Ashikaga Yoshiharu


Ashikaga Yoshiharu was the twelfth shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate who held the reins of supreme power from 1521 through 1546 during the late Muromachi period of Japan. He was the son of the eleventh shōgun Ashikaga Yoshizumi. His childhood name was Kameomaru.
Not having any political power and repeatedly being forced out of the capital of Kyoto, Yoshiharu retired in 1546 over a political struggle between Miyoshi Nagayoshi and Hosokawa Harumoto making his son Ashikaga Yoshiteru the thirteenth shogun.
From a western perspective, Yoshiharu is significant, as he was shogun in 1543, when the first contact of Japan with the European West took place. A Portuguese ship, blown off its course to China, landed in Japan.

Family

Significant events shape the period during which Yoshiharu was shōgun:
The years in which Yoshiharu was shōgun are more specifically identified by more than one era name or nengō.