Seppuku the head could, both metaphorically and literally, rest in its owner's hands. Those who did not belong to the samurai caste were never ordered or expected to carry out seppuku. Samurai generally could carry out the act only with permission. Sometimes a "daimyō" was called upon to perform seppuku as the basis of a peace agreement. This weakened the defeated clan so that resistance effectively ceased. Toyotomi Hideyoshi used an enemy's suicide in this way on several occasions, the most dramatic of which effectively ended a dynasty of "daimyōs". When the Hōjō were defeated at Odawara in 1590, Hideyoshi insisted
Samurai cinema For instance the Sengoku period (1478–1603) saw Japan torn by civil war as daimyō warlords fought for control of land. In the Tokugawa period (1603–1868), peace from civil war meant there were no wars for the samurai to fight and some samurai became ronin, masterless warriors left to struggle to survive. In the Meiji period (1868–1912), we see a decline of the hereditary existence of the samurai and the rise of westernization. In this period the ideal of the samurai and the code of bushido are popularized into the military warrior’s belief. The time frame meant changes in the sorts