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In the 1540s, the Portuguese arrived in Japan. They brought two important things to Japan: firearms and Christianity. The introduction of firearms increased the technology available to warring factions in Japan and made killing easier. Those daimyo who were able to secure these new weapons rapidly gained superiority over rivals who only had traditional weapons. After the arrival of the Europeans, more years of bloody conflict followed and thousands of people died in fighting. In the 1560s, a daimyo named Oda Nobunaga tried to unite and bring Japan under his leadership. Before Nobunaga could accomplish this goal, however, he was assassinated. His death and those of other strong leaders caused a continuing power struggle until Tokugawa Ieyasu seized control in 1603. This started the era that historians call the Tokugawa, or Edo, period. Edo is the early name for Tokyo. Tokugawa Ieyasu moved the capital to Tokyo in the early 1600s. To control the daimyo, the Tokugawa shoguns required that all daimyo spend half of the year in Tokyo and half on their estate. In Tokyo, the central government could keep an eye on these local leaders. Spies were used to gather information and root out traitors.
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