Shinch-K ki, the work translated here into English under the title The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga, is the most important source on the career of one of the best known figures in all of Japanese historyOda Nobunaga (1534-1582), the first of the Three Heroes who unified Japan after a century of fragmentation and internecine bloodshed. The other two of the triad, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), also make frequent appearances in this chronicle, playing prominent although clearly subordinate roles. So the chronicle also is an important source on their early careers, as it is on a constellation of other actors in Japans sixteenth-century drama. The chronicles author, ta Gyichi, was Nobunagas former retainer and an eyewitness of some of the events he describes. He completed his work about the year 1610.