Akechi Mitsuhide

1526 – 1582

Akechi Mitsuhide was a Japanese samurai general of the Sengoku period who served the warlord Oda Nobunaga before turning on his master in the Honnō-ji Incident of June 21, 1582, surrounding Nobunaga's lightly guarded temple lodgings in Kyoto and forcing him to commit seppuku as the building burned. The treachery, which also caused the death of Nobunaga's heir Oda Nobutada at Nijō Palace, ended the campaign to unify Japan under the Oda clan and is remembered in Japanese as the textbook example of betrayal of one's lord. Mitsuhide held political power for only thirteen days before being defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi at the Battle of Yamazaki and killed by bandits while fleeing the battlefield.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM