In 1573, Oda Nobunaga, driving toward national unification under his "Tenka Fubu" banner, attacked Ichijodani in Echizen—a castle town the Asakura clan had spent about a century building—and burned it down, destroying the homes of roughly 10,000 residents. The city was reduced to ashes and lay buried for 400 years until a 1967 excavation revealed it.