Not less did the shōgun himself suffer in this period of great decentralization and lawlessness. He was a tool in the hands of the _kwanryō_, and the house of the latter was divided against itself. The stories of usurpations and murders, which continually disfigured the annals of this period, are too tedious to be related. Finally, in 1565, the Shōgun Yoshiteru was assassinated by a rear vassal, and his brother, Yoshiaki, fled for life. It was in this connection that the great warrior-statesman, Oda Nobunaga, came to the front, for through his aid Yoshiaki regained his ground and rose to the shōgunate. Unfortunately the young shōgun was unable to brook the overshadowing power of Nobunaga, and took means to compass his ruin. The contest which followed proved too unequal. In 1573, Yoshiaki forsook his office and fled to Kawachi, thus ending the two hundred and fifty-eight years of the Ashikaga rule,[3] as well as a century and a half of lawlessness. Having briefly sketched the political history of the Muromachi period, we shall now turn our attention to the remarkable history of the foreign relations of this era. After the repulse of Kublai Khan's invasion in the thirteenth century, the sovereign and people of China conceived sufficient respect for the prowess of the Japanese to refrain from any renewed onset. But the priests of the two empires continued to communicate with one another. When the long and bitter struggle between the rival dynasties greatly impoverished the country, some of the larger provincial nobles sought to replenish their exchequers by engaging in trade with China and Korea. The custom of officially recognized trading with China also came into vogue from that time, restrictions being imposed on the number of ships engaged and the amount of capital involved. Perhaps more noteworthy than the trade are the exploits of the Japanese pirates, for about this time the Japanese living on the southwestern coasts began to make raids upon the seaside towns of China and Korea, taking advantage of the internal dissensions then prevailing in those countries. These raiders were aided by Chinese insurgents, and entered the districts of Shantung, Fuhkien, and Sikkong, burning towns and putting the inhabitants to the sword. They were in China called _wakō_, whose very name struck terror among the inhabitants of the coast. From 1369 the dynasty of Ming, which had just overthrown Yuan, sent envoys to Japan urging that steps be taken to prevent the raids of Japanese pirates into Chinese territory, but no satisfactory steps were taken. A more serious complication was barely averted when, in 1384, an envoy sent to China by the Southern dynasty of Japan entered into a plot in collusion with one of the Chinese ministers, Hu Weiyung, to assassinate the father of the Chinese emperor. The plot was discovered, and the incensed sovereign would have sent an expedition against Japan had he not recalled the ill success attending the Chinese arms in