Sengoku daimyo, or Warring States period daimyo, were feudal lords similar to those who preceded and followed them except that the Warring States period placed different requirements on these feudal lords. Civil war disrupted the entire country and all traces of central authority and power very nearly disappeared because these sengoku daimyo took for themselves as much power and authority as they could. Slowly these daimyo grew more powerful (or were eliminated by their neighbors) and they eventually turned their attention to re-establishing a central government. The successful sengoku daimyo proved to be the ones who had a genius for refining tools of government. At the end of the Warring States period, three unifiers (Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu) emerged from among the sengoku daimyo to enforce claims to authority.
