Ashikaga Yoshiharu

was the twelfth shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate from 1521 through 1546 during the late Muromachi period of Japan. He was the son of the eleventh shōgun Ashikaga Yoshizumi.

From a western perspective, Yoshiharu is significant, as he was shōgun when the first contact of Japan with the European West took place in 1543. A Portuguese ship, blown off its course to China, landed in Japan. In 1526, Yoshiharu invited archers from neighbouring provinces to come to the capital for an archery contest.

Biography His childhood name was Kameomaru (亀王丸). On 1 May 1521, after Shōgun Ashikaga Yoshitane and Hosokawa Takakuni struggled for power over the shogunate and Yoshitane withdrew to Awaji Island, the way was clear for Ashikaga Yoshiharu to be installed as shōgun as he enters Kyoto.

Void of any political power and repeatedly forced from the capital in Kyoto, Yoshiharu retired in 1546 over a political struggle between Miyoshi Nagayoshi and Hosokawa Harumoto making his son Ashikaga Yoshiteru the thirteenth shōgun. He died on 20th May, 1550. Later in 1568, supported by Oda Nobunaga, his other son Ashikaga Yoshiaki became the fifteenth shōgun. Daiei (1521–1528) Kyōroku (1528–1532) Tenbun (1532–1555)