Ashikaga Yoshiaki (1537-1597) was the 15^th and final shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate, reigning under the rule of Ogimachi. He entered in an especially destabilized time even for this era; his older brother Yoshiteru was assassinated, and that absence of an effective central authority (which Yoshiteru acted as to some extent) lasted up until Oda Nobunaga’s armies entered Kyoto in 1568. He had a complicated relationship with the warlord, where on one hand he collaborated with him to usurp the authority his own cousin, but eventually when he deposed, he rallied anti-Oda forces and sent them to fight against Nobunaga’s army during the Hongan-ji War. Before this, in 1538, Yoshiaki raised an army and dispatched it Shimosa Provice to have a master battle with Hojo Ujitsuna – a sengoku daimyo. He won this battle, but eventually, he lost the war; his combined forces lacked the spirit to fight, and gradually this weakened the power of the shogunate especially. Out of all the past shoguns 16^th century shoguns, he was perhaps one of the weakest ones. For example, in the year before Nobunaga sieged Mont Hiei, he was able to stop him, but this authority was only temporary, and in many ways, this was the story of his reign: temporary interventions, but unable to solidify that control. In the few years until Nobunaga marched into the Kyoto, the central institution which had the most power was the Emperor, and his weak rule in many ways represents how the shogun lost much influence in the years past 1500.