  By Marcel Thach   Following the 150 years of civil conflict
known as the Sengoku-jidai, (best translated as "The Age of
War") Japan entered the Azuchi-Momoyama-jidai which is better
known to the West as the War of Unification. To the Japanese,
the Azuchi-Momoyama period is a period of reverence and heroism.
It was a time when 'inferiors overthrew their superiors'
(Perdue, 23.) Three daimyo (feudal lords) are known to history
as the Unifiers: Oda Nobunaga,Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa
Ieyasu. However, 'the most significant of the Unifiers, as far
as the Japanese are concerned, is Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Even in
his lifetime he was considered one of the greatest of the
Japanese and was made a Shinto deity shortly after his death'
(Hooker, 3.) To the Japanese, he embodied a true hero; born of a
peasant, Hideyoshi rose through the ranks of Nobunaga and became
a general. Shortly after Oda Nobunaga's death in 1582, Hideyoshi
took up Nobunaga's task of unifying Japan. In 1592, he started
what would be the greatest