Ashikaga Yoshiharu

Ashikaga Yoshiharu (足利 義晴, 1510 - 1550) was the 12th Ashikaga shogun who reigned from 1521 to 1546 during the late Muromachi period of Japan. He was the son of the 11th shogun Ashikaga Yoshizumi.

After the 10th shogun Ashikaga Yoshitane and Hosokawa Takakuni struggled for power over the shogunate in 1521, Yoshitane ran away to Awaji island and Yoshiharu was installed as a puppet shogun. Not having any political power and repeatedy being forced out of the capital of Kyoto, Yoshiharu eventually retired in 1546 over a politic struggle between Miyoshi Nagayoshi and Hosokawa Harumoto making his son Ashikaga Yoshiteru the 13th shogun.

Supported by Oda Nobunaga, his son Ashikaga Yoshiaki became the 15th shogun.

From a western perspective, Yoshiharu is significant, as he was shogun in 1542, when the first contact of Japan with the European West when a Portuguese ship, blown off its course to China, landed in Japan.