Ashikaga Yoshiteru

Thirteenth shogun in the Ashikarga line. Born in Kyoto in a time of war to the twelfth shogun, Yoshiaki. Miyoshi Chokei asserted that all the Kinki region (the Kyoto/Osaka belt) was his, and in 1549, he drove Yoshiteru out. Thereafter, Yoshiteru moved in and out of Kyoto, as conditions allowed. In 1552, he and Chokei formed a truce and the shogun moved back, but the following year he grappled with Chokei again, resulting in a total shogunal defeat. Yoshiteru moved to Omi, where he lived for over five years. In 1558, he again made peace with Chokei, and returned to Kyoto, but was obliged to accept that his jurisdiction was limited to within the confines of the city itself. Always fretting at being Chokei's puppet, he occasionally launched skirmishes, but was finally surprised in his Kyoto castle on Nijo (Second Avenue) by Matsunaga Hisahide in the 5th lunar month of 1665, and put to death.
Yoshiteru had the habit of fixing several unsheathed swords into a tatami mat and attacking his enemies with them one by one. This earned him the nickname the 'sword-drawing shogun'. He leaned swordsmanship from Tsukahara Bokuden, and he was also interested in the recent import of gunnery. He formed an assassination brigade which managed to murder Chokei's father-in-law. This man who struggled to reassert the prerogatives of the shogun came to a fitting end.