Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga

Shincho-Ko ki, the work translated here into English under the title "e;The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga,"e; is the most important source on the career of one of the best known figures in all of Japanese history-Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), the first of the "e;Three Heroes"e; who unified Japan after a century of fragmentation and internecine bloodshed. The other two of the triad, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), also make frequent appearances in this chronicle, playing prominent although clearly subordinate roles. So the chronicle also is an important source on their early careers, as it is on a constellation of other actors in Japan's sixteenth-century drama. The chronicle's author, Ota Gyuichi, was Nobunaga's former retainer and an eyewitness of some of the events he describes. He completed his work about the year 1610.