Shogun in the context of "Minamoto no Yoritomo"

Daimyo (大名, daimyō; English: /ˈdaɪm.joʊ/, Japanese: [dai.mʲoꜜː] ) were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominally to the emperor and the kuge (an aristocratic class). In the term, dai (大) means 'large', and myō stands for myōden (名田), meaning 'private land'.

From the shugo of the Muromachi period through the Sengoku period to the daimyo of the Edo period, the rank had a long and varied history. The backgrounds of daimyo also varied considerably; while some daimyo clans, notably the Mōri, Shimazu and Hosokawa, were cadet branches of the Imperial family or were descended from the kuge, other daimyo were promoted from the ranks of the samurai, notably during the Edo period.

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the Edo shogunate, was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868.

The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars of the Sengoku period following the collapse of the Ashikaga shogunate. Ieyasu became the shōgun, and the Tokugawa clan governed Japan from Edo Castle in the eastern city of Edo (Tokyo) along with the daimyō lords of the samurai class.

The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From August 1910 to September 1945, it included the Japanese archipelago, the Kurils, Karafuto, Korea, and Taiwan. The South Seas Mandate and concessions such as the Kwantung Leased Territory were de jure not internal parts of the empire but dependent territories. In the closing stages of World War II, with Japan defeated alongside the rest of the Axis powers, the formalized surrender was issued on September 2, 1945, in compliance with the Potsdam Declaration of the Allies, and the empire's territory subsequently shrunk to cover only the Japanese archipelago resembling modern Japan.

Under the slogans of "Enrich the Country, Strengthen the Armed Forces" and "Promote Industry" which followed the Boshin War and the restoration of power to the emperor from the shogun, Japan underwent a period of large-scale industrialization and militarization, often regarded as the fastest modernization of any country to date. All of these aspects contributed to Japan's emergence as a great power following the First Sino-Japanese War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I. Economic and political turmoil in the 1920s, including the Great Depression, led to the rise of militarism, nationalism, statism and authoritarianism, during which Japan joined the Axis alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, conquering a large part of the Asia–Pacific; during this period, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) committed numerous atrocities and war crimes, including the Nanjing Massacre. There has been a debate over defining the political system of Japan as a dictatorship, which has been disputed due by the absence of a dictator, and over calling it fascist. The other suggested terms were para-fascism, militarism, corporatism, totalitarianism, and police state.

The Imperial Court in Kyoto was the nominal ruling government of Japan from 794 AD until the Meiji period (1868–1912), after which the court was moved from Kyoto (formerly Heian-kyō) to Tokyo (formerly Edo) and integrated into the Meiji government. Upon the court being moved to Kyoto from Nagaoka by Emperor Kanmu (737–806), the struggles for power regarding the throne that had characterized the Nara period diminished. Kyoto was selected as the location for the court because of its "proper" amount of rivers and mountains which were believed to be the most auspicious surroundings for the new capital. The capital itself was built in imitation of Chang'an, the Chinese capital of the Tang dynasty, closely following the theories of yin-yang. The most prominent group of people within the court was the civil aristocracy (kuge) which was the ruling class of society that exercised power on behalf of the emperor.

Kyoto's identity as a political, economic, and cultural centre started to be challenged in the post-1185 era with the rise of the shogunate system which gradually seized governance from the emperor. Minamoto no Yoritomo was the first to establish the post of the shōgun as hereditary, receiving the title in 1192. After Yoritomo launched the shogunate, true political power was in the hand of the shōguns, who were mistaken several times for the emperors of Japan by representatives of Western countries. The Kamakura shogunate (or Kamakura bakufu) would go on to last for almost 150 years, from 1185 to 1333.

Minamoto (源; Japanese pronunciation: [mʲi.na.mo.to]) was a noble surname bestowed by the Emperors of Japan upon members of the imperial family who were excluded from the line of succession and demoted into the ranks of the nobility since 814. Several noble lines were bestowed the surname, the most notable of which was the Seiwa Genji, whose descendants established the Kamakura and Ashikaga shogunates following the Heian era. The Minamoto was one of the four great clans that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian period in Japanese history—the other three were the Fujiwara, the Taira, and the Tachibana.

In the late Heian period, Minamoto rivalry with the Taira culminated in the Genpei War (1180–1185 AD). The Minamoto emerged victorious and established Japan's first shogunate in Kamakura under Minamoto no Yoritomo, who appointed himself as shōgun in 1192, ushering in the Kamakura period (1192–1333 AD) of Japanese history. The name "Genpei" comes from alternate readings of the kanji "Minamoto" (源 Gen) and "Taira" (平 Hei).

The Hōjō clan (Japanese: 北条氏, Hepburn: Hōjō-shi) was a Japanese samurai family who controlled the hereditary title of shikken (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate between 1203 and 1333. Despite the title, in practice the family wielded actual political power in Japan during this period compared to both the Kamakura shoguns, or the Imperial Court in Kyoto, whose authority was largely symbolic. The Hōjō are known for fostering Zen Buddhism and for leading the successful opposition to the Mongol invasions of Japan. Resentment at Hōjō rule eventually culminated in the overthrow of the clan and the establishment of the Ashikaga shogunate.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣 秀吉; Japanese pronunciation: [to.jo.to.mʲi (|) çi.de(ꜜ).jo.ɕi], 27 March 1537 – 18 September 1598), otherwise known as Kinoshita Tōkichirō (木下 藤吉郎) and Hashiba Hideyoshi (羽柴 秀吉), was a Japanese samurai and daimyō (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan. Although he came from a peasant background, his immense power earned him the rank and title of Kampaku (関白, Imperial Regent) and Daijō-daijin (太政大臣, Chancellor of the Realm), the highest official position and title in the nobility class. He was the first person in history to become a Kampaku who was not born a noble. He then passed the position and title of Kampaku to his nephew, Toyotomi Hidetsugu. He remained in power as Taikō (太閤), the title of retired Kampaku, until his death. It is believed, but not certain, that the reason he refused or could not obtain the title of shogun (征夷大将軍), the leader of the warrior class, was because he was of peasant origin.

Hideyoshi rose from a peasant background as a retainer of the prominent lord Oda Nobunaga to become one of the most powerful men in Japanese history. He distinguished himself in many of Nobunaga's campaigns. After Nobunaga's death in the Honnō-ji Incident in 1582, Hideyoshi defeated his assassin Akechi Mitsuhide at the Battle of Yamazaki and became Nobunaga's successor. He then continued the campaign to unite Japan that led to the closing of the Sengoku period. Hideyoshi became the de facto leader of Japan and acquired the prestigious positions of daijō-daijin and kampaku by the mid-1580s. He conquered Shikoku in 1585 and Kyūshū in 1587, and completed the unification by winning the Siege of Odawara in 1590 and crushing the Kunohe rebellion in 1591. With the unification of Japan complete, Hideyoshi launched the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592 to initial success, but eventual military stalemate damaged his prestige before his death in 1598. Hideyoshi's young son and successor Toyotomi Hideyori was displaced by Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 which would lead to the founding of the Tokugawa Shogunate.