ineffective when the original bonds between the shoguns and their deputies loosened with time The deputies, who were hereditary military governors, consolidated their holdings by appointing a single heir (a son, not necessarily the eldest) rather than letting all sons inherit a portion of their holdings, organized local warriors as military officers, and recruited peasants as soldiers The nature of war changed during this period Individual combat between heavily mounted aristocrats was replaced by large armies of footsoldiers armed with pikes, and, after the appearance of Portuguese in 1543, with muskets The widespread use of muskets and cannons revolutionized warfare and resulted in the building of formidable castles Prolonged warfare decimated aristocratic families and allowed talented lower-class men to challenge their superiors, the most remarkable example being Toyotomi Hideyoshi Born a peasant, he rose to unify Japan through ambition and treachery General lawlessness also led to the emergence of armed and powerful religious sects, the most powerful being the True Pureland Buddhists, who controlled a province on the Sea of Japan and strongholds in the Kyoto-Osaka region Shogun Yoshinori, who attempted to strengthen the bakufu by checking the power of the military governors, was assassinated by one of them in 1441 From then on, the shogunal government began to fall apart, culminating in the Onin War (1467–77) fought between two claimants seeking to be Yoshinori’s successor, championed by two factions of the ruling family The war destroyed the remaining authority of the shogunate, ended the system on which it was built, and led to a century of endemic warfare called the Sengoku Jidai The wars continued because no single family or leader emerged to unify the country The needs of war led the successful contenders to consolidate their holdings and form alliances by pledging allegiance to more powerful lords in a pattern similar to feudalism in Europe during the Middle Ages The territorial lords were called daimyo Early Europeans who traveled to