Azuchi–Momoyama period / ESSENTIAL EVENT
The Honnoji Incident
Akechi Mitsuhide turned his army toward Kyoto and attacked Oda Nobunaga, abruptly ending Nobunaga’s drive toward national unification.- Historical place
- 山城国・京都
- People connected
- 4
Why it happened
By 1582, Nobunaga’s armies dominated central Japan and campaigned on several fronts. He stayed at Honnoji in Kyoto with a small entourage while Mitsuhide prepared to march west in support of Hashiba Hideyoshi.
What happened
Before dawn on 2 June, Mitsuhide’s troops surrounded Honnoji. Nobunaga fought briefly and died inside the temple; his heir Nobutada was attacked at Nijo and also died. The precise motive remains debated because no conclusive contemporary statement survives.
What came next
Hideyoshi rapidly concluded peace in western Japan, returned to the Kyoto area and defeated Mitsuhide at Yamazaki. His speed gave him a decisive advantage in the struggle to inherit Nobunaga’s political position.
Why it still matters
The incident changed the successor to the unification project without ending that project. It is best understood through the simultaneous movements of Nobunaga, Mitsuhide, Hideyoshi, Ieyasu and the imperial court.
PLACE
Read the landscape
The modern Honnoji is not on its 1582 site. A marker near the former location and Kyoto’s related Akechi and Toyotomi sites make a useful historical walk.
Open the historical location on a map ↗PEOPLE
People in this story
Person profiles are currently available in Japanese.
SOURCES
Evidence and further reading
Source titles and descriptions are shown in Japanese so you can identify the original institutional page.