I'm thinking about a game as one of the three Ashikaga brothers. All have a small/tough start but keeping the shogunate clan alive is a nice goal.
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They usually build up their island as an impenetrable fort and wait for the Uesugi to get into trouble, then they strike and establish a beachhead for further inland conquest.
The Uesugi aren't as easy as they seem. They have a lot of neighbours (potential plotters), an underage clan leader, and some strong vassals of another dynasty. Also, don't be deceived by the larger provinces in norther and souther Japan. You need to control 50% of the provinces, not 50% of the area of Japan. The middle of Japan holds a lot of small provinces.
Either Oda Toshihiro or Oda Toshisada, because they're the two landed nobles of the Oda Clan at this time, with Nakashima+Niwa and Haguri+Kasugai respectively. They're tiny, subservient and surrounded, but I wouldn't mind losing.
Since you liege, the Shiba clan, is involved in the Onin War and is fighting the neighboring Hosokawa, this is a good time to break free and start your independent Oda clan. Since Shiba is at war with a lot of outsiders they probably will decline to fight you when breaking lose. Then while the major clans are busy fighting each other you build up your clan's infrastructure and then turn on your war exhausted neighbors, one by one...
Yes, Hojo Soun starts the game as a hostage traded away by the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa. He's not called Hojo Soun though as he hadn't changed his name yet at this point. Here he is called Ise Shinkuro. But if you start as Yoshimasa and breaks off the hostage trade with the clan that has gotten him, you can then give him land and switch to play as him instead.
Tokugawa Ieyasu was born Matsudaira Takechiyo and only later changed his name to Tokugawa.