He lived by fire and he died by fire. He was vile — coldblooded, amoral, ruthless. He was the man his time called for, and the man his time called forth — a vile time, by most standards. Its name is Sengoku Jidai, a period of prolonged civil war. Oda Nobunaga (1534-82) is its most representative character — a military genius and a moral monster.
He was a visionary, a shaper of the future, to which, if necessary — and it was — he would sacrifice the present.
Or was he simply power-mad?