Nobunaga was born Oda
Kippôshi, the second son of Oda Nobuhide (1508? -1549), a minor lord whose
family once served the Shiba shugo. Nobuhide was a skilled warrior, and
spent much of his time fighting the samurai of Mikawa and Mino. He also
had enemies closer to home - the Oda were divided into two separate camps,
with both vying for control of Owari's eight districts. Nobuhide's branch,
of which he was one of three elders, was based at Kiyosu castle. The rival
branch was to the north, in Iwakura Castle.
Many of Nobuhide's battles were fought in Mikawa, against the
Matsudaira and the Imagawa clan. The latter were old and prestigious,
rulers of Suruga and overlords of Tôtômi. The Matsudaira were as obscure
as the Oda, and while not as splintered politically, they were slowly
coming under the Imagawa's influence. The decade leading up to 1548 was
dominated along the Mikawa-Owari border by the contention of three men -
Oda Nobuhide, Matsudaira Hirotada, and Imagawa
Yoshimoto. In 1542, Imagawa, supported by the Matsudaira, marched as
far west as the Owari border, and was met by Oda Nobuhide and his younger
brother Tsuda Nobumitsu at Azukizaka. In this bitter fight, the Oda
emerged victorious, but not decisively. In 1548 Nobuhide attempted to
arrange the defection of a certain Matsudaira Tadamoto of Mikawa away from
Hirotada. Tadamoto, however, ended up being killed in the attempt, and Oda
launched an attack on Okazaki, evidently to make up for the
disappointment. Matsudaira Hirotada thus found himself in difficult
straights, and called on Imagawa for assistance. Yoshimoto replied that he
would be happy to help - so long as Hirotada was willing to send along his
young son as a hostage. Hirotada had little choice, and shipped off 6-year
old Takechiyo (the future Tokugawa Ieyasu)
westward. En-route to Suruga, unfortunately, Oda loyalists intercepted the
hostage party and made off with Takechiyo, taking the child to Nobuhide.
Nobuhide immediately made use of his new card and demanded that Hirotada
give up Okazaki in return for his son's life. Hirotada wisely refused, and
Nobuhide, his bluff called, did no harm to the boy. Later in 1548, Imagawa
and Oda met again in battle, and this time the Imagawa came out the
winner. The following year Nobuhide died, leaving an Oda clan divided in
every possible way.
Anxious to capitalize on the death of his rival, Imagawa Yoshimoto sent
his uncle, the talented monk-general Sessai Choro, to attack Nobuhide's
heir, Nobuhiro. Sessai besieged Nobuhiro in Anjo Castle, and sent word to
Nobunaga that unless he wished to see his elder brother made to commit
suicide, he would have to send back Takechiyo. Nobunaga could hardly
refuse, and so Takechiyo ended up in Suruga, even though his father
Hirotada had passed away that same year.
The progress of the next three years is hazy. By 1551, however,
Nobunaga was the leader of his faction of the Oda and master of Kiyosu.
His principal enemy (beyond his own family) was his father's nemesis, the
Imagawa. Nobunaga's northern borders (not counting the area of Mino
controlled by the Iwakura Oda) were more or less secured, at least: before
his death, Nobuhide had arranged for the marriage of Nobunaga to Saitô
Dosan's daughter. Saitô Toshimasa (Dosan) (1494-1556) was a colorful
figure, a former oil-merchant (if tradition is to be believed) who
supplanted the Tôki family of Mino.
Pausing for a monent, we see the young Nobunaga. He is estimated to
have stood between 5'3" and 5'6" tall, and was a clear speaker with a
strong prescence about him. He was considered a not unhandsome man, with a
somewhat prominant nose and scarce beard. As a young man, Nobunaga was
said to have been a brash and altogether rude fellow whose behavior often
bordered on the disgraceful. Supposedly, he even acted out as his father's
funeral was being conducted at the Bansyô-ji. This popular view of
Nobunaga's early days is in part substantiated by the suicide of Hirate
Kiyohide (1493-1553), one of Nobuhide's old retainers tasked with helping
Nobunaga rule. Hirade committed what was called kanshi, or
remonstration through suicide. The old samurai wrote up a letter urging
Nobunaga to change his ways and then slit his belly. His death is said to
have had a dramatic effect on Nobunaga. He did mend his ways, and in time
built the Seisyu-ji in Owari to honor his loyal retainer.
By 1558, Nobunaga had largely managed to unify his family, although he
suffered the rebellion of two brothers in so doing. In 1556, Nobuhiro, his
elder brother, had plotted with the new (and hostile) lord of Mino, Saitô
Yoshitatsu, an act Nobunaga pardoned him for. The following year, his
younger brother Nobuyuki conspired with Shibata Katsuie
and Hayashi Michikatsu and, if the legend is true, Nobunaga's own mother.
Nobunaga learned of the treason and had Nobuyuki killed. Shibata and
Hayashi, on the other hand, were spared - perhaps sending a powerful
message to any other members of the Oda family who were thinking
treacherous thoughts.
As just noted, Saitô Yoshitatsu was the new lord of Mino, having killed
Dôsan at the Battle of Nagaragawa (1556), and he was no friend to the Oda.
The Oda's forts in Mino were quickly reduced, and Nobunaga's attempts to
make in-roads in that province were turned back. At the same time, Imagawa
Yoshimoto was knocking on Owari's southeastern door, having all but
absorbed Mikawa and the Matsudaira clan. Imagawa's army had lost some of
it's potency with the death of Sessai Choro in 1555 but Yoshimoto could
call on the services of a young and skillful ally - Matsudaira Motoyasu, a
man whose fate would prove inter-twined with that of Nobunaga. In 1558,
Motoyasu fought his first battle - at Nobunaga's expense. Oda had recently
bribed Terabe Castle away from the Matsudaira, and Motoyasu, with the
Imagawa's blessing, took it back, defeating a relief force sent by
Nobunaga. The next year, Imagawa did a little horse-trading of his own,
and lured Otaka castle away from the Oda. Nobunaga was furious, and had
the fort surrounded. Soon, the garrison began to run out of food, and to
lead a relief effort, Imagawa sent Matsudaira Motoyasu. Using a crafty bit
of diversion, Motoyasu successfully provisioned Otaka - much to Nobunaga's
chagrin.
1560
Okehazama
The following year,
1560, Imagawa Yoshimoto decided to make a decisive move to the west. His
aim was to drive along the Tokaido coast, brushing aside the Oda and any
who did not submit to the Imagawa army with the ultimate goal of occupying
Kyoto. To this end Yoshimoto gathered perhaps 20,000 to 25,000 men from
Suruga, Totomi, and Mikawa in June, leaving his son Ujizane to run things
while he was off conquering. He included Matsudaira Motoyasu in the
invasion force, and dispatched the Mikawa samurai to reduce the fort of
Marume. Meanwhile, the rest of the Imagawa host crossed in Owari and
assaulted Washizu Castle. The commanders of the besieged forts (Sakuma
Môrishige and Oda Genba) managed to get off letters of warning to Nobunaga
in Kiyosu, and his retainers were divided on what course of action to
take. Given the obvious disparity in numbers, it seemed logical to adopt a
defensive posture, or even to capitulate. Nobunaga was for fighting. With
all the brash and unpredictable élan he was to show throughout his career,
he ordered a conch shell blown and the garrison of Kiyosu made ready for
battle.
The next morning, while Marume and Washizu were going up in flames,
Nobunaga led a handful of men out of the castle and headed in the
direction of Imagawa's army. Along the way he was joined by enough
ashigaru and samurai to make an attack credible-if not particularly wise.
At ten to one odds, Nobunaga's chances seemed slim at best, although the
priests at the Atsuta Shrine that he stopped at to pray for victory
commented on how calm he appeared.
Meanwhile, Imagawa was celebrating the course of his campaign so far.
Encamped in the Dengakuhazama gorge, Imagawa's army rested and enjoyed
sake, their leader engrossed in the viewing of the heads taken at Marume
and Washizu. Nobunaga, paused near the Imagawa's Narumi Fort, learned of
the Imagawa's location from scouts, and played a stratagem. He had battle
flags hoisted up from behind a hill, presenting the image to the Imagawa
stationed inside Narumi that the Oda were resting nearby. In fact,
Nobunaga slipped his men quietly away, leading them in the direction of
the Dengakuhazama. At this critical point, a bit of good luck went
Nobunaga's way. A summer thunderstorm broiled over and let loose with a
torrential downpour, enabling Nobunaga to sneak up quite close to the
Imagawa's position. When the rains abated, he gave the order to attack.
Such was the suddenness and ferocity of the attack; Imagawa assumed
that a fight had broken out among his own men. His misconception was
quickly righted by the appearance of Oda spearmen who succeded in taking
the head of the lord of Suruga. Nobunaga's surprise attack worked
beautifully, and once word spread of Yoshimoto's demise, the Imagawa army
fled, utterly defeated. Matsudaira Motoyasu, resting his men in Marume,
heard of the defeat and thought it best to return to Mikawa forthwith.
Nobunaga's stunning victory at Dengakuhazama (known to posterity by the
name of nearby Okehazama village) changed the course of Japanese history.
It had two immediate results. Firstly, it brought Oda Nobunaga national
fame and removed a wolf from his back door. Secondly, it allowed
Matsudaira Motoyasu to extricate himself from the Imagawa's clutches and
establish Mikawa as an independent province. Both results were to have
heady consequences in the years to come.
1561-1570
Nobunaga's
ambition
In 1561, Saitô
Yoshitatsu, who had continued to fend off advances by the Oda, passed
away, probably of leprosy. This left his son, Tatsuoki, in command and
Nobunaga was quick to take advantage of the new lord's weak character. By
bribing away key Saito generals, Nobunaga was able to weaken the defenses
of Mino and in 1567 he attacked Inabayama, the headquarters of the Saitô
clan. According to tradition, the hill-top castle was brought down by Hashiba (Toyotomi)
Hideyoshi, although this valuable Oda retainer does not begin
appearing in written records until around 1576.
The following year, Nobunaga moved his capital to Inabayama and renamed
the castle Gifu. Everything about the move was auspicious, and made
possible by two alliances - one to Matsudaira Motoyasu, and another to Takeda Shingen of
Kai and Shinano. The name Gifu was taken from the castle from which Wu
Wang, ruler of the Chou, had set out in the 12th Century to unify China.
Emperor Ogimachi sent a letter of congratulations and Nobunaga adopted the
motto Tenka Fubu, or 'the realm covered in military glory' (or,
alternatively, 'The nation under one sword").
The only real opposition to his moves in Mino came from the Asai, who
had declared war on the Saito at around the same time. Asai Nagamasa
considered Mino at least partly his, and a small war quickly brewed up on
the Ômi-Mino border. Nobunaga quickly arranged a peace and sealed an
alliance by marrying his sister (O-ichi) off to Asai Nagamasa.
Nobunaga's ambition was given a powerful stimulant with the arrival of
Ashikaga
Yoshiaki at Gifu in 1567. The brother of the late shogun, Ashikaga
Yoshiteru, murdered in 1565, Yoshiaki had spent the intervening years
seeking out a patron. Yoshiteru's assassins - the Miyoshi and Matsunaga
clans - had seen fit to legitimize their domination of Kyoto politics by
naming the 2-year old Ashikaga Yoshihide as Yoshiteru's successor. When
Yoshiaki heard the news, he gave up a Buddhist priesthood and fled with Hosokawa
Fujitaka, both out of fear for his own life and in the hopes he would
find a warlord strong enough to set things right in Kyôto. That he was the
logical choice to follow Yoshiteru was clear…finding a Daimyô that would
do something about it proved difficult. In his search, he approached the
Takeda of Wakasa (not to be confused with the Takeda of Kai), the Uesugi
of Echigo, and the Asakura of Echizen. The last seemed the most promising,
in terms of military strength relative to a proximity to the capital, and
indeed, Asakura Yoshikage promised to help. But Yoshikage stalled and in
the end admitted that he was powerless to assist Yoshiaki's nomadic party.
Then Yoshiaki turned to Oda Nobunaga, who fairly jumped at the
opportunity. In fact, he had expressed a desire in late 1565 to do just
what Yoshiaki was asking, and it may be that Yoshiaki had been leery of
approaching this young upstart to begin with. Uesugi and Asakura, after
all, were names that carried quite a bit of prestige along with them. But,
by 1567, Yoshiaki had evidently decided that beggars couldn't be choosers.
In 1568 Nobunaga's army marched westward in Yoshiaki's name, brushing
aside the Rokkaku of southern Omi and putting to flight Miyoshi and
Matsunaga. Matsunaga
Hisahide promptly submitted (for which he was confirmed Daimyô of
Yamato) while the Miyoshi withdrew to Settsu. In the ninth month Nobunaga
entered Kyoto and within three weeks Yoshiaki was installed as the
fifteenth Ashikaga shogun with the approval of Emperor Ogimachi. The
mutually beneficial relationship of Yoshiaki and Nobunaga had thus far
borne sweet fruit. In time, it would grow quite sour, foreshadowed by
Nobunaga's refusal to accept the position of Kanrei, or deputy shogun,
even when the Emperor himself requested he do so in 1569 . Nobunaga seemed
determined to exist in a sort of political limbo, and expressed little
interest in any orthodox rank or titles, including, as we shall see, that
of shogun. That Nobunaga was the real ruler in Kyoto was the only part of
the equation that lacked any sort of ambiguity.
1570-1573
Resistance
It was hardly
surprising that the Daimyô who lived outside Nobunaga's sphere of
influence would become quite agitated by the developments in Kyoto.
Naturally, upheaval in Kyoto was nothing new - but Nobunaga was. He was
quite unlike any of the various Miyoshi, Hosokawa, or Hatakeyama
contenders of the past. Those lords, the Hosokawa Sumimoto's and Miyoshi
Motonaga's of 1500-1565, had struggled for personal gain and prestige.
Nobunaga seemed different. Certainly, he aimed for personal gain and
prestige as well, but the sort of gain he desired was most different. By
1568, it is safe to say that Nobunaga aimed to rule all of Japan. Of
course, this particular wish was hardly unique among the Daimyô - in point
of fact, it is quite misleading to say that Nobunaga somehow possessed a
vision denied his contemporaries. Rather, Nobunaga was in the right place
at the right time and presented with the right window. The other great
warlords of his day (some arguably greater as men go), Môri Motonari,
Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin,
and Hôjô Ujiyasu were all far removed from the capital, and in the case of
the last three, unable to move due to the ambitions of their neighbors.
The key was location. By taking Kyoto, Nobunaga positioned himself nicely
in the center of Japan, which could be called the nation's 'soft
under-belly'. While Nobunaga would face an implacable enemy in the
Ikko-ikki that dwelled just beyond the Kinai, the weakness of the Daimyô
within that region allowed him to build, by 1573, a considerable
power-base. This is not to say, of course, that Nobunaga lacked the
talents usually ascribed to him. But it is perhaps inaccurate to describe
him as something other than a 'sengoku Daimyô'. He was rather the ultimate
expression of the 'sengoku-Daimyô'. His power was based almost solely on
the point of a sword, and as he grew in power, so did his use for
diplomacy diminish. He kept a tight rein on his retainers, and was
ruthless to his opponents, especially those who proved especially
troublesome to him. His campaigns would be long and hard-fought as his
reputation for cruelty grew. Few of his enemies had any illusion about
what surrender would mean.
In early 1570, Nobunaga was presented with the first real challenge to
his rise. Perhaps in an effort to feel out opposition, Nobunaga had
evidently pressed Yoshiaki to request all the local Daimyô to come to
Kyôto and attend a certain banquet. One of those who presence was
requested was none other than Asakura Yoshikage, the very Daimyô who had
frittered his own chance to champion Yoshiaki. Suspecting that Nobunaga
was behind the 'invitation', Yoshikage refused, an act Nobunaga declared
disloyal to both the shogun and the emperor. With this pretext well in
hand, Nobunaga raised an army and marched on Echizen. Initially, all went
well for the attackers, with the Asakura revealing their rather
lack-luster leadership abilities. By March Nobunaga, supported by Tokugawa
Ieyasu (the former Matsudaira Motoyasu), had penetrated Echizen's southern
approaches and was moving on Yoshikage's capital (Ichijo-no-tani). Just
then, Oda received startling news. His brother-in-law, Asai Nagamasa,
had suddenly switched sides and gathered troops to help the Asakura. In
fact, Nagamasa's change of heart was probably not as great a surprise as
one might think. The Asai and Asakura had been allies for decades, and a
single marriage - even if it included the Daimyô of the clan - was not
enough to nullify such a long friendship.
At any rate, Nobunaga was placed in a bit of a tricky spot by
Nagamasa's defection, but with the stout Tokugawa troops and wiles of
Hashiba Hideyoshi at his disposal, he managed to extricate himself back to
Kyoto without great loss. He wasted little time in taking issue with
Nagamasa. In July he moved on the Asai's stronghold - Odani Castle -
combining his levied troops with a sizable contingent of Tokugawa men for
a total of 28,000 soldiers. Asai Nagamasa and Asakura Kagetake marched out
to meet this host, and with their combined 20,000-man army, faced Nobunaga
at the Anegawa River. The battle was hotly contested on the part of the
Asai, but resulted in a victory for Nobunaga and Ieyasu. It was by no
means decisive, but Anegawa represented a turning point in Nobunaga's
career, in that while Okehazama may have been a fluke and the Saito and
Rokkaku hardly impressive, Nobunaga was a man to be taken seriously.
But Asai and Asakura proved tenacious opponents. Later in 1570, they
led another combined army along the coast of Lake Biwa and defeated an Oda
army near Otsu, killing one of Nobunaga's own brothers, Nobuharu. In a
significant development, the warrior-monks of Mt Hiei lent their
support to the Asai and Asakura, a fatal error, as Nobunaga would
ruthlessly prove in late 1571. In the meantime, Nobunaga found Ikko and
warrior-monk resistance to his expansion stiffening at every turn. In
Kwatchi, the warrior-monks of the Ishiyama Honganji fortress, well
equipped with firearms, assisted the Miyoshi in their struggle against the
Oda. In Ise, the Ikko-ikki of the Nagashima area openly defied Nobunaga
and would cause him considerable difficulty until he dealt with them in
1574. An early struggle with the Ikko of Ise had already claimed
the life of Nobunaga's brother Nobuoki (1569) and a preliminary assault in
May of 1571 on Nagashima developed into a complete and costly fiasco.
By 1571 Nobunaga's position, while not in grave danger, was becoming a
difficult one. Now actively arrayed against him were the Asai, Asakura,
and Miyoshi clans, supported by Ikko and warrior monks from the Honganji,
Enryakuji (of Mt. Hiei), Negoroji, and Nagashima. The Honganji proved the
most formidable: head priest Kennyo Kosa and the Honganji's fanatical
adherents were destined to hold out for a decade, in time supported by the
Môri clan.
At the same time, there is some evidence that the shogun was busy
conspiring against his former patron, sending out letters to the Môri of
Western Japan, and to the Takeda, Uesugi, and Hôjô of Eastern Japan.
Evidently Yoshiaki had become frustrated with Nobunaga's heavy-handedness,
which only increased with the passage of time. By 1571 Oda had imposed a
multitude of regulations and constraints on Yoshiaki's administration
(chiefly outlined in two documents issued in 1569 and 1570) that all but
reduced the shogun to a puppet.
Yoshiaki's best hope seemed to rest on the powerful Takeda Shingen of
Kai, who by this point had taken control of Suruga and was pressing Oda's
staunch ally, Tokugawa Ieyasu. While historians continue to debate just
how deep Yoshiaki's schemes went, surviving documents and correspondence
does lead one to believe that Shingen was seen by most as the greatest
threat to Nobunaga and that Yoshiaki was proactive in getting the Takeda
involved in the anti-Oda alliance.
Nobunaga, hardly willing to allow his enemies time to strangle him,
responded with an act of brutality so unusual that even his own generals
were shocked. In later 1571, Nobunaga's troops surrounded Mt. Hiei and
proceeded to work their way up the mountainside, killing any and all found
in their path. By the next day, the once sprawling Enryakuji complex was
reduced to ashes and thousands lay dead. The centuries old power of Mt.
Hiei had been broken, and Nobunaga was afforded a little breathing room.
An attempt to repeat this success at Nagashima, however, ended in failure,
and Nobunaga was forced to hold off on further efforts to reduce this
stronghold while the Takeda threatened.
In 1572 Takeda Shingen stepped up his forays into Tokugawa's land, and
Ieyasu requested military assistance. Nobunaga, despite the aid he had
himself gotten from Ieyasu in the past, hesitated (he was, after all,
still technically allied to Shingen). Ieyasu's response was to hint that
there was little that might otherwise stop the Tokugawa from actually
joining the Takeda - a scenario that would put the Oda in a most
precarious position. Wisely, Nobunaga agreed to help as much as his own
situation allowed.
In the winter of 1572, Takeda led a large army down from Shinano into
Totomi and threatened Ieyasu's headquarters at Hamamatsu. Nobunaga sent a
few thousand men under three generals of mixed quality - not enough to
stave off the defeat that followed but enough to eliminate any pretext of
civility that may have existed between Nobunaga and Shingen. At the same
time, Takeda troops actually penetrated Mino, and captured the imposing
Iwamura Castle - an embarrassing event that no doubt made Oda furious.
Fortune was destined to smile on Nobunaga in 1573, however. By that
May, Takeda Shingen was dead. While the specifics of his passing remain
something of a mystery, the loss of Shingen would ultimately prove fatal
to the Takeda clan and a boon for Nobunaga. The timing certainly could not
have proved worse for Ashikaga Yoshiaki, who in March had fortified Nijo
Castle and dispatched letters to Nobunaga's enemies, urging them onward.
While Shingen threatened, Nobunaga had been unable to respond to the
shogun's defiance, save for making a few good will overtures to Yoshiaki.
The Takeda clan had endeavored to keep Shingen's death a secret, but it
seems likely that Nobunaga at least intuited the truth. With all of the
furious determination he would become famous for, Nobunaga turned on his
remaining enemies in the Chubu region. On 3 May he surrounded Kyoto and
caught Yoshiaki unprepared, forcing the shogun to negotiate. An uneasy
truce was arranged through the intercession of the Emperor, one that
neither side expected to hold for long. In the meantime, Nobunaga took
charge of operations against the Nagashima Ikko stronghold and led an army
there in July. He was defeated in a sharp struggle and forced to retreat,
an embarrassing setback that may have helped goad Yoshiaki into rebelling
again in the first week of August. Leaving Mizubuchi Fujihide in charge of
Nijo, Yoshiaki barricaded himself in a fort astride the Uji River. His
intention evidently was to hold off Nobunaga long enough for the Asai,
Asakura, and Honganji to fall on Oda from behind. In fact, Yoshiaki's
position was strong - but in the event not strong enough. Realizing the
danger inherent in Yoshiaki's recalcitrance, Nobunaga acted swiftly. He
assaulted Yoshiaki's stronghold and by 18 August had breached the fort's
outer defenses. Yoshiaki sued for peace and pleaded for his life - a
request Nobunaga granted. Instead, Yoshiaki was exiled, the last of the
Ashikaga shoguns. From now until his death, Nobunaga would act as the
defacto Shôgun.
Yoshiaki was barely on the road to refuge in the western provinces when
Nobunaga marched north against the Asai and Asakura. He threatened Odani
Castle, then ambushed and defeated the Asakura army dutifully dispatched
in relief. Leaving a force to mask Odani, Nobunaga chased the fleeing
Asakura into Echizen, easily capturing Ichijo-ga-tani. Asakura Yoshikage
had abandoned his castle and ended up committing suicide in a temple on 16
September. Nobunaga then returned to Omi and surrounded Odani. Asai
Nagamasa died a much less pathetic death then his ally Yoshikage, and made
the honorable gesture of returning Nobunaga's sister and her children
before committing suicide.
With the Asai and Asakura gone, and the Takeda for the moment quiet,
Nobunaga was free to inflict vengeance on the Ikko of Nagashima. Supported
by the naval strength of Kûki Yoshitaka of Shima, Nobunaga blockaded
Nagashima and captured its outlaying forts. During the August of 1574 the
Oda forced the Ikko within the walls of their main fortifications and
essentially imprisoned them there. The Nagashima complex was then set
alight, and as many as 20,000 men, women, and children were massacred.
This was not to be the last of Nobunaga's blood baths, but in many ways it
was the most shocking, though not nearly as well known as his destruction
of Mt. Hiei.
Within one year, Nobunaga's borders and military clout had grown
substantiality, enough to allow him to conduct three initiatives at once:
the continued siege of the Honganji, a war of extermination aimed at the
Ikko of Echizen and Kaga, and a showdown with the Takeda. The last would
culminate in the bloody struggle at Nagashino.
Nobunaga the Ruler
In early 1574,
Nobunaga was promoted to the junior third rank (ju sanmi) and made
a court advisor (sangi); court appointments would continue to be
lavished on a near-yearly basis, perhaps in the hopes of placating him. By
February 1578 the court had made him Daijo daijin, or Grand
Minister of State - the highest post that could be given. Yet if the court
had hoped that exalted titles would woo Nobunaga, they were to be
mistaken. In May of 1574 Nobunaga resigned his titles, pleading unfinished
work in the provinces, and stepped up a campaign to force Emperor Ogimachi
into retirement. That Nobunaga did not succeed in having Ogimachi removed
goes some way towards demonstrating that there was a limit to his power -
although what exactly acted as a check on his ambitions is a matter of
scholarly debate. Suffice it to say that Nobunaga was in every other way
tantamount to a shogun in the lands he controlled. That he did not
actually take the title of shogun is generally explained by his not being
of Minamoto blood, which is misleading and possibly quite off the mark. A
worthwhile discussion of this issue would likely require a careful
examination of the rank of Shôgun taken in its greater historical context
- beyond the scope of this writing. Let it be said that in all probability
Nobunaga could well have taken the title, at least after 1582, but died
without saying much on the business himself.
Nobunaga's entry into Kyôto presented him with a situation very
different from that which he had come. While Kyôto had come a long way
since the dark days of the Ônin War, it was still in relative disrepair,
with it's population subject to myriad tollbooths along the roadways and
hills infested with bandits. Nobunaga's responsibilities increased
exponentially, both militarily and politically after 1568. His first order
of business, and that arguably most important to him, was to establish an
economic power base and maximize the potential wealth of the Kinai. Among
his many measures were included the abolition of tollbooths (perhaps
partially as a PR move on his part, as the action was quite popular with
the common people) and a series of cadastral surveys in Yamato, Yamashiro,
Ômi, and Ise. Nobunaga moved to control the minting and exchange of coins,
and brought the merchant city of Sakai under his influence, which in time
proved to be worth it's weight in gold. He used his gathering wealth to
compensate for the generally poor quality of his common soldiery by buying
as many rifles as he could get his hands on-and building his own when the
arms factory at Kunimoto (Omi) fell into his hands after 1573.
Culturally Nobunaga was also active. An avid student of the tea
ceremony and poetry (if not an exceptional poet) he collected tea items
from near and far, and held tea and poetry gatherings with such learned
and cultured men as Hosokawa Fujitaka, Imai Sokyu, and Sen no Rikyu. In
the same vein he encouraged the giving of tea items and other objects as a
reward for exceptional service, as opposed to the traditional grant of
land, and the reward of a tea item from Nobunaga's hand was felt to be an
exceptional honor (regardless of whether the receiver was much of a tea
man himself!).
Westerners fascinated Nobunaga and he showed a high degree of tolerance
for their activities, to the extent that he is sometimes referred to
mistakenly as a Christian. The chances that Nobunaga planned to convert
are probably nonexistent - rather, the Jesuits fulfilled two uses for
Nobunaga: 1) they provided him with some of the novelties and artifacts he
habitually collected and probably added to his sense of power (the Jesuits
tended to see Nobunaga as the real ruler of Japan - a distinction he could
not have but enjoyed) and, 2), they acted as a foil to his Buddhist
enemies, if only to increase their frustration. Much has always been made
in western works of Nobunaga's relationship with the Jesuits - it is
possible, however, that he saw them as merely useful and somewhat amusing
diversions. Far more important to Nobunaga were his own retainers, and yet
he does not come across as a particularly trustworthy leader. Few if any
samurai entered his inner circle of top retainers after 1568. Even those
top men he did employ were moved about from place to place, and often
treated with at least some modicum of coldness. In 1580, after the fall of
the Ishiyama Honganji, Nobunaga summarily dismissed and allowed to die in
exile one of his oldest retainers - Sakuma Nobumôri, for alleged
incompetence of command. He is recorded as teasing Hideyoshi with the
nickname 'Saru', or Monkey, and deriding Akechi Mitsuhide
for his poetic ability (actually considered rather good) and his hairline.
There are other, more outrageous recordings, but, as always in Sengoku
tales, it is sometimes difficult to discern where truth ends and hyperbole
begins. For all that, it is likely that Nobunaga would not have been
nearly as successful as he was had he been afraid to delegate. Shibata
Katsuie, for instance, was dispatched to subdue the Hokuriku and with a
few notable exceptions, Nobunaga left him to it for the better part of a
decade. When Nobunaga decided to launch a campaign into the Chugoku
region, he sent Hideyoshi and Akechi to lead the armies, never once
commanding troops there himself.
In 1578 Azuchi Castle was completed in Ômi province and stood as the
most impressive castle ever built in Japan. Lavishly decorated and
immensely expensive, Azuchi was meant not so much for defense but as a way
of clearly illustrating his power to the nation. He went to great lengths
to draw merchants and citizens to Azuchi's accompanying town, and probably
saw it becoming the long-term capital of the Oda hegemony - in whatever
form it took.
While in certain ways a sengoku Daimyô on a grand scale, Nobunaga was a
tireless ruler and worked for years to create a military and economic
super-state within the slowly widening borders of his realm. The success
of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and by extension Tokugawa Ieyasu rests largely on
the shoulders of the work Oda Nobunaga did before 1582.
In 1575, of course, there was still much work to be done…
1575
Nagashino
|
The Battle of Nagashino, 1575
|
The loss of Shingen in 1573
had ostensibly only slowed the Takeda war machine. The following
year Takeda
Katsuyori, Shingen's heir, pulled off a strategic coup with the
capture of Taketenjin Castle in Totomi. Tokugawa
Ieyasu, whose efforts to relieve Taketenjin failed, had his
hands full with Katsuyori; while not the ruler his father had been,
Katsuyori was brave and was not lacking in aggression. Combined with
the skilled Takeda army and the late Shingen's experienced cadre of
captains, Katsuyori's indomitable spirit made him a formidable foe
In May 1575 Katsuyori hatched a plot whereby one of Ieyasu's
retainers would betray his lord and open the gates of Hamamatsu
Castle to the approaching Takeda army. Katsuyori was halfway to
Hamamatsu before he learned that the plot had been uncovered and
Ieyasu alerted. Perhaps as a consolation prize, Katsuyori turned his
attentions to Nagashino Castle, a fort held by a certain Okudaira
Sadamasa. When direct attack failed to reduce the garrison,
Katsuyori settled in for a siege and attempted to mine the walls.
Nagashino may well have fallen had it not been for a brave member of
the garrison, Torii Sune'emon, who slipped through the Takeda lines
and delivered a message to Ieyasu explaining the castle's
predicament. Ieyasu sent Torii back to let Nagashino know that he
had no intention of abandoning him, but he was captured and
crucified by the Takeda in the
attempt. |
Tokugawa was determined to rescue Nagashino, but lacked the manpower to
do so alone. Nobunaga, on the other hand, was hesitant, perhaps reluctant
to take so many of his men and leaders so far from the Kyôto area. In
frustration, Ieyasu once again played his trump card - he threatened to
join the Takeda and attack Oda as part of their vanguard! Faced with this
rather unpleasant prospect, Nobunaga changed his mind and agreed to throw
his full weight into the effort. Moving quickly, he gathered an army of
some 30,000 men, to be commanded by some of his best commanders, including
Shibata Katsuie, Hashiba Hideyoshi, and Takigawa Kazumasu. Tokugawa
brought about 8,000 men of his own, tough Mikawa men whose skill would
once again more than make up for their relative lack in numbers. Perhaps
most importantly, Nobunaga arranged to deal with the vaunted Takeda
cavalry by bringing along a sizable contingent of riflemen (around 3,000)
and logs to throw up a palisade for protection.
In late June, the Oda and Tokugawa forces converged on Nagashino,
putting Katsuyori in a difficult spot. Nagashino Castle, bolstered by
Torii's brave sacrifice, was holding firm, leaving the weary Takeda army
outnumbered AND without a base from which to conduct operations from. The
older - and wiser - Takeda retainers urged Katsuyori to either retreat or
make one last push to take the castle. Unfortunately for them and the
Takeda clan, Katsuyori chose to do neither - he ordered preparations for
an all-out attack on the Oda and Tokugawa army massed just to their west.
The attack, in retrospect, was almost bound to fail - even had Nobunaga
left most of his guns at home and dispensed with his palisade building.
The Takeda were tired from weeks in the field in poor weather, outnumbered
almost three to one, and faced with attacking over ground broken by
foliage, dips, and a stream. It has been said that Katsuyori planned to
attack in the hopes that rain would render Nobunaga's guns useless, but
this apologetic excuse seems unlikely. In truth, Nagashino seems to have
simply been a tremendous mistake on the part of an impetuous commander.
These judgments aside, the battle progressed poorly for the Takeda from
the first. On the night of 27 June, the day before the actual battle,
Sakai Tadatsugu led a raid into the Takeda camp and killed one of
Shingen's surviving brothers, Takeda Nobuzane. When day broke, any
possible Takeda hopes for rain were dashed by the rays of a bright morning
sun. Nonetheless, Katsuyori gave the order to attack, sending nearly
10,000 of his troops across the Shidarahara against 38,000 troops
established on superior ground and entrenched with wooden palisades.
Matchlock fire produced the first casualties, and likely served to further
disrupt formations already strained by the difficult terrain. In a scene
vaguely reminiscent of Gettysburg, the Takeda vanguard managed to reach
the enemy lines and even cut into their ranks before being thrown back by
counterattacks led by fresh, eager troops. On the northern flank, Baba Nobuharu's
Takeda contingent managed to capture some of the high ground, and held
their integrity together well. To his immediate south, however, Baba's
comrades fared much worse. Yamagata Masakage and Naito Masatoyo, two of
the greatest Takeda generals, were killed in the melee, the former by a
bullet and the latter by enemy spears. With the Takeda wavering, Nobunaga
ordered a general pile-on, sending his ashigaru pouring out from behind
the palisades. The battle had devolved into butchery, and Katsuyori added
to the fiasco by sending in his reserves, which did little but add to the
casualty list and encourage the Nagashino garrison to mount a sally.
Finally, after hours of bitter struggle, Katsuyori was convinced to
retreat by Baba Nobuharu, who covered his master's flight until he and his
men were themselves killed. Katsuyori left as many as 10,000 of his men
dead at Nagashino. 28 June 1575 was Nobunaga's greatest achievement, a
victory as tactically decisive as Okehazama and ultimately of great
strategic significance. The victory at Nagashino all but secured his
eastern flank and allowed him to throw his weight into the siege of the
Honganji and consolidate his recent gains. Takeda Katsuyori was beaten but
not vanquished, and would continue to harass Tokugawa, yet, as a regional
power, the Takeda were broken.
Nobunaga returned to Kyoto and prepared for new battles and new
enemies.
1576 - 1580
The reduction of the
Takeda made Nobunaga's dream of conquering Japan seem more and more
plausible, although there were three enemies who were close enough to take
active issue with his designs…
1) The Honganji. The Ishiyama Honganji stronghold proved no less
formidable then before Nagashino. In June 1576 he dispatched Harada
Naomasa with an army to attack the Honganji-an effort that ended in
failure and the loss of Harada's life. Nobunaga responded by personally
leading an attack that succeeded in taking quite a few heads but saw
Nobunaga wounded in the course of the fighting. Realizing that a direct
assault on the heavily defended fortress would prove extraordinarily
costly even if it succeded at all, Nobunaga decided to change tactics. He
began reducing the Ishiyama Honganji's satellites, crushing the Saiga
monto of Kii and weakening the warrior monks of the Negoroji. The Honganji
itself held firm, drawing support from two powerful clans sympathetic to
its cause - the Uesugi of Echigo and the Môri of Western Honshu.
2) The Uesugi. Uesugi Kenshin and
Oda Nobunaga had maintained a wary relationship into 1576. For a time,
Kenshin had cooperated with Nobunaga against the Takeda, but lost interest
in their alliance after Nagashino. Two factors contributed to the rising
tension between the two clans. Firstly, Nobunaga was gradually expanding
deeper into the Hokuriku, a region Kenshin considered within the Uesugi
sphere of influence. Secondly, ground was broken on Azuchi Castle in the
spring of 1576, and Nobunaga made little secret that he planned to make
his new capital the grandest castle ever built. Kenshin took this, or at
least chose to take this, as a threatening gesture-after all, Azuchi would
block any move by Kenshin into the Kinai Region and act as a staging area
for attacks into the Hokuriku. Kenshin's response was to step up his own
expansion. He had already taken Etchu and in1577 attacked Noto, a province
that Nobunaga had already made some political investment in. Nobunaga
responded by leading a large army into Kaga and met Kenshin's army at the
Tedori River. Kenshin proved himself to be as wily a foe as his old enemy
Shingen, and lured Nobunaga into making a frontal assault across the
Tedori at night. In a hard-fought struggle, the Oda forces were defeated
and Nobunaga was forced to retreat south. Kenshin returned to Echigo and
made plans to return the following spring, this time to destroy Nobunaga.
Unfortunately, time deserted Kenshin just as it had Shingen, when he was
at the height of his power and in a position to thwart Nobunaga's
ambitions. In fact, Kenshin's death on 13 April 1578 was so fortuitous for
Nobunaga that rumors of assassination began circulating almost
immediately. In actuality, it appears more likely that Kenshin died from
natural causes - he was supposedly quite ill even as he prepared for the
coming campaign season. Regardless of the circumstances of his death,
Kenshin's passing triggered a bitter civil war within the Uesugi and made
Nobunaga's life that much easier. Over the next four years Oda forces
under Shibata
Katsuie, Maeda Toshiie, and Sassa Narimasa would pick away at the
Uesugi's holdings, until they were at the borders of Echigo.
3) The Môri. In terms of sheer lands under their rule, the Môri were
one of Japan's most impressive clans. From humble beginnings under Môri Motonari,
the Môri had expanded to control much of the Chugoku region, and now
watched Nobunaga's expansion with dismay. Motonari had been an early
critic of Nobunaga and when he died in 1571 his successor, Môri Terumoto,
carried on the Môri's budding opposition. The Ishiyama Honganji proved a
convenient place to oppose Nobunaga. In 1576 Nobunaga diverted the naval
forces of Kûki
Yoshitaka to the waters off Settsu and proceeded with a naval blockade
of the Honganji, assisted by the Atagi of Awaji Island. The Môri responded
by mobilizing their first rate navy, which was commanded by the Murakami
family: men who, like the Kûki, had cut their teeth in piracy. Sailing
east, the Môri brushed aside Atagi Nobuyasu's forces off Awaji and
proceeded to defeat Kuki Yoshitaka's ships at the 1st Battle of
Kizugawaguchi. The Honganji's supply line was opened and supplies were
funneled in via sea transport, making Nobunaga's efforts at blockade on
land moot. Realizing that the Honganji would have to be isolated if he
ever hoped to capture it, Nobunaga tasked Kûki with devising naval vessels
that would offset the Môri's numerical superiority. Yoshitaka dutifully
went back to Shima and in 1578 unveiled six massive, heavily armed
warships some have fancied were equipped with armored plates. These formed
the core of a fleet that sailed back into the Inland Sea and drove off the
Môri at the 2nd Battle of Kizugawaguchi. The next year, Môri Terumoto made
another abortive attempt to lift the naval blockade but failed. By that
point, the Môri were faced with a crisis of their own: Nobunaga's generals
were marching west. Akechi Mitsuhide was charged with conquering Tamba and
then advancing along the northern coast of the Chugoku. Toyotomi (Hashiba)
Hideyoshi entered Harima and began a number of sieges that would ultimately
open the gates to the Môri's hinterland.
1580 opened with the Honganji completely isolated and now rapidly
running low on supplies. Finally, faced with Nobunaga's seemingly endless
energy and determination as well as starvation, the Honganji looked for a
peaceful solution. The court stepped in (persuaded by Nobunaga) and
requested that Kennyo Kosa and the commander of the Honganji garrison,
Shimotsuma Nakayuki, honorably surrender. In August the Honganji came to
terms, and threw open their gates. Somewhat surprisingly, Nobunaga spared
all of the surviving defenders - even Kosa and Shimotsuma. After over a
decade of bloodshed, Nobunaga had subdued the last of the great
ikko bastions and cleared the way for an eventual rise to national
hegemony.
One more difficulty remained to be dealt with in Nobunaga's backyard:
Iga province. Small, mountainous and strategically unimportant, Iga and
its rustic warrior houses had been spared Nobunaga's attentions for over a
decade. Then in 1579 Oda Nobuo, Nobunaga's 2nd son, sent in an invasion
force under Takigawa Kazumasu to bring the province under Oda control. The
operation was a fiasco and prompted Nobuo to lead an army into Iga
himself. This campaign (October 1579) was a near-disaster as well, and
earned Nobuo no small amount of criticism from his father. Of course,
Nobunaga had little choice but to avenge this embarrassment to the Oda
name, although other matters delayed him from doing so until 1581. In
October of that year, an army of some 44,000 men descended on Iga and
brutally quelled the independent-minded samurai there.
When 1582 began, Nobunaga found himself in a suitable position to
finish off the Takeda clan once and for all. Massing all of his available
forces (anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 men), Nobunaga made for Katsuyori's
still considerable territories. Supported by Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Hôjô
clan, Nobunaga easily broke into Shinano and Kai, whose people had lost
all confidence in their daimyo. Katsuyori himself, all but abandoned by
his men, committed suicide in the shadow of the Temmoku-zan. Of all the
Oda's samurai enemies, Nobunaga seems to have despised the Takeda most of
all, and gloated shamelessly over Katsuyori's head.
On 21 May Nobunaga returned to Azuchi Castle and was greeted by an
imperial court that promised him new titles including, if he wanted it,
that of shôgun. Nobunaga gave no answer, nor would he ever.
Already, Akechi Mitsuhide was plotting against him; within two months
Nobunaga would be dead.
The Death of Nobunaga
As mentioned earlier,
Nobunaga was said to have treated his retainers haughtily, and this seems
to have been nowhere more the case than with Akechi Mitsuhide. A
relatively late addition to Nobunaga's inner circle, Mitsuhide was a
talented general and poet, perhaps provoking his lord's jealousy as a
result of the latter. The best-known story regarding the rift between the
two men and just unusual enough to be true occurred in 1577. In that year,
Akechi had been tasked with subduing Tamba, and in the course of his
campaign besieged the castle of the Hatano clan. Akechi succeded in
securing the bloodless surrender of Hatano Hideharu and brought him before
Nobunaga. To Akechi's shock, Nobunaga (for reasons unknown) ordered Hatano
and his brother executed. The Hatano retainers blamed Akechi for the
betrayal and in revenge kidnapped and brutally murdered Akechi's mother
(who lived on the Akechi lands in nearby Omi). Unsurprisingly, this whole
business did not sit so well with Mitsuhide, although there is no real
hint of his actively plotting until 1582. In that year, Nobunaga returned
from his conquest of the Takeda clan in time for news of a crisis in the
west. Hideyoshi was
investing Takamatsu castle, but faced with the arrival of the main Môri
army requested reinforcements. Nobunaga responded by speeding a large
contingent of his personal troops westward while he himself entertained
court nobles at the Honnoji in Kyôto on 20 June. He awoke the following
morning in the Honnoji to find that during the night Akechi Mitsuhide had
the temple surrounded. Raising an army on the pretext of going to
Hideyoshi's aid, Mitsuhide had taken a detour into Kyôto and now called
for Nobunaga's head. As Nobunaga had only a small personal guard in
attendance on the morning of 21 June, the outcome was a forgone
conclusion, and he died, either in the blaze that was started in the
course of the fighting or by his own hand. Soon afterwards, Oda Hidetada
was surrounded at Nijo and killed. 11 days after that, Akechi Mitsuhide
would himself be killed, defeated by Hideyoshi at the Battle of Yamazaki.
Oda Nobunaga died one of most interesting and controversial figures in
Japanese history who continues to inspire debate among scholars and
enthusiasts of the Sengoku Period. Was he the tyrant so often portrayed in
the history books, as his wholesale slaughter of religious adherents might
indicate? Was there a method to his madness, where terror was a weapon he
felt needed to be used were he ever to achieve his goals? Did he really
believe himself a deity, as the contemporary observer Luis Frois recorded?
How much further might he have gone had his career not been cut short?
Regardless of these questions and their possible answers, Oda Nobunaga,
like Taira Kiyomori (his supposed antecedent), lives on in history as a
complicated man who changed Japan forever.
Compiled by F.W. Seal, Edited by Elliott Long
