maverick
Banned
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The end of the Ashikaga order, the extinction of stability and peace, the rise and fall of the daimyos, the social and national war and the rise of the great generals of lowly origins were amongst the marks of the Sengoku Period in Japan, also known as the Warring States Period: one-hundred and twenty years in which the empire of Japan has suffered from generations of war as the shoguns lost their grip over the nation and let the country disintegrate and divide under the influence and power of the most powerful daimyo clans. [1]
One of these clans was the Takeda of Kai Province, in western Japan, a powerful and influential family descended from the noble Minamoto Clan, under the leadership of the talented and resourceful Takeda Shingen, son of Takeda Nobutara.
Shingen, a man of great intelligence and skill, was able to take the domain he inherited at the age of 21 and turn it into a force to be reckoned with in the west of Japan, beginning a series of campaigns against his neighboring clans, succeeding in the conquest of the provinces of Shinano and Sugura, as well as several other territories around his own domain, including several castles from the warlord that would become his chief rival over the years, Uesugi Kenshin.
Kenshin and Shingen would come to fight each other for several years, the rivalry between the two gaining fame thanks to the series of engagements fought at Kawanakajima in the decade of the 1550s and early 1560s, the Takeda facing the Uesugi five times in a war that nearly bled the two clans white. [2]
By the year of 1572, Takeda Shingen had made himself one of the most powerful daimyos in Japan, having expanded his domains greatly at the expense of his neighbors and achieving an uneasy yet effective peace with his neighbors thanks to the truce made with Hojo Ujimasa and the exhaustion that resulted from his wars with Uesugi Kenshin, who would remain a threat to Shingen's northern border for years nonetheless.
It was the great fame and power that Shingen had obtained in his years as head of the Takeda clan that made him the most suitable candidate for shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki, who had been conspiring against his patron, the great daimyo Oda Nobunaga.
Nobunaga, who had risen from relative obscurity in the Owari province, had not only conquered the imperial capital of Kyoto along with most of central Japan, but had also been able to install a puppet Shogun in the capital, and despite Yoshinaki's role as de jure ruler of the country, it was Nobunaga the one who controlled the government, much to the frustration of the Shogun. [3]
Of the great four daimyos that quarreled for power outside of the Oda sphere of influence; Mori Motonari, Uesugi Kenshin, Takeda Shingen and Hojo Ujiyasu, Shingen was the only one with the power and in the position to halt Nobunaga's momentum and prevent him from gaining national hegemony.
Shingen's campaign began in earnest in 1572, when he launched an invasion of the domains of Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of Nobunaga's staunch allies and Shingen's rivals, with whom he had disputed the division of the Imagawa domain recently. The invasion of Totomi and the capture of the imposing fortress of Iwamura marked the beginning of the campaign against Ieyasu in the winter of 1572, in an offensive made possible by the strategic genius of the Takeda generals and Shingen himself, while the Tokugawa suffered from poorer leadership and only enjoyed little support from Nobunaga, who was at the time engaged in a series of campaigns at Nagashima.[4]
Meanwhile, the war between Ieyasu and Shingen would continue, eventually leading to the decisive battle of Mikatagahara, on January 6th of 1573.
Shingen had brought forward an army of 30,000 men to engage the Tokugawa north of Ieyasu’s stronghold of Hamamatsu, his best generals, Yamagata Masakage and Baba Nobufusa standing beside him along with his son and heir, Takeda Katsuyori.
To oppose him, Ieyasu only counted with nearly 8,000 men reinforced with 3,000 troops that Oda Nobunaga had reluctantly sent as a sign of support, although it would also prove to be a sign of Nobunaga’s distrust of Ieyasu, especially in the dire situation in which the lord of Totomi was at the moment. The two armies met at the high plain of Mikata, north of Hamamatsu, as Ieyasu tried to halt Shingen’s attack before the fortress was directly compromised.
According to the historical records, Shingen organized his men in gyôrin (fish-scale) formation, enticing his opponent to attack, while Ieyasu’s forces formed a line, with the hope of being able to take advantage of the harquebusiers, even though the use of firearms in Japan was still quite new and the techniques not quite perfected. The battle was nevertheless begun when Shingen ordered his famous cavalry to begin a charge, devastating the center of the Tokugawa line and overrunning the frightened and inexperienced ashigaru, while leaving only a few still standing by the end of the charge. The battle then continued with the withdrawal of the first cavalry units, allowing them to rest, and their replacement with fresh troops that proceeded to attack the Tokugawa line once more, this time under the command of Takeda Katsuyori and Obata Masamori, inflicting further damage to the Tokugawa line before being joined by the main Takeda force, which quickly routed the enemy forces. The full retreat of the Tokugawa army began shortly after the second breaking of the main line. The routing, as the early stages of the battle, had proven to be particularly bloody and costly, especially for the Tokugawa, given the terrible psychological effect of facing the great Takeda Shingen and his famed cavalry.
Seeing his army in retreat and his main generals trapped, Ieyasu ordered to have his standard raised at where the high plains began to drop off. The daimyo’s intentions being to lead a new surprise attack against the Takeda and free his men, despite the attempts by his remaining officers to have him retreat to safety.
Ieyasu was only able to muster a force of 4,000 men to lead his attack, but he was hoping that the surprise factor would enable him to drive the tired and overconfident Takeda forces as they were scattered around the battlefield pursuing his army.
The attempted counterattack would nevertheless be entirely futile. The battle was lost and the army was in retreat, and Ieyasu’s charge, although successful in pushing the Takeda flank at the early stages of the attack, was eventually driven back as Yamagata Masakage himself regrouped his men from the center and the flank to halt the Tokugawa counterattack and route the enemy forces, killing Ieyasu and most of his remaining troops in the process.
The rest of the army retreated in all directions, the main force effectively losing all coherence and disintegrating through the battle site. The field was Shingen’s.
The battle, despite several disputes over the historical records, officially ended when the vanguard of the Takeda force entered the abandoned fortress of Hamamatsu the following morning. [5]
Notes:
1. The Sengoku Period is largely agreed to have started in 1467 as a result of the Onin War, a conflict between two rivaling Clans (The Yamana and the Hosokawa) which escalated into a full scale national civil war and dissolution;
2. The famous Five battles of Kanawakajima took place in 1553, 1555, 1557, 1561 and 1564, but the fourth battle is the most famous, both for its massive casualties and its scope;
3. Oda Nobunaga was only a petty warlord in Owari Province until the great daimyo Immagawa Yoshimoto decided to march on Kyoto and take over Japan in 1560, being defeated by Oda’s smaller army at the battle of Okehazama; From then on, Nobunaga began a campaign that resulted in the unification of Central Japan under the Oda;
4. The Ashikaga Shogun was in touch with all the major Daimyo, but Shingen was the one closer geographically and perhaps the only willing to respond;
5. The battle of Mikatagahara is the POD: IOTL the Takeda armies did not enter Hamamatsu Castle because they feared a trap and Shingen died shortly afterwards, either from an old war wound, a sniper shot or pneumonia; ITTL, they take the castle and Shingen is inside, which I think is enough to prevent sniper shootings and pneumonia;
The season that followed the downfall of the Tokugawa domain and the Takeda conquest of Hamamatsu was one of great shock and incertitude for the daimyos east and west of Kyoto and this was most true for no other than Oda Nobunaga. While the three other most powerful clans in Japan, the Hojo, the Uesugi and the Mori, were contempt sitting back and evaluating the situation, Nobunaga had lost an important ally, one that protected the routes to the Owari and Mino provinces, where Nobunaga’s most vital and at the time most vulnerable strongholds were located.
What made matters worse for Nobunaga was not only that he would have to face one of the most powerful daimyos and ablest military commanders in the Empire, but the fact that at the time the resources of the Oda domain were occupied in a lengthy campaign against the Azai and Asakura clans, allied to the Ikko-Ikki rebels in the north, east and west of the Oda territory. [1]
In the immediate aftermath of the fall of Hamamatsu, the Shingen camp was divided, with some of his veteran generals suggesting a more conservative approach that could allow the armies to rest and the situation to be studied more carefully, while a more aggressive faction led by Shingen’s son Katsuyori wanted the Takeda forces regrouped as soon as possible to strike the Oda while they were weak and off guard, striking directly against Nagoya and Gifu, through the “Soft underbelly.” The short-lived divide was ended when Shingen decided to take advantage of the dispersion of the Oda forces, otherwise occupied engaging the Ikko-Ikki and the Asakura, and launch a swift invasion of the Owari and Mino provinces.
The campaign begun in early 1573 found only little resistance at Owari, where the Oda forces had been trying to besiege the Ikko-Ikki fortress of Nagashima since 1571, only to be defeated by the fanatical defenders. [2]
The Ikko-Ikki (the Single-minded leagues), mobs of peasant farmers, samurai, ronin, monks, local nobles and Shinto priests adherent to the Jodo Shinshu (“True Pure land”) sect of Buddhism, had risen against Samurai rule and were now opposed to Oda Nobunaga and allied to the Oda enemies of the Asai and Asakura clans.
Shingen’s arrival in the late winter of 1573 provided a morale boost for the defenders of Nagashima, finding a suitable ally in the head of the Takeda clan. Nagashima’s 20,000 troops would at the same time provide a great reinforcement to the Takeda army, despite the objection of many of the Takeda generals and the distrust of the Ikko-Ikki. These would nonetheless prove quite useful in the subsequent engagements in central Japan. Of the entire force based at Nagashima, only 8,000 would join the Takeda force at the beginning, not doing much to dispel the mutual distrust. [3]
Further north, Oda Nobunaga and his generals, which included the famed Toyotomi Hashiba and Sakuma Nobumori [4], who had been in charge of regrouping the Oda forces for a second attempt at taking Nagashima, had massed an army of 20,000 men to engage the invading Takeda, the first major engagement taking place at Kiyosu, south of Gifu.
The battle itself is said to have taken place in the early spring of 1573, although it is mostly agreed that it was actually in early March of that year, the Takeda forces numbering nearly 30,000 and the Oda about 20,000. Tactically, the engagement was complicated for both sides. The Takeda army had showed up at the battlefield as the Oda army was taking positions, being thus taking by surprise when Yamagata Masakage led the first cavalry charge against the unprepared Oda lines, routing the center and forcing the main army to regroup nearly a mile north of the field. Unfortunately for the Takeda, however, Toyotomi Hashiba was able to regroup his forces north of the town and prevent Yamagata and Takeda from outflanking his force, while his harquebusiers kept the enemy cavalry at bay. A second Takeda attack, this time pressing the flanks, would nonetheless suffice to push the Oda forces north, towards the river, thanks to a diversionary attack on Hashiba’s right flank which depleted the arquebusier’s line and weapons. A third attack would finally force Toyotomi to cross the river and retreat back to Gifu, where the main Oda force under Nobunaga himself waited patiently for Shingen and his armies.
The fortress of Gifu had been built by Oda Nobunaga himself after his conquest of the region, not only to serve as a fortification with military purposes, but also as a symbol of his power, erected with the purpose of causing awe and fear in the hearts of his enemies and to serve as a sign of Nobunaga’s power and ambition, the name Gifu having been chosen as it had been the name of the castle from which Wu Wang of the Chou began his campaigns to unify China.
Laying in the center of his domains, Nobunaga had probably never expected to one day be forced to fall back on his castle and defend it from an invading army, but Takeda Shingen’s force numbered well over 30,000 when he ended the siege of Nagashima and took over the home of the Oda clan, the Owari province. Nobunaga responded by mobilizing his own forces and recalling his ablest commanders, the most powerful of which was Hashiba Hideyoshi, despite his early defeat at Kiyosu, and by the time Shingen approached the impregnable fortress of Gifu, the Oda force exceeded the 30,000 men just as the Takeda army.
The engagement between the two forces began in late march of 1573, the Takeda army approaching from the south towards the entrenched and patient Oda troops, which had the imposing fortress of Gifu to provide not only shelter but also a great psychological advantage, in spite of the previous Takeda triumphs over Iwamura and Hamamatsu.
The first cavalry charge under Yamagata was initially successful thanks to the element of surprise and the ferocity of the attack, and the Oda line was pushed several hundreds of meters northwardly before Nobunaga and Hideyoshi themselves appeared with 3,000 reinforcements and regrouped the dispersed troops about 500 meters north of the original line and forced the Takeda advance to stop, to then push them back with great casualties for the first group. This first exchange resulted in the death of Oda retainer Akechi Mitsuhide and Takeda general Oyamada Nobushige, who had been one of the famed “24 Generals” [5]
The second phase began when Hashiba Hideyoshi led an attack against the Takeda lines just as they prepared to launch a second assault. The result was an hour of brutal fighting in which the Oda troops, exhausted from pursuing the retreating troops under Yamagata, were met by fresh and experienced soldiers under Takeda Katsuyori and Sanada Nobutsuna, who led the final cavalry charge that drove Hideyoshi and his men back. Unfortunately, as the enemy forces retreated, Katsuyori’s aggressiveness and Nobutsuna’s inability to stop him led to a renewed attack on the retreating Oda troops, and with only 2,000 men, Shingen’s son attacked Hashiba Hideyoshi’s men directly south of Gifu.
The result was a continued carnage. Sanada Nobutsuna was killed as he charged at the Oda Arquebusiers, which had created a new line with trenches and palisades just north of where they had previously stand, taking the Takeda forces by surprise and halting their advance once more. The battle nonetheless ensued for another three hours in which the Oda and Takeda reserves were called to bring about an end to the battle, only adding blood to the massacre that was the battle of Gifu.
As dusk neared, the Takeda left the battlefield leaving nearly 8,000 men behind, including famed and feared generals such as Oyamada Nobushige, Sanada Nobutsuna and Hara Masatane, while the Oda suffered casualties nearing the 7,500, having lost men such as Akechi Mitsuhide and Yamouchi Kazutoyo. The main Takeda force took positions south of the Kiso River, Shingen and his generals making preparations for what promised to be a long and bloody siege. The long and costly process of reducing Gifu had left a toll of nearly 10,000 men for Shingen by the third month of the siege, while Nobunaga had lost approximately the same amount of soldiers, most during the attempts to break the siege or push back the Takeda lines.
The last attempt to turn the tide of the battle, in which Hashiba Hideyoshi led 10,000 men against the center of the Takeda line under Baba Nobufusa, entrenched along the Kiso river as well as the rest of the Takeda army, resulted in the loss of 3,000 soldiers, including infantrymen and harquebusiers, and 350 arquebuses, while strategically it allowed the Takeda general to leave his position along the river to pursue Hideyoshi’s men and thus break through the external line of defenses of the Oda fortress.
This was by far the worst disaster yet for the defenders: in the aftermath of the failed attack the outer defensive perimeter had been breached and Shingen was in a position to threaten Gifu castle itself. To make matters worse for Nobunaga, while he and his men tried to outlast Shingen’s invasion, outside his fortress the domain and power he had amassed at the expense of blood and sacrifice began to crumble with the rallying of his enemies against him.
At Kyoto, taking advantage of Oda Nobunaga’s absence and perhaps imminent defeat, the puppet shogun Ashikaga Yoshinaki, whom the daimyo of Owari had put in power personally, broke his relations with his former champion and began to fortify Nijo castle while creating a new alliance with the Azai and Asakura clans to ally against the Oda once more, although they had been left on a terribly weak state after their war against Nobunaga in 1570 and would not be able to interfere at this stage of the conflict.
But further south, at the cathedral fortress of Ishiyama Hongan-Ji, where the Ikko-Ikki had their central base and most powerful stronghold, the news of the desperate Oda plight to defend his domains against Shingen, the letters received from the Shogun encouraging the Ikko-Ikki to continue to fight against Nogunaga and the arrival of reinforcements from their allies of the Mori clan in the form of 3,000 soldiers and a large amount of supplies made the force at Ishiyama strong enough to take on the Oda soldiers that had been tasked with monitoring the situation at the long siege. [6]
By the time the Ikko-Ikki launched their general counterattack with the help of the Mori fleet, the Oda forces surrounding the fortress had been greatly reduced by the need to engage the Takeda at Gifu and reinforce the Oda positions at Kyoto and the border with the Asakura, and thus the siege ended with a victory for the Ikko-Ikki, while the Abbot Kosa began to make preparations to link up with the remaining members of the anti-Oda coalition further north.
***
The coming of the autumn marked the sixth month of the siege against the complex fortification that was Gifu. For 25 weeks the Takeda had tried to reduce the fortress through every imaginable mean, both by conventional and unconventional means, but at the end being forced to engage the Oda in a conventional siege, destroying the enemy resistance by outlasting his forces and starving the defenders.
The arrival of reinforcements from the Ikko-Ikki and the Takeda domain in the late summer gave renewed hope to the Takeda generals and retainers, and convinced some that a new offensive was necessary if Gifu was to fall before the arrival of the winter and more importantly, before geopolitical complications came into play. Shingen had abandoned his domains nearly a year ago and his enemies were not to be trusted if the master was away for too long. A siege could convince a daimyo’s enemy that it was the moment to attack, and this could prove to be true not only for Nobunaga, but also for Shingen.
But although neither Uesugi Kenshin nor Hojo Ujimasa made any aggressive move against the Kai or Shinano provinces, the enemies of the Oda had rallied before the figures of the Ashikaga shogun and the Takeda daimyo: the Asakura and the Azai coming to the calling of Yoshiaki and Shingen in the late summer of 1573 along with the Ikko-Ikki and some troops sent by the Mori clan of Chugoku, all of which proved of great utility for the war effort against the Oda, both at Gifu and elsewhere.
And while the Azai and Asakura attacked the northern border of the Oda domain while assisting Shingen in the siege with reinforcements, the situation for Nobunaga and his generals grew more and more desperate as things progressed. All attempts made by the Takeda to cut the castle’s water supply had failed, as had all the initiatives aimed at assaulting the fortress directly, but for the men inside Gifu time was running out and the situation continued to deteriorate.
When the month of September ended, the Oda force had been reduced to just 18,000 men, while the Takeda army had increased its own numbers to 30,000 once more thanks to the continued reinforcements from the Anti-Oda coalition. Nobunaga could not pretend to be able to hold the enemy for much longer and Shingen could not maintain the siege forever: someone had to make a move.
The time to end the campaign came, according to western sources, on October 18th of 1573, when the Takeda and Oda forces met on the open field and engaged in the last battle of the Gifu operation. Oda Nobunaga had witnessed how his defensive lines collapsed and fell to the Takeda forces through a period of six months, losing nearly 12,000 men in the process while the survivors grew more desperate and demoralized as the prospect of defeat lurked as a shadow in the castle, behind every door, behind every soldier.
Nobunaga put his hope on his harquebusiers, of which he could still yield an impressive amount of 2,000 on the battlefield, as opposed to Shingen’s own 900, of which half were Ikko-Ikki. The Oda daimyo positioned his men along a large irregular line, taking advantage of the terrain to stop the dreaded and feared Takeda cavalry, while the Arquebusiers used a line of trenches and palisades to hold their line and slow down any possible cavalry charge.
The Takeda force was on the other hand divided into three main corps under Shingen’s trusted generals. Each division, with around 7,000 men deployed, comprised the bulk of the Takeda army, while the rest served as a reserve force. The famed Takeda cavalry was put aside due to the difficulties presented by the terrain and the positioning of the Oda force, and thus relegated to serve as skirmishers and for a possible routing of the Oda troops, therefore leaving much of the battle in the hands of the Ashigaru infantry and the Arquebusiers and archers.
Shingen began the attack with a small cavalry attack aimed at the flanks, with the purpose of testing the strength of the Oda line, and then following with the Ashigaru infantry in a three-pronged attack in which Yamagata’s “Fire division” attacked the center and engaged the harquebusiers on the center-right, nearly driving the Oda troops back only to be pushed by the arrival of Nobunaga’s infantry reserves from the left flank.
The arrival of the reserves convinced Shingen to deploy his second division in a diversionary attack against the depleted left flank of the Oda force, while taking his own third division under his personal command, as well as that of Baba Nobufusa’s, to attack the center of the Oda army.
The attack on the left flank, which forced Nobunaga to focus his attention on Takeda Katsuyori’s cavalry, managed to enrage the commander of the Oda Army of the Left, Hashiba Hideyoshi, enough for him to lead an attack to pursue the Takeda with his own troops and reserves…what followed was the end of the battle, with the left flank inexistent, Shingen took his men and attacked the center-right, that is the harquebusiers from two different directions while his own harquebusiers kept them preoccupied shooting at the south-east while the Takeda infantry came from the south and the south-west.
The engagement, which lasted for over six hours, left the Oda armies completely vanquished, with over 9,000 laying on the fields and other 2,000 having retreated, while the Takeda casualties only amounted to 1,800. The camel’s back was broken, and so was the will of Oda Nobunaga and his generals. Hashiba Hideyoshi had been killed as his troops were surrounded on two directions, by Katsuyori’s cavalry and by Baba Nobufusa’s reserves, which had turned to the south-west after routing the center of the Oda army.
Oda Nobunaga, the man that had defeated the Imagawa, conquered Kyoto and nearly unified central Japan, committed Seppuku two days after the battle, merely hours before Shingen ordered the final assault on Gifu castle.
The near disintegration of the Oda domain that followed the fall of Gifu and the death of Nobunaga was followed by a rush by Shingen to march on the Imperial capital and restore order to the situation of Central Japan. While the Takeda besieged Gifu castle, a combined force of Ikko-Ikki, Azai and Asakura troops, as well as those loyal to the Shogun threatened Kyoto before entering the city and coming to the aid of Shingen at the battle with Nobunaga.
Shingen wasted little time after the Gifu campaign and marched on Kyoto almost immediately, leaving most of his army at the battlefield or sending them back to Kofu, thus only taking some 10,000 men with him in hic march to Kyoto. Having spared the lives of most of the old Oda clan, excepting for many of his sons and brothers, who could have become a menace with time, as well as some prominent generals and retainers, the Oda domain was greatly reduced by the new advances of the old enemies, something Shingen would have to remedy if he was to take over the Oda territories as he had with the Tokugawa domain.
10,000 men entered Kyoto on November 3rd of 1573, with Takeda Shingen, his generals and his son Katsuyori at the head of the conquering army. The flags and banners of the Takeda clan soon filled the city, its streets and its main buildings as the army marched through the city. Shingen himself was reportedly ecstatic as he saw the capital, visiting several Buddhist temples and shrines on his way to meet the Emperor and the Shogun, who had waited for him ever since hearing the news on the conquest of Gifu.
The Tiger of Kai was received by the Shogun and the Emperor with great cordiality and greeted by the notables of the city and the anti-Oda alliance with an expected surprise and enthusiasm. Shingen had not only defeated the Oda and their allies, but had within the batting of a butterfly’s wing become the most powerful daimyo of the Empire, both in terms of power and territory, and now he stood in the Imperial Capital with a conquering army.
Notes:
1. Oda Nobunaga was indeed in the midst of subduing the Ikko-Ikki, the Azai and the Azakura at this time, which is one of the reasons why he was only able to send so few reinforcements to Tokugawa Ieyasu; distrust and lack of fondness for Ieyasu might have also been a part of it;
2. The first siege of Nagashima was an Ikko-Ikki Victory in 1571; the second siege does not happen ITTL due to the Takeda invasion in early 1573;
3. Takeda Shingen himself, a strict Zen Buddhist, was not too fond of the Ikko-Ikki either and even ordered them expelled from his domain, but this is war and manpower is manpower;
4. Hashiba was Toyotomi’s name before he took his most famous one: Hidetoyi; Sakuma was a loyal Oda retainer entrusted with Nobunaga’s care when the daimyo was a child;
5. Just one of the famous groupings of commanders of the Sengoku Period, this one being particularly famous for their service under Takeda Shingen between the 1540s and 1570s; IOTL, most of them died between the Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima and the Battle of Nagashino.
6. Ishiyama Hongan-Ji was besieged between 1570 and 1580 IOTL, and not even the help from the Mori could prevent the fall of the fortress; Yet after only 3 years, the Cathedral-Castle of the Ikko-Ikki still stands tall and strong;
******************************
The period that followed the Takeda conquest of the lands of the Oda clan and their allies is considered by most historians and experts a continuation of the Sengoku Period, agreeing that the true beginning of the Kofu-Fukuchiyama Period took place thanks to the events that developed a decade earlier, but many others claim that it was the entrance of Takeda Shingen at Kyoto the birth of the new historical period.
At the age of 53, Shingen stood amongst the daimyo of Japan as the most powerful warlord and the most successful of the conquering warriors of the period, having outdone great daimyo such as Imagawa Yoshimoto, Oda Nobunaga and his great rival, Uesugi Kenshin.
Not only did Shingen ruled over the most vast of the domains in Japan, directly or by proxy, but he also controlled the center of the empire, the “soft underbelly”, and the Imperial capital of Kyoto, residence of the Emperor and the Shogun, both of which now courted Shingen as an ally and liberator.
Yet the appearances masked a hidden truth: that the Ashikaga Shogun distrusted Shingen and that he was beginning to fear his influence as he had with Oda Nobunaga and that because of that, he had begun to conspire against his new lord as he had with the last.
The Takeda Clan descended from no other than the Minamoto Clan, the one that had produced the great figure of Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shogun of the Empire, and therefore Shingen had the historical and familiar right to claim the shogunate to himself and his Clan, something that was well within his possibilities, given not only the grandiosity of his domains or his military powers, but also by the greatness of his name and his person. [1]
It was an understanding this situation that Ashikaga Yoshiaki continued to sit alongside Shingen while writing to men like Uesugi Kenshin and Hojo Ujimasa to warn them and encourage them to fight against Shingen. Japan was too much of a treasure for a single man to rule it and enjoy the spoils, and the many enemies of the Takeda clan knew this as did the Shogun.
In the meantime, Shingen consolidated his domains, extending over his neighboring daimyos, particularly the Azai and the Asakura, his protection, incorporating the various domains as protectorates of his own already vast territory, while at the same time moving his borders at the expense of his more reluctant neighbors, such as the Anegakoji and the Hatano. Others, such as the Ikko-Ikki, saw their rights, power and territory expanded under the mantle of the Takeda, although this came at the price of an illusory independence and the submission of their will to that of Shingen, as de Jure allies of the Takeda Clan. [2]
Of course, the powerful rivals that had opposed Takeda Shingen over the years were not about to sit and see how the Takeda unified the country and conquered their domains without saying a word. The main opposition to Shingen’s new authority came from the east, where his old enemy, Uesugi Kenshin, the Dragon of Echigo, formed an alliance with Hojo Ujimasa and several other weaker eastern daimyo.
The Anti-Takeda alliance, formed primarily by the Uesugi and the Hojo, was formed almost immediately after Shingen raised his flags and standards in Kyoto, and it was having anticipated that the Tiger of Kai would not be satisfied simply with the Lion’s share of the country that Kenshin unleashed the power of the Anti-Takeda coalition during the winter of 1575.
Notes
1. Descendants of the Minamoto Clan do indeed have a claim to the Shogunate, not to mention that in Ashikaga Yoshiaki’s eyes he has just replaced one strongman master for another;
2. Once again, the Takeda do not particularly like the Ikko-Ikki, but they have bigger fish to fry and do not think that the Ikko-Ikki deserve their full attention so early on; not to mention that for the moment they are nominally allies;
***
In the year of 1575, east of the provinces of Kai and Shinano in the Takeda Domain there laid the lands of the Uesugi clan, where the fiercest and oldest enemy of Takeda Shingen, the formidable Uesugi Kenshin reigned. [1]
Just like Shingen had, Kenshin rose to the leadership of his clan through political intrigue and family schemes, to then become one of the most renowned and successful warlords of his time, leading the successful conquest and unification of the province of Echigo, to then begin the great and famed struggle with Shingen over Shinano Provinces, solved in the series of battles fought at Kawanakajima in the 1560s. Ever since, Uesugi Kenshin had limited his military campaigns to raids and attacks with limited objectives against the Hojo in the Kanto and against the Takeda at Shinano, in a series of attempts to restore the Kanto to the Uesugi clan while keeping the Takeda occupied, not wanting them to be overconfident.
The status quo that followed the Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima was nonetheless shattered by the Takeda conquest of central Japan through Shingen’s war upon the Tokugawa and the Oda, and now that the Lord of Kai had become the most powerful daimyo of Japan, none doubted that his long term ambition was the elimination of his remaining rivals and the unification of Japan under the banners of the Takeda Clan. To prevent such a development and protect their own interests, the remaining great daimyo Clans began to plot with the Ashikaga shogun, Yoshiaki, against the Takeda, forming the first Anti-Takeda coalition in 1575, led by Uesugi Kenshin and Hojo Ujimasa, who had become a de facto Uesugi puppet following the fall of Kyoto.
Kenshin and Ujimasa were joined by several less powerful daimyos of eastern Japan, most of which in fact joined out of fear of the Uesugi rather than fear of the Takeda. In any case, Shingen was now surrounded by enemies, with a powerful coalition threatening the eastern borders of his domains and the ambitious and opportunistic Mori Clan in the west, having achieved a truce with the Otomo clan of Kyushu probably just to have a free hand to interfere in the affairs of central Japan.
Whether Shingen had ever contemplated the possibility of overthrowing Ashikaga Yoshiaki and taking the title of Shogun for himself, a right that he certainly had as descendant of the Minamoto clan, would never be known but forever suspected and suggested as one of the reasons why Yoshiaki and several others conspired against him, forcing him to leave Kyoto just after he left, having enjoyed just a couple of years of peace as de facto ruler of Japan before having to deal with his great rival, Uesugi Kenshin.
The Tiger and the Dragon: the Uesugi-Takeda war
Having anticipated that Shingen would try to recover his momentum and continue with the rush to conquer and unify Japan as Oda Nobunaga had tried before him, Uesugi Kenshin and his allies decided to make his move just as the Takeda prepared for a possible war against the Mori in the west, thus deciding to threaten the Eastern border of the Takeda domain with a massive attack along the frontier.
Kenshin had spent the years following the Takeda conquest of Kyoto subjugating the Jimbo clan of Etchu province, finally succeeding in 1574 as Shingen continued his role as de facto Shogun, promulgating laws and reforms from the Imperial Capital. [2]
In the meantime, Kenshin’s allies were gathering a large force to match Shingen’s own armies, the most powerful of Japan at the time, and placing troops throughout the Uesugi and Hojo domain, trying to prevent Shingen from anticipating their moves and making a preemptive attack. The preparations worked, and by the autumn of 1575, the joint armies of the Uesugi and the Hojo numbered some 55,000 men, with a large reserve being prepared at the Kanto to hold back any possible Takeda counterattack when it came.
The war began with a move made by the Hojo, Ujimasa leading an army of 20,000 men against Ejiri castle, the stronghold of Yamagata Masakage, one of the famed 24 generals, in the early autumn of 1575. The attack was swift and decisive, the Hojo army outnumbering the small Takeda garrison two to one. This victory was followed by an attack made by Uesugi himself, and with the morale of the anti-Takeda alliance having been bolstered by this victory, Kenshin attacked Kaizu castle in northern Shinano while the allied forces prepared for an attack against Minowa castle in Kozuke.
Between the time news about the fall of Ejiri reached Kyoto and the time in which Kenshin and the bulk of his armies stationed in central Japan left the capital, Kaizu castle had surrendered and an army of 34,000 men was gathering to attack Kofu castle itself, at the de jure capital of the Kai province and the Takeda domain. Takeda Kenshin left Kyoto on October of 1575, seeing the Imperial Capital for the last time from his horse, contemplating his banners and standards over the city’s castles, streets and walls, unknowingly to him, for the last time.
The army Uesugi Kenshin commanded at Kofu castle, Shingen’s main stronghold and capital, numbered about 35,000 men in the winter of 1575, when the main actions of the Kofu campaign took place. At the time, Shingen was reorganizing and gathering an army to meet with the invading enemy hordes, but could only muster a force of 12,000, having marched from Kyoto with 10,000 and only receiving some reinforcements from his regional allies as the bulk of the Takeda army was being formed at the Kai and Shinano provinces.
It took Shingen and his generals some weeks to reach Kofu, and fortunately for the Takeda, the Uesugi had not been able to subdue the fortress.
Kenshin had hoped for a short and victorious campaign against the eastern holdings of the Takeda to draw them to his own territory and force them into one large decisive battle, like the one that he had lost at the fourth engagement between the two at Kawanakajima, but he had not counted with the fierce resistance Kofu castle presented to him nor the velocity with which Shingen launched his counterattack.
The first phase of the campaign, the one against the castle itself, presented all kind of difficulties for Kenshin, from small logistical problems that mobilizing a large army always presented to the terrible weather conditions the winter brought, to the well-organized resistance organized by the Takeda defenders, led by Shingen’s son, Takeda Katsuyori. Early attempts to directly assault the castle by force or to cut its water supply failed through the first weeks of the winter of 1575, and well into 1576 the castle stood as impregnable as before, its 14,500 defenders refusing to surrender. At the same time, bands of peasants organized into militias disrupted the Uesugi communications and supply lines for several weeks, before the Uesugi began employing several brutal tactics to keep the civilian population controlled.
Naturally, the failures of the first phase were nothing compared to the events that unfolded in the month of January of 1576, when Takeda Shingen himself arrived in front of an army of 12,000 men, both Ashigaru and cavalry, carrying the standards of the Takeda clan and ready to confront the Uesugi invaders.[3]
The actual battle between Shingen and Kenshin, the first in over a decade, would nonetheless not take place until about two days after the arrival of the Takeda force, Shingen’s men needing to rest and regroup, as well as the troops under Kenshin, preoccupied with besieging Kofu castle.
The arrival of the Takeda army forced Kenshin to disengage a large part of the forces besieging Kofu to deal with the secondary force, but as a result of this sudden and rapid movement, the force that left the siege to fight Shingen himself was not as organized or rested, and were forced to march several miles to meet the Takeda in their camp.
To lead the attack against Shingen there was Kenshin himself, joined by his generals, although he had no desire to leave the important decisions to his subordinates. With about 15,000 men, approximately half of his army, Uesugi Kenshin stood to the east of the Takeda camp, which had dug trenches and prepared palisades to serve as protection to their harquebusiers. In terms of firepower Shingen had an advantage, having nearly thrice the harquebusiers and cannons, but both forces had a roughly equal number in terms of cavalry and Infantry.
Confident in the strength of his army and in the conditions of the battlefield, Kenshin decided to split his force, sending some 6,000 men northwards to attack the Takeda camp from the north-east in a diversionary attack, while the bulk of his army attacked from the east and the south-east, but the Takeda force led by Baba Nobufusa repelled the feint without persecuting the Uesugi force, something that Kenshin had not foreseen.
On the center, Kenshin’s generals launched a cavalry attack against the palisades, behind which a reserve force of ashigaru and harquebusiers stood, but the Uesugi cavalry was met by the superior firepower of the Takeda, the harquebusiers having been positioned in three lines that could open fire constantly, spreading chaos through the Uesugi line.
Following the failure of the first charge, the Uesugi force under Honjo Shinenaga and Uesugi Kagenobu regrouped and prepared for a continued attack, taking advantage of the weakened state of the Takeda line, and thus a general attack was launched with 8,000 men against the main line of the Takeda army. The renewed attack was much tougher for the Takeda to contain, as Kenshin himself led the attack along the line, forcing the Takeda to reinforce the entire front with their reserves. It was at this point that Kenshin learnt that Takeda general Baba Nobufusa was wounded, therefore convincing him to attack the concentrate on the center-left, where a majority of the Takeda generals were grouped, including Shingen himself.
Carrying the Uesugi banners to the center of the battlefield, Kenshin’s cavalry outmaneuvered their enemy counterparts to pierce a hole through the line, nearly reaching the position in which Shingen and his generals were had there not been for the reserve Arquebusiers and ashigaru redeployed to stop them. Following this failure, the battle degenerated into a long and bloody struggle for domination over the battlefield, something Uesugi Kenshin had been determined to allow due to his previous experiences against Shingen at Kawanakajima.
Rather than to sustain further casualties in a prolonged attrition conflict, the lord of Echigo decided to withdraw from the battlefield and abandon his position at Kofu castle.
Following the Takeda victory at Kofu, which had cost Shingen some 3,000 men and Kenshin some 4,000, the Anti-Takeda force would retreat back to the strongholds they had already taken and to their own castles, while the Takeda would spend the better part of the winter and the spring assembling their forces from the vast domains of the Takeda clan.
The season after the campaigning at Kofu was mostly used by the commanders of the opposing armies to regroup their forces and rally badly needed reinforcements, as well as making preparations for the continuation of the war in the upcoming spring.
For Shingen and his armies, two months were needed to gather the necessary forces to engage the Hojo and the Uesugi on the field once more, with troops being called from the vast Takeda domains, cavalry and infantry soldiers being joined by mercenary ronin and Ikko-Ikki troops from throughout central Japan. By late March of 1576, Shingen had amassed a force of 38,000 men at Kofu and the Shinano province, in order to attack the Hojo to the East and the Uesugi to the North.
Kenshin, on the other hand, spent the winter of 1576 strengthening his position in Northern Japan, abandoning the siege of Fukashi castle and instead reinforcing his positions at the castles of Ueda, Kaizu and Minowa, which had been taken from the Takeda domain early in the war. But most importantly was the preparations at Echigo province and the reinforcement of Uesugi Kenshin’s stronghold, Kasugayama castle, one of the most important and powerful fortresses in the Empire of Japan.
Hoping to use the barrier of fortifications between Kasugayama and Kofu to stall Shingen’s forces and gain enough time to regroup properly and prepare a better strategy, Kenshin sought to avoid any direct confrontation with Shingen’s main army for the entire spring of 1576, a time with the Takeda forces used attacking the Hojo clan at the Kanto province, while only launching limited campaigns against the Uesugi in the North. Hojo Ujimasa’s forces had, after Kofu, retreated back to the occupied castle of Ejiri and the Hojo capital of Odawara, where the bulk of the daimyo’s army had rallied after the defeats suffered at the hands of the Takeda. Only 20,000 troops were available to defend the Sagami province and the Kanto, being distributed at Ejiri and Odawara.
Shingen was, in the early spring of 1576, forced to fight a two front war against the Hojo in the East and the Uesugi to the north, but realizing the strength of Kenshin’s forces and the opportunity that was the destruction of the Hojo in their hour of weakness, Generals Baba Nobufusa and Yamagata Masakage, the greatest of the 24, launched an invasion of the Hojo domain at the head of an army of 25,000 men, striking directly against Odawara while a diversionary force surrounded Ejiri.
The Takeda offensive against the main Hojo stronghold at Odawara was a risky strategy at best, Shingen having previously tried to besiege the fortress in an earlier war with the Hojo clan in 1569, only to fail after three days attacking the castle. On this occasion the stakes were much higher, as Shingen was forced to fight a war against both the Hojo and the Uesugi, both powerful and ancient daimyo clans by themselves.
The campaign against Odawara began in the spring of 1576, when Shingen’s main force arrived at the castle as the defenders were preparing their fortifications. At the time of the arrival of the Takeda army, a force of 8,000 troops of the Hojo clan were camped to the west of the fortress, where the first troops of the Takeda army encountered and engaged them on April of 1576.
The Takeda force, divided in three smaller groups (7,500 under Yamagata against Ejiri, 15,000 under Takeda Katsuyori and Baba Nobufusa and 3,000 reservists) entered the Hojo lands attacking through several fronts, with Yamagata’s force launching a swift offensive against Ejiri castle to the south of Kofu province, in a diversionary effort to keep as many Hojo soldiers tied down to the west as possible, while the main army stroke against Odawara itself.
The vanguard of 15,000 men under Katsuyori was the first to arrive at the site, where the 8,000 troops of the Hojo clan had set a first line of defense as the bulk of the army prepared the castle itself. Realizing the numerical superiority to be to his favor, Katsurori decided to seize the opportunity to drive them from the field and destroy the force in detail, and thus a sudden attack was launched the day following their first encounter with the enemy army.
Despite some warnings from some older and more experienced retainers, the attack was launched with Katsuyori himself leading the cavalry attack against the armies of Hojo Ujimasa and his brother, Hojo Ujiteru.
As one could expect from such a hasty and unprepared offensive, the Takeda lines charged against the Hojo only to crash against a well prepared and extremely tough wall, and after the first hour, the Takeda retreated with moderated casualties while the smaller Hojo force did the same, moving their camp closer to the castle of Odawara. The second round began an hour after the initial attack, when the Takeda army of 14,000 began a three pronged assault on the Hojo line, overwhelming the defenders and preventing them from retreating further east. Once the day reached noon, the Hojo had lost 1,500 while the Takeda had suffered nearly 2,000 casualties, and by this point both sides were too tired to continue the battle. Only the arrival of the 3,000 reservists of the Takeda army was capable of forcing the Hojo to retreat to the south as the Takeda generals had wanted, thus isolating the main group of the Hojo army from the secondary force that Katsuyori had first attacked.
This, the only actual engagement between troops in the prolonged siege of Odawara, was followed by two months of relative stability along the front, as the Takeda had a numerical superiority over the Hojo that only grew as time progressed, and with the roads and the seas blockaded, the castle’s strength began to diminish as the supplies of food and water began to become scarce.
Following the swift fall of Ejiri castle on April of 1576 and the short and inconclusive campaigns against the Uesugi at the Ueda and Minowa castles, Odawara was where the full attention of Takeda Shingen and his generals was focused, as the presence of nearly 30,000 troops by the late spring showed.
The battle was lost and this was clear to everyone in Japan, especially to Hojo Ujimasa and Uesugi Kenshin. And while Kenshin tried to bring his troops for a diversionary action in the northern Takeda domains at the Shinano province, all actions against Shingen at the Odawara campaign would prove futile, and by the end of the third month, Shingen’s gamble against Odawara had proven to be an ultimate success, as the fortress and its 12,000 defenders surrendered on July 18th of 1576, the surrender being followed by the ritual suicide of Hojo Ujimasa and his most loyal retainers. [5]
This was the end of the Hojo clan, descendants of the Minamoto, and Takeda Shingen’s long feud with Hojo Ujiyasu and his son Ujiyasu. Now only Uesugi Kenshin remained in Shingen’s path to the complete domination of Japan.
Shinano province had been the battlefield in which the Takeda and the Uesugi fought for supremacy over northern Japan for nearly a decade before Shingen turned his attention to the west and Kenshin began his campaigns against the Hojo. But in late 1576, following the fall of Odawara castle and the downfall of the Hojo clan, the two rivaling daimyo returned to the old field to fight their last war against each other.
Since his retreat from Kofu castle, Kenshin and his generals had retreated northwards and began to strengthen their position in the region while preparing for an upcoming Takeda invasion of their domain. Withdrawing from the Takeda domains and leaving the conquered castles of Ueda and Minowa, the Uesugi armies left for Echigo while the Uesugi lord mobilized his domains and his men in earnest. The awaited Takeda attack would nonetheless not come until November of 1576, when the forward units of the Takeda army entered Minowa and Ueda castles, finding them empty according to legend, although other sources would later claim that there were minor skirmishes before the retaking of the two northern fortresses.
In December, Shingen himself invaded the province of Echigo with an army of 40,000 men, to which Kenshin could only oppose a force of 30,000.
The campaign of the winter of 1576 and the spring of 1577 was nevertheless not as easy as one might have expected from the sheer numerical and psychological advantage the Takeda enjoyed. After an entire generation of war, Uesugi Kenshin had become a master of strategy and had, in 16th century Japan, understood and developed the principles of what would later be known as “Mobile warfare.” While the Takeda army marched upon the Uesugi positions, Kenshin continuously withdrew in order to wear down his opponents while seeking for a more suitable terrain for his own forces. The first real engagement of this campaign would not take place until January of 1577, when the Takeda army caught up with the Uesugi at the Chikuma River, Kenshin having camped north of the stream.
Aware of his numerical disadvantage, Kenshin sent a small group down the river, faking an attack on the right flank of the Takeda camp and tricking the enemy commanders into thinking that he was dividing his own forces. Once the Takeda attempted to cross the river to attack the main Uesugi force, Kenshin’s forces absorbed the attack while two separate corps was able to force their way through the flanks of the enemy army and strike directly against the mobile headquarters of the Takeda, behind the battlefield. This move forced the end of the battle and allowed the Uesugi to retreat westwards, back to the main Uesugi fortress of Kasugayama.
The campaign was however continued by two more battles, one a minor skirmish along the Chikuma river once more, and the other a major battle near the town of Ojiya, where 15,000 troops from the Takeda army encountered 8,000 of the Uesugi force. Once again, Uesugi Kenshin made a good use of his knowledge of the terrain, speed and the element of surprise to catch the Takeda off guard, striking directly to their commanders at the back of the field, bypassing the left flank of the enemy army, as Katsuyori and Sanada attacked the main Uesugi force at the town. The battle cost the Takeda some 3,000 soldiers whereas the Uesugi only lost around 800.
The summer of 1577, Uesugi Kenshin once again returned to his fortress-capital, the first time in his life he would be forced to defend it against an invading army. After an entire life of battling through central and eastern Japan, not once had the great fortress of Kasugayama been threatened by an enemy army, but not even the historical change of circumstances could make the fortress any weaker.
Kasugayama, ever since it was built by Kenshin, had stood as an impregnable and imposing fortress for over two decades when Takeda Shingen arrived at the head of an army 25,000 men strong on June of 1577, just a few weeks before the end of the spring, and by itself the stronghold was a formidable force to be fought, standing like a mountain and presenting a more impressive target than Kofu and Odawara. The campaign against the castle was nonetheless started not as a siege, but instead with an open battle between the enemy forces south of the mountain castle, as Uesugi Kenshin once again attempted to break the Takeda army and force them to retreat to their own domains. The battle of Kasugayama, which took place on June of 1577, was at the same time the last real battle of the war and the last either Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin would fight.
Moving his forces in the middle of the night as quietly as humanly possible, Kenshin was able to take his adversary by surprise positioning his men west of the Sekigawa River and north of the Takeda camp, in a dangerous move that divided his own army. The attack that began the next morning was incredibly bloody, as the forward units of the Uesugi army advanced to the very center of the enemy camp completely crushing any resistance encountered in the early hours of the morning. The attack that was forced from the river was however stopped by Baba Nobufusa’s forces, and despite the inability of the Takeda army to display their superior cavalry, the foot soldiers and the samurai were enough to hold down the attacks from the western and northern flanks.
But what truly decided the outcome of the battle was the appearance of Takeda Shingen himself on the battlefield, although others claim that it was in fact a double, or ‘Kagemusha’ the one to ride to the middle of the field with the Takeda generals, leading the charge against the center of the enemy army [6]. The rapid mobilization of the Ashigaru harquebusiers was an important factor however, having being able to stop the attack coming from the right flank with enough velocity to allow the bulk of the reserves to be moved to fight at the northern flank.
Thus the last desperate attempt by Kenshin to avoid a battle at his own capital failed, at the cost of several of his trusted generals and nearly 4,000 of his best men, including General Shibata Shigeie. The destruction and the havoc created at the Takeda camp were insufficient to prevent the invading army from starting the siege against Kasugayama castle merely a week after the bloody and rather inconclusive battle.
Kasugayama castle had withstood for over six months as the besieging forces of Takeda Shingen waited tirelessly. Inside the fortified walls of the castle there were Uesugi Kenshin, his retainers, his family and the most loyal of his followers. Outside there was the most powerful man in Japan, whose domains spread from Ishiyama Hongan-Ji to Edo and Odawara and who had in his lifetime conquered half of the Empire of the Sun.
Come December of 1577, the war between the Uesugi and the Takeda, the last in a series of engagements between the two rivaling clans that had lasted for a generation had cost thousands upon thousands of lives, counting those lost from the beginning of the feud to the end of the siege of Kasugayama castle. By January of 1578, the will to continue fighting was the only thing that forced the two exhausted and beaten armies to carry on. The snow continued to fall and the cold was taking its toll upon both armies, as the roads covered with ice and snow made it increasingly difficult for the two forces to receive the badly needed surprise.
But finally, as the month of January closed to its end, it would be fate the one to end the stalemate and not military ability or numbers. The merciless weather and the horrid conditions of the siege and the battlefield had left both armies near the breaking point, but its effects on the two great lords of Kai and Echigo had left an incalculable toll as well. It was Uesugi Kenshin the one to reach the limit first, his health having deteriorated ever since the start of the war against the Takeda, and by the end of the siege, his body could not resist as much as his spirit could. According to many sources, the Dragon of Echigo was found dead at his chambers near the end of the month of January of 1578, most likely due to pulmonary complications resulting from his poor health and the conditions of the terrible winter of 1578.
Having died childless, Kenshin was succeeded by his adopted son, Uesugi Kagetora, who would perform all of the duties Kenshin had as Daimyo of Echigo and lord of the Uesugi clan and household. Nonetheless, Kagetora was practical enough to realize that he was not Kenshin and that while Kasugayama stood as imposing and impregnable as before, he did not possess the ability his predecessor had and that the circumstances required. Thus a peace settlement with Takeda Shingen was necessary for the survival of the Uesugi clan.
In early February of 1578, as the funeral processions for the deceased Lord of Echigo were undertaken, accompanied by the ceremonial suicide of several of his closest retainers, Uesugi Kagetora in his role as daimyo of Echigo arranged for a peace treaty to be signed with the most powerful remaining daimyo of Japan, Takeda Shingen.
The end of the First anti-Takeda coalition, also known as the final Uesugi-Takeda war, brought about many important changes in the internal politics and the balance of power within the Empire of Japan. For once, the Hojo clan had been virtually destroyed while the only man capable of standing against the Takeda, Uesugi Kenshin, was dead, his role now taken by the less able and less threatening Uesugi Kagetora. Finally, the Takeda domain now spread from central Japan to the eastern provinces, as far as Edo and Kasugayama, the Kanto and Echigo, while areas such as Dewa and Mutsu were now under the sphere of influence of the Takeda clan.
The peace celebrated between the Uesugi and the Takeda had dramatic effects in the internal configuration of Japan. The Hojo were effectively destroyed, their armies dissolved and their lands taken away. With their lords dead and the family gone, only the retainers that hadn’t already committed suicide were left to complain. The rich province of Echigo, which had been unified by Kenshin during his lifetime as his main achievement, was taken by the Takeda as part of their domain. The lands of the province were split between several of the retainers and allies of the Takeda, including the Baba, the Yamagata and several others of the famed 24 generals, at least those who had survived this far.
Naturally, this left the issue of the Uesugi clan. They could not share the same fate as the Hojo; they had not been brought to the tables in the same way the other enemies of the Takeda had but they couldn’t be spared from defeat either. Kenshin had been an honorable adversary and enemy in times of peace and war. There was also the matter of controlling so much land either directly or indirectly. At the end, the Uesugi clan was to be expelled from Echigo, and returned to the Kanto. [7]
Amongst his many titles, Uesugi Kenshin had been Kanto Kanrei, as the clan had originated at the Kanto Province and had ruled that area for generations before being driven out by the Hojo. The return of the Uesugi to the Kanto took place in the summer of 1578, as the lands of the Hojo were reduced, Odawara now being part of the Takeda domain for once, while the followers of the Takeda took over Echigo and some bordering parts of the Kanto. Edo would become the new capital of the restored Uesugi domain, and Kanto their new home, not too powerful and not far enough so as to be outside of the control of the Takeda.
Once the Spring of 1578 had arrived, Takeda Shingen found himself unchallenged and as the most powerful man in Japan once more. His oldest and most powerful rival had died and his domains were now the biggest and richest any daimyo had ever had in the history of the Empire. Yet, as he was on his peak, fate intervened once more.
He was on his way to Kyoto when his body began to succumb to the effects of a lifetime warring and a prolonged winter campaign in the north. He and his escort reached Kofu on April of 1578, but it was too late. His health had suffered greatly and his was terribly ill by the time they arrived at the palace that had been his home for most of his life. His generals, his closest retainers and family members were next to him during his last few months, all of which he spent at Kofu castle.
Lying in his bed, he could barely stand or talk by the end of the spring, and once summertime had reached, there was little it could be done for the man that had in the span of 60 years unified a great part of a country turn asunder by war. His closest heir, that is his grandchild Takeda Nobukatsu, was far from having the age to take over the obligations of a normal daimyo, much less the ones of a lord in charge of over half of the country.
Shingen’s son, Katsuyori, whom Shingen had not chosen to be his immediate successor, was thus able to take the reins of power as regent for his son once Shingen had died in July of 1578.
Notes:
1. Shingen was indeed known as the Tiger of Kai while Kenshin was known as the Dragon of Echigo, nicknames that played with the known Eastern theme of the Tiger and the Dragon; The rivalry between Shingen and Kenshin would become just as legendary in Japan;
2. Kenshin subdued the Jinbo Clan IOTL as well after having mediated some conflicts between them and the Shiina Clan, which Kenshin took over some years later;
3. Ashigaru is the name given to the typical Japanese infantry of the Sengoku Period: conscripted peasants and common men, often armed with Naginatas, pikes and spears and light armor;
4. Odawara had been first besieged by Uesugi Kenshin in 1561, and then by Takeda Shingen in 1569, both operations ending as failures and Odawara not falling until Toyotomi Hideyoshi broke the fortress in 1590;
5. Ujimasa kills himself as OTL, only that nearly 13 years earlier;
6. The use of doubles or Kagemushas (Shadow Warrior) was common in the Sengoku Period, and Takeda Shingen had several of these, of which the most famous and common one was his brother;
7. It was one of Kenshin’s dreams to return to the Kanto and reclaim his title as Kanto Kanrei, although he was unable IOTL; He probably wouldn’t like the way in which his family reclaimed the ancestral lands ITTL either;
Over two year that passed between Shingen’s death and Katsuyori’s departure from Kofu Castle in the summer of 1580, spent in what could be considered a rest in the expansionist momentum built by the Takeda in the past five years. Takeda Katsuyori was not the great state builder and administrator Shingen was, and he was surely not expected to adequately succeed in the enterprise that was to succeed the great Shingen, but the regent was nonetheless able to surprise his detractors and rise to the challenge of managing the large domains of the Takeda.
The economic and administrative system built by Shingen between the 1540s and 1578 was largely kept and even expanded, as the growth of the domains and the redistribution of the conquered lands between the Takeda loyalists and retainers, especially the division of the large and rich province of Echigo, forced the system to be reorganized and the Takeda Domain to be administrated in a different manner. The core of more loyal retainers, that is the 24 generals, were the most benefited, especially Yamagata Masakage, Baba Nobufusa and Obata Masamori, who gained the largest extensions in the northern province of Echigo.
The new government saw a rapid decentralization between 1579 and 1585, a tendency that would be reverted in the 1580s but that in the early years of Katsuyori’s government allowed the daimyo to concentrate on important issues other than the administration of his vast realm.
The Takeda lands prospered economically and politically, as the most powerful domain in the Empire of Japan grew in power and influence. This growth was accompanied by a growth in the power of the lords under the Takeda, not only the Generals such as the Yamagata, the Obata and the Sanada, but also some of the sakikata-shu (the group of vanquished enemies), such as the Christian Daimyo of Yamato, Takayama Ukon, and the vassal daimyos such as the Asai and the Asakura.
Religious freedom in the Takeda domain continued to be restricted as the Ikko-Ikki presence in the Takeda lands remained limited, a policy that Shingen himself had started and that he continued even after his alliance with the Ikko-Ikki against Oda Nobunaga.
The rise of Christianity in the western provinces, the maintenance of the Buddhist sects in the east and the growth of the Jodo Shinshu faith, the sect of the Ikko-Ikki, showed that the religious structure within the Takeda Domain had vastly changed from the old mono-religious nature of Shingen’s Buddhist fanaticism.
In 1573, the Empire of Japan was dominated by dozens of small daimyos with small to medium domains while the largest domains within the nation were under the greatest clans of the Empire: the Hojo of Kanto, the Takeda of Kai, the Otomo of Bungo, the Uesugi of Echigo, the Tokugawa of Totomi, the Mori of Bunzen and the rising Oda Nobunaga of Owari. Seven years later, Nobunaga, Ieyasu, Kenshin, Ujiyasu and Shingen were dead and only 3 of the seven great clans and three great lords were still standing strong: Otomo Sorin in Bungo, Mori Terumoto in Bunzen and Takeda Katsuyori, who’s domain extended from Kyoto to Kofu.
And apart from the three great surviving Daimyo clans (five if the relocated Uesugi of the Kanto and the then rising Shimazu of Satsuma were to be counted), another regional power was rising in the form of the Ikko-Ikki, the fanatical followers of the teachings of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. Prior to 1573 and the Oda-Takeda war, they had come to dominated vast territories, including the rich province of Kaga, and were involved in a bloody war with the Oda of Owari as the rising daimyo besieged the fortresses of Nagashima and Hongan-Ji. [1]
Following the war, not only did their power and influence grow as their cities were saved and their ranks swelled by thousands of new followers joining, but their geographical base was also augmented. The death of the Hakateyama lord of Noto province, Hakateyama Yoshinori, in 1577, in the midst of the Uesugi-Takeda war, ignited a civil war in the province between the successors and retainers of the deceased daimyo, thus giving the Ikko-Ikki the perfect opportunity to invade and overrun the province. [2]
The retainer that had killed Yoshinori, Cho Shigetsura, was amongst the killed at the siege of Anamizu Castle in late 1577. By the spring of 1578 the Ikko-Ikki had completed their conquest of the province and their purging of the old feudal system in the region had begun in earnest, as well as the spreading of the teachings of Jodo Shinshu.
The reorganization of the lands, the administration of the conquered territories in the east and the overseeing of infrastructure projects, as well as the relocation of the Uesugi from Echigo to the Kanto and the destruction of much of the old Hojo political apparatus in their former domains; all of these tasks took much of the time of Katsuyori between 1578 and 1580, proving that the son had inherited the father’s administrative skills, as well as many of his old military abilities.
But it would be the year of 1580 the one to definitely cement Katsuyori’s place and position as the heir of Takeda Shingen, when he finally assembled a force to return to Kyoto and depose the last of the Ashikaga Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the man that had plotted to kill his father and destroy the Takeda clan by rallying the Uesugi and the Hojo against them.
On March of 1580, Takeda Katsuyori was joined by 10 of the original 24 generals of Takeda Shingen as well as a force of 30,000 men, and began his march from the eastern capital of Kofu to the Imperial capital of Kyoto.
The balance of power in 1580 had changed greatly since Takeda Shingen decided to wage war upon the Oda and the Tokugawa on the behalf of the Ashigaka Shogun. The march that the army of 30,000 men undertook from Kofu in Kai to the Imperial Capital of Kyoto in the spring and summer of 1580 was, unlike the original entry of the Takeda armies into the great capital, not as much a triumphal march but a quest for vengeance and settlement.
The Ashikaga shogun had instigated the war between the Uesugi and the Takeda just as he had done with the Oda five years earlier. Yet this is only one reason why the Takeda armies took their banners once more and embarked on the quest of subduing Kyoto and overthrowing the last Shogun.
Ashikaga Yoshiaki was the last of the Ashikaga clan, an eastern daimyo clan that had taken power as Shoguns in the aftermath of the downfall of the Kamakura Shogunate in the 14th century, only to lose their hold over the Empire at the dawn of the Sengoku period in the 15th century. As the 15th shogun of the Ashikaga bakufu, Yoshiaki had seen his power diminished and his position dependent upon daimyo such as Oda Nobunaga and Takeda Shingen, and by 1580 his power base was limited to a reduced group of loyalists at the capital and some rather weak neighboring daimyo.
The engagement at Kyoto was not particularly uneventful, as the last Shogun was able to mount a surprising defense of the city for about three weeks before his contingent of 10,000 men was legendarily betrayed by a group of ronin bought off by the Takeda, thus showing them the vulnerable flanks of the city and opening the strategic gates to them. Several legends and tales like these circulated in the aftermath of the fall of Kyoto, especially about the burning of temples, the execution of Ashikaga loyalists and the massive suicides of the Shogun’s generals, culminating in the ominous and hasty ceremony of seppuku of Yoshiaki himself at Shoryuji castle, as the Takeda forces approached his last stronghold.
Thus was ended the Ashikaga Shogunate and a new stage of the Sengoku period inaugurated: the end of the Warring states period was approaching faster than anybody could have expected after over a century of civil war.
Kyoto fell in the summer of 1580 according to most sources, 8 years after Takeda Shingen declared open war upon the Tokugawa and the Oda, and 10 years before the end of the Sengoku period. The definitive end of the Shogunate meant the ascension of Takeda Katsuyori to a position of near absolute power, as he became the de facto ruler of most of Nippon and the possessor of the vastest domains in the island of Honshu. Yet the Empire of the Sun was far from complete political unification, as powerful daimyo still remained with the capabilities to challenge the central authority of the Takeda.
At the time, these daimyo existed in the west of the nation, in the domains of Bungo, Tosa, Satsuma and Bunzen. The Takeda had previously countered the power of the Mori and the Shimazu by forming a loose alliance with the Christian daimyo of Bungo, Otomo Sorin, but following the Kyoto campaign of 1580 the western daimyo could no longer ignore what was happening to their left and thus in the winter of 1580, the Shimazu of Satsuma, the Chosokabe of Tosa and the Mori of Bunzen forged an alliance against the Takeda and the Otomo, what would later be called the second anti-Takeda coalition.
The alliance, motivated by a desire to defend themselves against the perceived threat of national unification and conquest under the Takeda was led by no other than Mori Terumoto, lord of Bunzen and ruler of most of western Honshu, grandson of the Great Moro Motonari. And alongside him were his uncle’s Kikkawa Motoharu and Kobayakawa Takakage, his greatest advisors and generals, and avid enemies of the Takeda order that had been imposed in central Nippon at the time. Far from being unmoved by the threat of a new enemy alliance, Takeda Katsuyori saw the formation of a league between the remaining daimyo as well as the resurgent expansionism of the Mori, the Shimazu and the Chosokabe to be a direct menace to his own national project, and the animosities between the Takeda and the Second Anti-Takeda Coalition grew as the decade progressed.
Notes:
1. The Ikko-Ikki took over Kaga a few decades before, while establishing fortresses outside of Osaka at Ishiyama Hongan-Ji, at Nagashima, not to mention temples in Ise, Mikawa and Owari as well;
2. IOTL this event led to a war between Uesugi Kenshin and Oda Nobunaga and Kenshin’s victory over the later at the Battle of Tedorigawa in 1577; shortly afterwards Kenshin died IOTL; without Kenshin or Oda and with Shingen preoccupied, the Ikko-Ikki have free reign to interfere as they see fit;
***
The Realm of the Mountain
風林火山
Swift as the Wind, Silent as a Forest, Fierce as Fire and Immovable as a Mountain
Part I:
The Tiger of Kai
Part I:
The Tiger of Kai
The end of the Ashikaga order, the extinction of stability and peace, the rise and fall of the daimyos, the social and national war and the rise of the great generals of lowly origins were amongst the marks of the Sengoku Period in Japan, also known as the Warring States Period: one-hundred and twenty years in which the empire of Japan has suffered from generations of war as the shoguns lost their grip over the nation and let the country disintegrate and divide under the influence and power of the most powerful daimyo clans. [1]
One of these clans was the Takeda of Kai Province, in western Japan, a powerful and influential family descended from the noble Minamoto Clan, under the leadership of the talented and resourceful Takeda Shingen, son of Takeda Nobutara.
Shingen, a man of great intelligence and skill, was able to take the domain he inherited at the age of 21 and turn it into a force to be reckoned with in the west of Japan, beginning a series of campaigns against his neighboring clans, succeeding in the conquest of the provinces of Shinano and Sugura, as well as several other territories around his own domain, including several castles from the warlord that would become his chief rival over the years, Uesugi Kenshin.
Kenshin and Shingen would come to fight each other for several years, the rivalry between the two gaining fame thanks to the series of engagements fought at Kawanakajima in the decade of the 1550s and early 1560s, the Takeda facing the Uesugi five times in a war that nearly bled the two clans white. [2]
By the year of 1572, Takeda Shingen had made himself one of the most powerful daimyos in Japan, having expanded his domains greatly at the expense of his neighbors and achieving an uneasy yet effective peace with his neighbors thanks to the truce made with Hojo Ujimasa and the exhaustion that resulted from his wars with Uesugi Kenshin, who would remain a threat to Shingen's northern border for years nonetheless.
It was the great fame and power that Shingen had obtained in his years as head of the Takeda clan that made him the most suitable candidate for shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki, who had been conspiring against his patron, the great daimyo Oda Nobunaga.
Nobunaga, who had risen from relative obscurity in the Owari province, had not only conquered the imperial capital of Kyoto along with most of central Japan, but had also been able to install a puppet Shogun in the capital, and despite Yoshinaki's role as de jure ruler of the country, it was Nobunaga the one who controlled the government, much to the frustration of the Shogun. [3]
Of the great four daimyos that quarreled for power outside of the Oda sphere of influence; Mori Motonari, Uesugi Kenshin, Takeda Shingen and Hojo Ujiyasu, Shingen was the only one with the power and in the position to halt Nobunaga's momentum and prevent him from gaining national hegemony.
Shingen's campaign began in earnest in 1572, when he launched an invasion of the domains of Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of Nobunaga's staunch allies and Shingen's rivals, with whom he had disputed the division of the Imagawa domain recently. The invasion of Totomi and the capture of the imposing fortress of Iwamura marked the beginning of the campaign against Ieyasu in the winter of 1572, in an offensive made possible by the strategic genius of the Takeda generals and Shingen himself, while the Tokugawa suffered from poorer leadership and only enjoyed little support from Nobunaga, who was at the time engaged in a series of campaigns at Nagashima.[4]
Meanwhile, the war between Ieyasu and Shingen would continue, eventually leading to the decisive battle of Mikatagahara, on January 6th of 1573.
Mikatagahara
Shingen had brought forward an army of 30,000 men to engage the Tokugawa north of Ieyasu’s stronghold of Hamamatsu, his best generals, Yamagata Masakage and Baba Nobufusa standing beside him along with his son and heir, Takeda Katsuyori.
To oppose him, Ieyasu only counted with nearly 8,000 men reinforced with 3,000 troops that Oda Nobunaga had reluctantly sent as a sign of support, although it would also prove to be a sign of Nobunaga’s distrust of Ieyasu, especially in the dire situation in which the lord of Totomi was at the moment. The two armies met at the high plain of Mikata, north of Hamamatsu, as Ieyasu tried to halt Shingen’s attack before the fortress was directly compromised.
According to the historical records, Shingen organized his men in gyôrin (fish-scale) formation, enticing his opponent to attack, while Ieyasu’s forces formed a line, with the hope of being able to take advantage of the harquebusiers, even though the use of firearms in Japan was still quite new and the techniques not quite perfected. The battle was nevertheless begun when Shingen ordered his famous cavalry to begin a charge, devastating the center of the Tokugawa line and overrunning the frightened and inexperienced ashigaru, while leaving only a few still standing by the end of the charge. The battle then continued with the withdrawal of the first cavalry units, allowing them to rest, and their replacement with fresh troops that proceeded to attack the Tokugawa line once more, this time under the command of Takeda Katsuyori and Obata Masamori, inflicting further damage to the Tokugawa line before being joined by the main Takeda force, which quickly routed the enemy forces. The full retreat of the Tokugawa army began shortly after the second breaking of the main line. The routing, as the early stages of the battle, had proven to be particularly bloody and costly, especially for the Tokugawa, given the terrible psychological effect of facing the great Takeda Shingen and his famed cavalry.
Seeing his army in retreat and his main generals trapped, Ieyasu ordered to have his standard raised at where the high plains began to drop off. The daimyo’s intentions being to lead a new surprise attack against the Takeda and free his men, despite the attempts by his remaining officers to have him retreat to safety.
Ieyasu was only able to muster a force of 4,000 men to lead his attack, but he was hoping that the surprise factor would enable him to drive the tired and overconfident Takeda forces as they were scattered around the battlefield pursuing his army.
The attempted counterattack would nevertheless be entirely futile. The battle was lost and the army was in retreat, and Ieyasu’s charge, although successful in pushing the Takeda flank at the early stages of the attack, was eventually driven back as Yamagata Masakage himself regrouped his men from the center and the flank to halt the Tokugawa counterattack and route the enemy forces, killing Ieyasu and most of his remaining troops in the process.
The rest of the army retreated in all directions, the main force effectively losing all coherence and disintegrating through the battle site. The field was Shingen’s.
The battle, despite several disputes over the historical records, officially ended when the vanguard of the Takeda force entered the abandoned fortress of Hamamatsu the following morning. [5]
Notes:
1. The Sengoku Period is largely agreed to have started in 1467 as a result of the Onin War, a conflict between two rivaling Clans (The Yamana and the Hosokawa) which escalated into a full scale national civil war and dissolution;
2. The famous Five battles of Kanawakajima took place in 1553, 1555, 1557, 1561 and 1564, but the fourth battle is the most famous, both for its massive casualties and its scope;
3. Oda Nobunaga was only a petty warlord in Owari Province until the great daimyo Immagawa Yoshimoto decided to march on Kyoto and take over Japan in 1560, being defeated by Oda’s smaller army at the battle of Okehazama; From then on, Nobunaga began a campaign that resulted in the unification of Central Japan under the Oda;
4. The Ashikaga Shogun was in touch with all the major Daimyo, but Shingen was the one closer geographically and perhaps the only willing to respond;
5. The battle of Mikatagahara is the POD: IOTL the Takeda armies did not enter Hamamatsu Castle because they feared a trap and Shingen died shortly afterwards, either from an old war wound, a sniper shot or pneumonia; ITTL, they take the castle and Shingen is inside, which I think is enough to prevent sniper shootings and pneumonia;
***
The Oda-Takeda war
The season that followed the downfall of the Tokugawa domain and the Takeda conquest of Hamamatsu was one of great shock and incertitude for the daimyos east and west of Kyoto and this was most true for no other than Oda Nobunaga. While the three other most powerful clans in Japan, the Hojo, the Uesugi and the Mori, were contempt sitting back and evaluating the situation, Nobunaga had lost an important ally, one that protected the routes to the Owari and Mino provinces, where Nobunaga’s most vital and at the time most vulnerable strongholds were located.
What made matters worse for Nobunaga was not only that he would have to face one of the most powerful daimyos and ablest military commanders in the Empire, but the fact that at the time the resources of the Oda domain were occupied in a lengthy campaign against the Azai and Asakura clans, allied to the Ikko-Ikki rebels in the north, east and west of the Oda territory. [1]
In the immediate aftermath of the fall of Hamamatsu, the Shingen camp was divided, with some of his veteran generals suggesting a more conservative approach that could allow the armies to rest and the situation to be studied more carefully, while a more aggressive faction led by Shingen’s son Katsuyori wanted the Takeda forces regrouped as soon as possible to strike the Oda while they were weak and off guard, striking directly against Nagoya and Gifu, through the “Soft underbelly.” The short-lived divide was ended when Shingen decided to take advantage of the dispersion of the Oda forces, otherwise occupied engaging the Ikko-Ikki and the Asakura, and launch a swift invasion of the Owari and Mino provinces.
The campaign begun in early 1573 found only little resistance at Owari, where the Oda forces had been trying to besiege the Ikko-Ikki fortress of Nagashima since 1571, only to be defeated by the fanatical defenders. [2]
The Ikko-Ikki (the Single-minded leagues), mobs of peasant farmers, samurai, ronin, monks, local nobles and Shinto priests adherent to the Jodo Shinshu (“True Pure land”) sect of Buddhism, had risen against Samurai rule and were now opposed to Oda Nobunaga and allied to the Oda enemies of the Asai and Asakura clans.
Shingen’s arrival in the late winter of 1573 provided a morale boost for the defenders of Nagashima, finding a suitable ally in the head of the Takeda clan. Nagashima’s 20,000 troops would at the same time provide a great reinforcement to the Takeda army, despite the objection of many of the Takeda generals and the distrust of the Ikko-Ikki. These would nonetheless prove quite useful in the subsequent engagements in central Japan. Of the entire force based at Nagashima, only 8,000 would join the Takeda force at the beginning, not doing much to dispel the mutual distrust. [3]
Further north, Oda Nobunaga and his generals, which included the famed Toyotomi Hashiba and Sakuma Nobumori [4], who had been in charge of regrouping the Oda forces for a second attempt at taking Nagashima, had massed an army of 20,000 men to engage the invading Takeda, the first major engagement taking place at Kiyosu, south of Gifu.
The battle itself is said to have taken place in the early spring of 1573, although it is mostly agreed that it was actually in early March of that year, the Takeda forces numbering nearly 30,000 and the Oda about 20,000. Tactically, the engagement was complicated for both sides. The Takeda army had showed up at the battlefield as the Oda army was taking positions, being thus taking by surprise when Yamagata Masakage led the first cavalry charge against the unprepared Oda lines, routing the center and forcing the main army to regroup nearly a mile north of the field. Unfortunately for the Takeda, however, Toyotomi Hashiba was able to regroup his forces north of the town and prevent Yamagata and Takeda from outflanking his force, while his harquebusiers kept the enemy cavalry at bay. A second Takeda attack, this time pressing the flanks, would nonetheless suffice to push the Oda forces north, towards the river, thanks to a diversionary attack on Hashiba’s right flank which depleted the arquebusier’s line and weapons. A third attack would finally force Toyotomi to cross the river and retreat back to Gifu, where the main Oda force under Nobunaga himself waited patiently for Shingen and his armies.
The fortress of Gifu had been built by Oda Nobunaga himself after his conquest of the region, not only to serve as a fortification with military purposes, but also as a symbol of his power, erected with the purpose of causing awe and fear in the hearts of his enemies and to serve as a sign of Nobunaga’s power and ambition, the name Gifu having been chosen as it had been the name of the castle from which Wu Wang of the Chou began his campaigns to unify China.
Laying in the center of his domains, Nobunaga had probably never expected to one day be forced to fall back on his castle and defend it from an invading army, but Takeda Shingen’s force numbered well over 30,000 when he ended the siege of Nagashima and took over the home of the Oda clan, the Owari province. Nobunaga responded by mobilizing his own forces and recalling his ablest commanders, the most powerful of which was Hashiba Hideyoshi, despite his early defeat at Kiyosu, and by the time Shingen approached the impregnable fortress of Gifu, the Oda force exceeded the 30,000 men just as the Takeda army.
The engagement between the two forces began in late march of 1573, the Takeda army approaching from the south towards the entrenched and patient Oda troops, which had the imposing fortress of Gifu to provide not only shelter but also a great psychological advantage, in spite of the previous Takeda triumphs over Iwamura and Hamamatsu.
The first cavalry charge under Yamagata was initially successful thanks to the element of surprise and the ferocity of the attack, and the Oda line was pushed several hundreds of meters northwardly before Nobunaga and Hideyoshi themselves appeared with 3,000 reinforcements and regrouped the dispersed troops about 500 meters north of the original line and forced the Takeda advance to stop, to then push them back with great casualties for the first group. This first exchange resulted in the death of Oda retainer Akechi Mitsuhide and Takeda general Oyamada Nobushige, who had been one of the famed “24 Generals” [5]
The second phase began when Hashiba Hideyoshi led an attack against the Takeda lines just as they prepared to launch a second assault. The result was an hour of brutal fighting in which the Oda troops, exhausted from pursuing the retreating troops under Yamagata, were met by fresh and experienced soldiers under Takeda Katsuyori and Sanada Nobutsuna, who led the final cavalry charge that drove Hideyoshi and his men back. Unfortunately, as the enemy forces retreated, Katsuyori’s aggressiveness and Nobutsuna’s inability to stop him led to a renewed attack on the retreating Oda troops, and with only 2,000 men, Shingen’s son attacked Hashiba Hideyoshi’s men directly south of Gifu.
The result was a continued carnage. Sanada Nobutsuna was killed as he charged at the Oda Arquebusiers, which had created a new line with trenches and palisades just north of where they had previously stand, taking the Takeda forces by surprise and halting their advance once more. The battle nonetheless ensued for another three hours in which the Oda and Takeda reserves were called to bring about an end to the battle, only adding blood to the massacre that was the battle of Gifu.
As dusk neared, the Takeda left the battlefield leaving nearly 8,000 men behind, including famed and feared generals such as Oyamada Nobushige, Sanada Nobutsuna and Hara Masatane, while the Oda suffered casualties nearing the 7,500, having lost men such as Akechi Mitsuhide and Yamouchi Kazutoyo. The main Takeda force took positions south of the Kiso River, Shingen and his generals making preparations for what promised to be a long and bloody siege. The long and costly process of reducing Gifu had left a toll of nearly 10,000 men for Shingen by the third month of the siege, while Nobunaga had lost approximately the same amount of soldiers, most during the attempts to break the siege or push back the Takeda lines.
The last attempt to turn the tide of the battle, in which Hashiba Hideyoshi led 10,000 men against the center of the Takeda line under Baba Nobufusa, entrenched along the Kiso river as well as the rest of the Takeda army, resulted in the loss of 3,000 soldiers, including infantrymen and harquebusiers, and 350 arquebuses, while strategically it allowed the Takeda general to leave his position along the river to pursue Hideyoshi’s men and thus break through the external line of defenses of the Oda fortress.
This was by far the worst disaster yet for the defenders: in the aftermath of the failed attack the outer defensive perimeter had been breached and Shingen was in a position to threaten Gifu castle itself. To make matters worse for Nobunaga, while he and his men tried to outlast Shingen’s invasion, outside his fortress the domain and power he had amassed at the expense of blood and sacrifice began to crumble with the rallying of his enemies against him.
At Kyoto, taking advantage of Oda Nobunaga’s absence and perhaps imminent defeat, the puppet shogun Ashikaga Yoshinaki, whom the daimyo of Owari had put in power personally, broke his relations with his former champion and began to fortify Nijo castle while creating a new alliance with the Azai and Asakura clans to ally against the Oda once more, although they had been left on a terribly weak state after their war against Nobunaga in 1570 and would not be able to interfere at this stage of the conflict.
But further south, at the cathedral fortress of Ishiyama Hongan-Ji, where the Ikko-Ikki had their central base and most powerful stronghold, the news of the desperate Oda plight to defend his domains against Shingen, the letters received from the Shogun encouraging the Ikko-Ikki to continue to fight against Nogunaga and the arrival of reinforcements from their allies of the Mori clan in the form of 3,000 soldiers and a large amount of supplies made the force at Ishiyama strong enough to take on the Oda soldiers that had been tasked with monitoring the situation at the long siege. [6]
By the time the Ikko-Ikki launched their general counterattack with the help of the Mori fleet, the Oda forces surrounding the fortress had been greatly reduced by the need to engage the Takeda at Gifu and reinforce the Oda positions at Kyoto and the border with the Asakura, and thus the siege ended with a victory for the Ikko-Ikki, while the Abbot Kosa began to make preparations to link up with the remaining members of the anti-Oda coalition further north.
***
The fall of the House of Oda
The coming of the autumn marked the sixth month of the siege against the complex fortification that was Gifu. For 25 weeks the Takeda had tried to reduce the fortress through every imaginable mean, both by conventional and unconventional means, but at the end being forced to engage the Oda in a conventional siege, destroying the enemy resistance by outlasting his forces and starving the defenders.
The arrival of reinforcements from the Ikko-Ikki and the Takeda domain in the late summer gave renewed hope to the Takeda generals and retainers, and convinced some that a new offensive was necessary if Gifu was to fall before the arrival of the winter and more importantly, before geopolitical complications came into play. Shingen had abandoned his domains nearly a year ago and his enemies were not to be trusted if the master was away for too long. A siege could convince a daimyo’s enemy that it was the moment to attack, and this could prove to be true not only for Nobunaga, but also for Shingen.
But although neither Uesugi Kenshin nor Hojo Ujimasa made any aggressive move against the Kai or Shinano provinces, the enemies of the Oda had rallied before the figures of the Ashikaga shogun and the Takeda daimyo: the Asakura and the Azai coming to the calling of Yoshiaki and Shingen in the late summer of 1573 along with the Ikko-Ikki and some troops sent by the Mori clan of Chugoku, all of which proved of great utility for the war effort against the Oda, both at Gifu and elsewhere.
And while the Azai and Asakura attacked the northern border of the Oda domain while assisting Shingen in the siege with reinforcements, the situation for Nobunaga and his generals grew more and more desperate as things progressed. All attempts made by the Takeda to cut the castle’s water supply had failed, as had all the initiatives aimed at assaulting the fortress directly, but for the men inside Gifu time was running out and the situation continued to deteriorate.
When the month of September ended, the Oda force had been reduced to just 18,000 men, while the Takeda army had increased its own numbers to 30,000 once more thanks to the continued reinforcements from the Anti-Oda coalition. Nobunaga could not pretend to be able to hold the enemy for much longer and Shingen could not maintain the siege forever: someone had to make a move.
The time to end the campaign came, according to western sources, on October 18th of 1573, when the Takeda and Oda forces met on the open field and engaged in the last battle of the Gifu operation. Oda Nobunaga had witnessed how his defensive lines collapsed and fell to the Takeda forces through a period of six months, losing nearly 12,000 men in the process while the survivors grew more desperate and demoralized as the prospect of defeat lurked as a shadow in the castle, behind every door, behind every soldier.
Nobunaga put his hope on his harquebusiers, of which he could still yield an impressive amount of 2,000 on the battlefield, as opposed to Shingen’s own 900, of which half were Ikko-Ikki. The Oda daimyo positioned his men along a large irregular line, taking advantage of the terrain to stop the dreaded and feared Takeda cavalry, while the Arquebusiers used a line of trenches and palisades to hold their line and slow down any possible cavalry charge.
The Takeda force was on the other hand divided into three main corps under Shingen’s trusted generals. Each division, with around 7,000 men deployed, comprised the bulk of the Takeda army, while the rest served as a reserve force. The famed Takeda cavalry was put aside due to the difficulties presented by the terrain and the positioning of the Oda force, and thus relegated to serve as skirmishers and for a possible routing of the Oda troops, therefore leaving much of the battle in the hands of the Ashigaru infantry and the Arquebusiers and archers.
Shingen began the attack with a small cavalry attack aimed at the flanks, with the purpose of testing the strength of the Oda line, and then following with the Ashigaru infantry in a three-pronged attack in which Yamagata’s “Fire division” attacked the center and engaged the harquebusiers on the center-right, nearly driving the Oda troops back only to be pushed by the arrival of Nobunaga’s infantry reserves from the left flank.
The arrival of the reserves convinced Shingen to deploy his second division in a diversionary attack against the depleted left flank of the Oda force, while taking his own third division under his personal command, as well as that of Baba Nobufusa’s, to attack the center of the Oda army.
The attack on the left flank, which forced Nobunaga to focus his attention on Takeda Katsuyori’s cavalry, managed to enrage the commander of the Oda Army of the Left, Hashiba Hideyoshi, enough for him to lead an attack to pursue the Takeda with his own troops and reserves…what followed was the end of the battle, with the left flank inexistent, Shingen took his men and attacked the center-right, that is the harquebusiers from two different directions while his own harquebusiers kept them preoccupied shooting at the south-east while the Takeda infantry came from the south and the south-west.
The engagement, which lasted for over six hours, left the Oda armies completely vanquished, with over 9,000 laying on the fields and other 2,000 having retreated, while the Takeda casualties only amounted to 1,800. The camel’s back was broken, and so was the will of Oda Nobunaga and his generals. Hashiba Hideyoshi had been killed as his troops were surrounded on two directions, by Katsuyori’s cavalry and by Baba Nobufusa’s reserves, which had turned to the south-west after routing the center of the Oda army.
Oda Nobunaga, the man that had defeated the Imagawa, conquered Kyoto and nearly unified central Japan, committed Seppuku two days after the battle, merely hours before Shingen ordered the final assault on Gifu castle.
The near disintegration of the Oda domain that followed the fall of Gifu and the death of Nobunaga was followed by a rush by Shingen to march on the Imperial capital and restore order to the situation of Central Japan. While the Takeda besieged Gifu castle, a combined force of Ikko-Ikki, Azai and Asakura troops, as well as those loyal to the Shogun threatened Kyoto before entering the city and coming to the aid of Shingen at the battle with Nobunaga.
Shingen wasted little time after the Gifu campaign and marched on Kyoto almost immediately, leaving most of his army at the battlefield or sending them back to Kofu, thus only taking some 10,000 men with him in hic march to Kyoto. Having spared the lives of most of the old Oda clan, excepting for many of his sons and brothers, who could have become a menace with time, as well as some prominent generals and retainers, the Oda domain was greatly reduced by the new advances of the old enemies, something Shingen would have to remedy if he was to take over the Oda territories as he had with the Tokugawa domain.
10,000 men entered Kyoto on November 3rd of 1573, with Takeda Shingen, his generals and his son Katsuyori at the head of the conquering army. The flags and banners of the Takeda clan soon filled the city, its streets and its main buildings as the army marched through the city. Shingen himself was reportedly ecstatic as he saw the capital, visiting several Buddhist temples and shrines on his way to meet the Emperor and the Shogun, who had waited for him ever since hearing the news on the conquest of Gifu.
The Tiger of Kai was received by the Shogun and the Emperor with great cordiality and greeted by the notables of the city and the anti-Oda alliance with an expected surprise and enthusiasm. Shingen had not only defeated the Oda and their allies, but had within the batting of a butterfly’s wing become the most powerful daimyo of the Empire, both in terms of power and territory, and now he stood in the Imperial Capital with a conquering army.
Notes:
1. Oda Nobunaga was indeed in the midst of subduing the Ikko-Ikki, the Azai and the Azakura at this time, which is one of the reasons why he was only able to send so few reinforcements to Tokugawa Ieyasu; distrust and lack of fondness for Ieyasu might have also been a part of it;
2. The first siege of Nagashima was an Ikko-Ikki Victory in 1571; the second siege does not happen ITTL due to the Takeda invasion in early 1573;
3. Takeda Shingen himself, a strict Zen Buddhist, was not too fond of the Ikko-Ikki either and even ordered them expelled from his domain, but this is war and manpower is manpower;
4. Hashiba was Toyotomi’s name before he took his most famous one: Hidetoyi; Sakuma was a loyal Oda retainer entrusted with Nobunaga’s care when the daimyo was a child;
5. Just one of the famous groupings of commanders of the Sengoku Period, this one being particularly famous for their service under Takeda Shingen between the 1540s and 1570s; IOTL, most of them died between the Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima and the Battle of Nagashino.
6. Ishiyama Hongan-Ji was besieged between 1570 and 1580 IOTL, and not even the help from the Mori could prevent the fall of the fortress; Yet after only 3 years, the Cathedral-Castle of the Ikko-Ikki still stands tall and strong;
******************************
Part II
:The Kofu-Fukuchiyama Period
The period that followed the Takeda conquest of the lands of the Oda clan and their allies is considered by most historians and experts a continuation of the Sengoku Period, agreeing that the true beginning of the Kofu-Fukuchiyama Period took place thanks to the events that developed a decade earlier, but many others claim that it was the entrance of Takeda Shingen at Kyoto the birth of the new historical period.
At the age of 53, Shingen stood amongst the daimyo of Japan as the most powerful warlord and the most successful of the conquering warriors of the period, having outdone great daimyo such as Imagawa Yoshimoto, Oda Nobunaga and his great rival, Uesugi Kenshin.
Not only did Shingen ruled over the most vast of the domains in Japan, directly or by proxy, but he also controlled the center of the empire, the “soft underbelly”, and the Imperial capital of Kyoto, residence of the Emperor and the Shogun, both of which now courted Shingen as an ally and liberator.
Yet the appearances masked a hidden truth: that the Ashikaga Shogun distrusted Shingen and that he was beginning to fear his influence as he had with Oda Nobunaga and that because of that, he had begun to conspire against his new lord as he had with the last.
The Takeda Clan descended from no other than the Minamoto Clan, the one that had produced the great figure of Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shogun of the Empire, and therefore Shingen had the historical and familiar right to claim the shogunate to himself and his Clan, something that was well within his possibilities, given not only the grandiosity of his domains or his military powers, but also by the greatness of his name and his person. [1]
It was an understanding this situation that Ashikaga Yoshiaki continued to sit alongside Shingen while writing to men like Uesugi Kenshin and Hojo Ujimasa to warn them and encourage them to fight against Shingen. Japan was too much of a treasure for a single man to rule it and enjoy the spoils, and the many enemies of the Takeda clan knew this as did the Shogun.
In the meantime, Shingen consolidated his domains, extending over his neighboring daimyos, particularly the Azai and the Asakura, his protection, incorporating the various domains as protectorates of his own already vast territory, while at the same time moving his borders at the expense of his more reluctant neighbors, such as the Anegakoji and the Hatano. Others, such as the Ikko-Ikki, saw their rights, power and territory expanded under the mantle of the Takeda, although this came at the price of an illusory independence and the submission of their will to that of Shingen, as de Jure allies of the Takeda Clan. [2]
Of course, the powerful rivals that had opposed Takeda Shingen over the years were not about to sit and see how the Takeda unified the country and conquered their domains without saying a word. The main opposition to Shingen’s new authority came from the east, where his old enemy, Uesugi Kenshin, the Dragon of Echigo, formed an alliance with Hojo Ujimasa and several other weaker eastern daimyo.
The Anti-Takeda alliance, formed primarily by the Uesugi and the Hojo, was formed almost immediately after Shingen raised his flags and standards in Kyoto, and it was having anticipated that the Tiger of Kai would not be satisfied simply with the Lion’s share of the country that Kenshin unleashed the power of the Anti-Takeda coalition during the winter of 1575.
Notes
1. Descendants of the Minamoto Clan do indeed have a claim to the Shogunate, not to mention that in Ashikaga Yoshiaki’s eyes he has just replaced one strongman master for another;
2. Once again, the Takeda do not particularly like the Ikko-Ikki, but they have bigger fish to fry and do not think that the Ikko-Ikki deserve their full attention so early on; not to mention that for the moment they are nominally allies;
***
The Dragon of Echigo
In the year of 1575, east of the provinces of Kai and Shinano in the Takeda Domain there laid the lands of the Uesugi clan, where the fiercest and oldest enemy of Takeda Shingen, the formidable Uesugi Kenshin reigned. [1]
Just like Shingen had, Kenshin rose to the leadership of his clan through political intrigue and family schemes, to then become one of the most renowned and successful warlords of his time, leading the successful conquest and unification of the province of Echigo, to then begin the great and famed struggle with Shingen over Shinano Provinces, solved in the series of battles fought at Kawanakajima in the 1560s. Ever since, Uesugi Kenshin had limited his military campaigns to raids and attacks with limited objectives against the Hojo in the Kanto and against the Takeda at Shinano, in a series of attempts to restore the Kanto to the Uesugi clan while keeping the Takeda occupied, not wanting them to be overconfident.
The status quo that followed the Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima was nonetheless shattered by the Takeda conquest of central Japan through Shingen’s war upon the Tokugawa and the Oda, and now that the Lord of Kai had become the most powerful daimyo of Japan, none doubted that his long term ambition was the elimination of his remaining rivals and the unification of Japan under the banners of the Takeda Clan. To prevent such a development and protect their own interests, the remaining great daimyo Clans began to plot with the Ashikaga shogun, Yoshiaki, against the Takeda, forming the first Anti-Takeda coalition in 1575, led by Uesugi Kenshin and Hojo Ujimasa, who had become a de facto Uesugi puppet following the fall of Kyoto.
Kenshin and Ujimasa were joined by several less powerful daimyos of eastern Japan, most of which in fact joined out of fear of the Uesugi rather than fear of the Takeda. In any case, Shingen was now surrounded by enemies, with a powerful coalition threatening the eastern borders of his domains and the ambitious and opportunistic Mori Clan in the west, having achieved a truce with the Otomo clan of Kyushu probably just to have a free hand to interfere in the affairs of central Japan.
Whether Shingen had ever contemplated the possibility of overthrowing Ashikaga Yoshiaki and taking the title of Shogun for himself, a right that he certainly had as descendant of the Minamoto clan, would never be known but forever suspected and suggested as one of the reasons why Yoshiaki and several others conspired against him, forcing him to leave Kyoto just after he left, having enjoyed just a couple of years of peace as de facto ruler of Japan before having to deal with his great rival, Uesugi Kenshin.
***
The Tiger and the Dragon: the Uesugi-Takeda war
Having anticipated that Shingen would try to recover his momentum and continue with the rush to conquer and unify Japan as Oda Nobunaga had tried before him, Uesugi Kenshin and his allies decided to make his move just as the Takeda prepared for a possible war against the Mori in the west, thus deciding to threaten the Eastern border of the Takeda domain with a massive attack along the frontier.
Kenshin had spent the years following the Takeda conquest of Kyoto subjugating the Jimbo clan of Etchu province, finally succeeding in 1574 as Shingen continued his role as de facto Shogun, promulgating laws and reforms from the Imperial Capital. [2]
In the meantime, Kenshin’s allies were gathering a large force to match Shingen’s own armies, the most powerful of Japan at the time, and placing troops throughout the Uesugi and Hojo domain, trying to prevent Shingen from anticipating their moves and making a preemptive attack. The preparations worked, and by the autumn of 1575, the joint armies of the Uesugi and the Hojo numbered some 55,000 men, with a large reserve being prepared at the Kanto to hold back any possible Takeda counterattack when it came.
The war began with a move made by the Hojo, Ujimasa leading an army of 20,000 men against Ejiri castle, the stronghold of Yamagata Masakage, one of the famed 24 generals, in the early autumn of 1575. The attack was swift and decisive, the Hojo army outnumbering the small Takeda garrison two to one. This victory was followed by an attack made by Uesugi himself, and with the morale of the anti-Takeda alliance having been bolstered by this victory, Kenshin attacked Kaizu castle in northern Shinano while the allied forces prepared for an attack against Minowa castle in Kozuke.
Between the time news about the fall of Ejiri reached Kyoto and the time in which Kenshin and the bulk of his armies stationed in central Japan left the capital, Kaizu castle had surrendered and an army of 34,000 men was gathering to attack Kofu castle itself, at the de jure capital of the Kai province and the Takeda domain. Takeda Kenshin left Kyoto on October of 1575, seeing the Imperial Capital for the last time from his horse, contemplating his banners and standards over the city’s castles, streets and walls, unknowingly to him, for the last time.
The army Uesugi Kenshin commanded at Kofu castle, Shingen’s main stronghold and capital, numbered about 35,000 men in the winter of 1575, when the main actions of the Kofu campaign took place. At the time, Shingen was reorganizing and gathering an army to meet with the invading enemy hordes, but could only muster a force of 12,000, having marched from Kyoto with 10,000 and only receiving some reinforcements from his regional allies as the bulk of the Takeda army was being formed at the Kai and Shinano provinces.
It took Shingen and his generals some weeks to reach Kofu, and fortunately for the Takeda, the Uesugi had not been able to subdue the fortress.
Kenshin had hoped for a short and victorious campaign against the eastern holdings of the Takeda to draw them to his own territory and force them into one large decisive battle, like the one that he had lost at the fourth engagement between the two at Kawanakajima, but he had not counted with the fierce resistance Kofu castle presented to him nor the velocity with which Shingen launched his counterattack.
The first phase of the campaign, the one against the castle itself, presented all kind of difficulties for Kenshin, from small logistical problems that mobilizing a large army always presented to the terrible weather conditions the winter brought, to the well-organized resistance organized by the Takeda defenders, led by Shingen’s son, Takeda Katsuyori. Early attempts to directly assault the castle by force or to cut its water supply failed through the first weeks of the winter of 1575, and well into 1576 the castle stood as impregnable as before, its 14,500 defenders refusing to surrender. At the same time, bands of peasants organized into militias disrupted the Uesugi communications and supply lines for several weeks, before the Uesugi began employing several brutal tactics to keep the civilian population controlled.
Naturally, the failures of the first phase were nothing compared to the events that unfolded in the month of January of 1576, when Takeda Shingen himself arrived in front of an army of 12,000 men, both Ashigaru and cavalry, carrying the standards of the Takeda clan and ready to confront the Uesugi invaders.[3]
The actual battle between Shingen and Kenshin, the first in over a decade, would nonetheless not take place until about two days after the arrival of the Takeda force, Shingen’s men needing to rest and regroup, as well as the troops under Kenshin, preoccupied with besieging Kofu castle.
The arrival of the Takeda army forced Kenshin to disengage a large part of the forces besieging Kofu to deal with the secondary force, but as a result of this sudden and rapid movement, the force that left the siege to fight Shingen himself was not as organized or rested, and were forced to march several miles to meet the Takeda in their camp.
To lead the attack against Shingen there was Kenshin himself, joined by his generals, although he had no desire to leave the important decisions to his subordinates. With about 15,000 men, approximately half of his army, Uesugi Kenshin stood to the east of the Takeda camp, which had dug trenches and prepared palisades to serve as protection to their harquebusiers. In terms of firepower Shingen had an advantage, having nearly thrice the harquebusiers and cannons, but both forces had a roughly equal number in terms of cavalry and Infantry.
Confident in the strength of his army and in the conditions of the battlefield, Kenshin decided to split his force, sending some 6,000 men northwards to attack the Takeda camp from the north-east in a diversionary attack, while the bulk of his army attacked from the east and the south-east, but the Takeda force led by Baba Nobufusa repelled the feint without persecuting the Uesugi force, something that Kenshin had not foreseen.
On the center, Kenshin’s generals launched a cavalry attack against the palisades, behind which a reserve force of ashigaru and harquebusiers stood, but the Uesugi cavalry was met by the superior firepower of the Takeda, the harquebusiers having been positioned in three lines that could open fire constantly, spreading chaos through the Uesugi line.
Following the failure of the first charge, the Uesugi force under Honjo Shinenaga and Uesugi Kagenobu regrouped and prepared for a continued attack, taking advantage of the weakened state of the Takeda line, and thus a general attack was launched with 8,000 men against the main line of the Takeda army. The renewed attack was much tougher for the Takeda to contain, as Kenshin himself led the attack along the line, forcing the Takeda to reinforce the entire front with their reserves. It was at this point that Kenshin learnt that Takeda general Baba Nobufusa was wounded, therefore convincing him to attack the concentrate on the center-left, where a majority of the Takeda generals were grouped, including Shingen himself.
Carrying the Uesugi banners to the center of the battlefield, Kenshin’s cavalry outmaneuvered their enemy counterparts to pierce a hole through the line, nearly reaching the position in which Shingen and his generals were had there not been for the reserve Arquebusiers and ashigaru redeployed to stop them. Following this failure, the battle degenerated into a long and bloody struggle for domination over the battlefield, something Uesugi Kenshin had been determined to allow due to his previous experiences against Shingen at Kawanakajima.
Rather than to sustain further casualties in a prolonged attrition conflict, the lord of Echigo decided to withdraw from the battlefield and abandon his position at Kofu castle.
Following the Takeda victory at Kofu, which had cost Shingen some 3,000 men and Kenshin some 4,000, the Anti-Takeda force would retreat back to the strongholds they had already taken and to their own castles, while the Takeda would spend the better part of the winter and the spring assembling their forces from the vast domains of the Takeda clan.
The war in the East
The season after the campaigning at Kofu was mostly used by the commanders of the opposing armies to regroup their forces and rally badly needed reinforcements, as well as making preparations for the continuation of the war in the upcoming spring.
For Shingen and his armies, two months were needed to gather the necessary forces to engage the Hojo and the Uesugi on the field once more, with troops being called from the vast Takeda domains, cavalry and infantry soldiers being joined by mercenary ronin and Ikko-Ikki troops from throughout central Japan. By late March of 1576, Shingen had amassed a force of 38,000 men at Kofu and the Shinano province, in order to attack the Hojo to the East and the Uesugi to the North.
Kenshin, on the other hand, spent the winter of 1576 strengthening his position in Northern Japan, abandoning the siege of Fukashi castle and instead reinforcing his positions at the castles of Ueda, Kaizu and Minowa, which had been taken from the Takeda domain early in the war. But most importantly was the preparations at Echigo province and the reinforcement of Uesugi Kenshin’s stronghold, Kasugayama castle, one of the most important and powerful fortresses in the Empire of Japan.
Hoping to use the barrier of fortifications between Kasugayama and Kofu to stall Shingen’s forces and gain enough time to regroup properly and prepare a better strategy, Kenshin sought to avoid any direct confrontation with Shingen’s main army for the entire spring of 1576, a time with the Takeda forces used attacking the Hojo clan at the Kanto province, while only launching limited campaigns against the Uesugi in the North. Hojo Ujimasa’s forces had, after Kofu, retreated back to the occupied castle of Ejiri and the Hojo capital of Odawara, where the bulk of the daimyo’s army had rallied after the defeats suffered at the hands of the Takeda. Only 20,000 troops were available to defend the Sagami province and the Kanto, being distributed at Ejiri and Odawara.
Shingen was, in the early spring of 1576, forced to fight a two front war against the Hojo in the East and the Uesugi to the north, but realizing the strength of Kenshin’s forces and the opportunity that was the destruction of the Hojo in their hour of weakness, Generals Baba Nobufusa and Yamagata Masakage, the greatest of the 24, launched an invasion of the Hojo domain at the head of an army of 25,000 men, striking directly against Odawara while a diversionary force surrounded Ejiri.
The Takeda offensive against the main Hojo stronghold at Odawara was a risky strategy at best, Shingen having previously tried to besiege the fortress in an earlier war with the Hojo clan in 1569, only to fail after three days attacking the castle. On this occasion the stakes were much higher, as Shingen was forced to fight a war against both the Hojo and the Uesugi, both powerful and ancient daimyo clans by themselves.
The campaign against Odawara began in the spring of 1576, when Shingen’s main force arrived at the castle as the defenders were preparing their fortifications. At the time of the arrival of the Takeda army, a force of 8,000 troops of the Hojo clan were camped to the west of the fortress, where the first troops of the Takeda army encountered and engaged them on April of 1576.
The Takeda force, divided in three smaller groups (7,500 under Yamagata against Ejiri, 15,000 under Takeda Katsuyori and Baba Nobufusa and 3,000 reservists) entered the Hojo lands attacking through several fronts, with Yamagata’s force launching a swift offensive against Ejiri castle to the south of Kofu province, in a diversionary effort to keep as many Hojo soldiers tied down to the west as possible, while the main army stroke against Odawara itself.
The vanguard of 15,000 men under Katsuyori was the first to arrive at the site, where the 8,000 troops of the Hojo clan had set a first line of defense as the bulk of the army prepared the castle itself. Realizing the numerical superiority to be to his favor, Katsurori decided to seize the opportunity to drive them from the field and destroy the force in detail, and thus a sudden attack was launched the day following their first encounter with the enemy army.
Despite some warnings from some older and more experienced retainers, the attack was launched with Katsuyori himself leading the cavalry attack against the armies of Hojo Ujimasa and his brother, Hojo Ujiteru.
As one could expect from such a hasty and unprepared offensive, the Takeda lines charged against the Hojo only to crash against a well prepared and extremely tough wall, and after the first hour, the Takeda retreated with moderated casualties while the smaller Hojo force did the same, moving their camp closer to the castle of Odawara. The second round began an hour after the initial attack, when the Takeda army of 14,000 began a three pronged assault on the Hojo line, overwhelming the defenders and preventing them from retreating further east. Once the day reached noon, the Hojo had lost 1,500 while the Takeda had suffered nearly 2,000 casualties, and by this point both sides were too tired to continue the battle. Only the arrival of the 3,000 reservists of the Takeda army was capable of forcing the Hojo to retreat to the south as the Takeda generals had wanted, thus isolating the main group of the Hojo army from the secondary force that Katsuyori had first attacked.
This, the only actual engagement between troops in the prolonged siege of Odawara, was followed by two months of relative stability along the front, as the Takeda had a numerical superiority over the Hojo that only grew as time progressed, and with the roads and the seas blockaded, the castle’s strength began to diminish as the supplies of food and water began to become scarce.
Following the swift fall of Ejiri castle on April of 1576 and the short and inconclusive campaigns against the Uesugi at the Ueda and Minowa castles, Odawara was where the full attention of Takeda Shingen and his generals was focused, as the presence of nearly 30,000 troops by the late spring showed.
The battle was lost and this was clear to everyone in Japan, especially to Hojo Ujimasa and Uesugi Kenshin. And while Kenshin tried to bring his troops for a diversionary action in the northern Takeda domains at the Shinano province, all actions against Shingen at the Odawara campaign would prove futile, and by the end of the third month, Shingen’s gamble against Odawara had proven to be an ultimate success, as the fortress and its 12,000 defenders surrendered on July 18th of 1576, the surrender being followed by the ritual suicide of Hojo Ujimasa and his most loyal retainers. [5]
This was the end of the Hojo clan, descendants of the Minamoto, and Takeda Shingen’s long feud with Hojo Ujiyasu and his son Ujiyasu. Now only Uesugi Kenshin remained in Shingen’s path to the complete domination of Japan.
***
The war in the North: Kenshin vs. Shingen
Shinano province had been the battlefield in which the Takeda and the Uesugi fought for supremacy over northern Japan for nearly a decade before Shingen turned his attention to the west and Kenshin began his campaigns against the Hojo. But in late 1576, following the fall of Odawara castle and the downfall of the Hojo clan, the two rivaling daimyo returned to the old field to fight their last war against each other.
Since his retreat from Kofu castle, Kenshin and his generals had retreated northwards and began to strengthen their position in the region while preparing for an upcoming Takeda invasion of their domain. Withdrawing from the Takeda domains and leaving the conquered castles of Ueda and Minowa, the Uesugi armies left for Echigo while the Uesugi lord mobilized his domains and his men in earnest. The awaited Takeda attack would nonetheless not come until November of 1576, when the forward units of the Takeda army entered Minowa and Ueda castles, finding them empty according to legend, although other sources would later claim that there were minor skirmishes before the retaking of the two northern fortresses.
In December, Shingen himself invaded the province of Echigo with an army of 40,000 men, to which Kenshin could only oppose a force of 30,000.
The campaign of the winter of 1576 and the spring of 1577 was nevertheless not as easy as one might have expected from the sheer numerical and psychological advantage the Takeda enjoyed. After an entire generation of war, Uesugi Kenshin had become a master of strategy and had, in 16th century Japan, understood and developed the principles of what would later be known as “Mobile warfare.” While the Takeda army marched upon the Uesugi positions, Kenshin continuously withdrew in order to wear down his opponents while seeking for a more suitable terrain for his own forces. The first real engagement of this campaign would not take place until January of 1577, when the Takeda army caught up with the Uesugi at the Chikuma River, Kenshin having camped north of the stream.
Aware of his numerical disadvantage, Kenshin sent a small group down the river, faking an attack on the right flank of the Takeda camp and tricking the enemy commanders into thinking that he was dividing his own forces. Once the Takeda attempted to cross the river to attack the main Uesugi force, Kenshin’s forces absorbed the attack while two separate corps was able to force their way through the flanks of the enemy army and strike directly against the mobile headquarters of the Takeda, behind the battlefield. This move forced the end of the battle and allowed the Uesugi to retreat westwards, back to the main Uesugi fortress of Kasugayama.
The campaign was however continued by two more battles, one a minor skirmish along the Chikuma river once more, and the other a major battle near the town of Ojiya, where 15,000 troops from the Takeda army encountered 8,000 of the Uesugi force. Once again, Uesugi Kenshin made a good use of his knowledge of the terrain, speed and the element of surprise to catch the Takeda off guard, striking directly to their commanders at the back of the field, bypassing the left flank of the enemy army, as Katsuyori and Sanada attacked the main Uesugi force at the town. The battle cost the Takeda some 3,000 soldiers whereas the Uesugi only lost around 800.
The summer of 1577, Uesugi Kenshin once again returned to his fortress-capital, the first time in his life he would be forced to defend it against an invading army. After an entire life of battling through central and eastern Japan, not once had the great fortress of Kasugayama been threatened by an enemy army, but not even the historical change of circumstances could make the fortress any weaker.
Kasugayama, ever since it was built by Kenshin, had stood as an impregnable and imposing fortress for over two decades when Takeda Shingen arrived at the head of an army 25,000 men strong on June of 1577, just a few weeks before the end of the spring, and by itself the stronghold was a formidable force to be fought, standing like a mountain and presenting a more impressive target than Kofu and Odawara. The campaign against the castle was nonetheless started not as a siege, but instead with an open battle between the enemy forces south of the mountain castle, as Uesugi Kenshin once again attempted to break the Takeda army and force them to retreat to their own domains. The battle of Kasugayama, which took place on June of 1577, was at the same time the last real battle of the war and the last either Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin would fight.
Moving his forces in the middle of the night as quietly as humanly possible, Kenshin was able to take his adversary by surprise positioning his men west of the Sekigawa River and north of the Takeda camp, in a dangerous move that divided his own army. The attack that began the next morning was incredibly bloody, as the forward units of the Uesugi army advanced to the very center of the enemy camp completely crushing any resistance encountered in the early hours of the morning. The attack that was forced from the river was however stopped by Baba Nobufusa’s forces, and despite the inability of the Takeda army to display their superior cavalry, the foot soldiers and the samurai were enough to hold down the attacks from the western and northern flanks.
But what truly decided the outcome of the battle was the appearance of Takeda Shingen himself on the battlefield, although others claim that it was in fact a double, or ‘Kagemusha’ the one to ride to the middle of the field with the Takeda generals, leading the charge against the center of the enemy army [6]. The rapid mobilization of the Ashigaru harquebusiers was an important factor however, having being able to stop the attack coming from the right flank with enough velocity to allow the bulk of the reserves to be moved to fight at the northern flank.
Thus the last desperate attempt by Kenshin to avoid a battle at his own capital failed, at the cost of several of his trusted generals and nearly 4,000 of his best men, including General Shibata Shigeie. The destruction and the havoc created at the Takeda camp were insufficient to prevent the invading army from starting the siege against Kasugayama castle merely a week after the bloody and rather inconclusive battle.
***
Kasugayama
Kasugayama
Kasugayama castle had withstood for over six months as the besieging forces of Takeda Shingen waited tirelessly. Inside the fortified walls of the castle there were Uesugi Kenshin, his retainers, his family and the most loyal of his followers. Outside there was the most powerful man in Japan, whose domains spread from Ishiyama Hongan-Ji to Edo and Odawara and who had in his lifetime conquered half of the Empire of the Sun.
Come December of 1577, the war between the Uesugi and the Takeda, the last in a series of engagements between the two rivaling clans that had lasted for a generation had cost thousands upon thousands of lives, counting those lost from the beginning of the feud to the end of the siege of Kasugayama castle. By January of 1578, the will to continue fighting was the only thing that forced the two exhausted and beaten armies to carry on. The snow continued to fall and the cold was taking its toll upon both armies, as the roads covered with ice and snow made it increasingly difficult for the two forces to receive the badly needed surprise.
But finally, as the month of January closed to its end, it would be fate the one to end the stalemate and not military ability or numbers. The merciless weather and the horrid conditions of the siege and the battlefield had left both armies near the breaking point, but its effects on the two great lords of Kai and Echigo had left an incalculable toll as well. It was Uesugi Kenshin the one to reach the limit first, his health having deteriorated ever since the start of the war against the Takeda, and by the end of the siege, his body could not resist as much as his spirit could. According to many sources, the Dragon of Echigo was found dead at his chambers near the end of the month of January of 1578, most likely due to pulmonary complications resulting from his poor health and the conditions of the terrible winter of 1578.
Having died childless, Kenshin was succeeded by his adopted son, Uesugi Kagetora, who would perform all of the duties Kenshin had as Daimyo of Echigo and lord of the Uesugi clan and household. Nonetheless, Kagetora was practical enough to realize that he was not Kenshin and that while Kasugayama stood as imposing and impregnable as before, he did not possess the ability his predecessor had and that the circumstances required. Thus a peace settlement with Takeda Shingen was necessary for the survival of the Uesugi clan.
In early February of 1578, as the funeral processions for the deceased Lord of Echigo were undertaken, accompanied by the ceremonial suicide of several of his closest retainers, Uesugi Kagetora in his role as daimyo of Echigo arranged for a peace treaty to be signed with the most powerful remaining daimyo of Japan, Takeda Shingen.
The end of the First anti-Takeda coalition, also known as the final Uesugi-Takeda war, brought about many important changes in the internal politics and the balance of power within the Empire of Japan. For once, the Hojo clan had been virtually destroyed while the only man capable of standing against the Takeda, Uesugi Kenshin, was dead, his role now taken by the less able and less threatening Uesugi Kagetora. Finally, the Takeda domain now spread from central Japan to the eastern provinces, as far as Edo and Kasugayama, the Kanto and Echigo, while areas such as Dewa and Mutsu were now under the sphere of influence of the Takeda clan.
The peace celebrated between the Uesugi and the Takeda had dramatic effects in the internal configuration of Japan. The Hojo were effectively destroyed, their armies dissolved and their lands taken away. With their lords dead and the family gone, only the retainers that hadn’t already committed suicide were left to complain. The rich province of Echigo, which had been unified by Kenshin during his lifetime as his main achievement, was taken by the Takeda as part of their domain. The lands of the province were split between several of the retainers and allies of the Takeda, including the Baba, the Yamagata and several others of the famed 24 generals, at least those who had survived this far.
Naturally, this left the issue of the Uesugi clan. They could not share the same fate as the Hojo; they had not been brought to the tables in the same way the other enemies of the Takeda had but they couldn’t be spared from defeat either. Kenshin had been an honorable adversary and enemy in times of peace and war. There was also the matter of controlling so much land either directly or indirectly. At the end, the Uesugi clan was to be expelled from Echigo, and returned to the Kanto. [7]
Amongst his many titles, Uesugi Kenshin had been Kanto Kanrei, as the clan had originated at the Kanto Province and had ruled that area for generations before being driven out by the Hojo. The return of the Uesugi to the Kanto took place in the summer of 1578, as the lands of the Hojo were reduced, Odawara now being part of the Takeda domain for once, while the followers of the Takeda took over Echigo and some bordering parts of the Kanto. Edo would become the new capital of the restored Uesugi domain, and Kanto their new home, not too powerful and not far enough so as to be outside of the control of the Takeda.
Once the Spring of 1578 had arrived, Takeda Shingen found himself unchallenged and as the most powerful man in Japan once more. His oldest and most powerful rival had died and his domains were now the biggest and richest any daimyo had ever had in the history of the Empire. Yet, as he was on his peak, fate intervened once more.
He was on his way to Kyoto when his body began to succumb to the effects of a lifetime warring and a prolonged winter campaign in the north. He and his escort reached Kofu on April of 1578, but it was too late. His health had suffered greatly and his was terribly ill by the time they arrived at the palace that had been his home for most of his life. His generals, his closest retainers and family members were next to him during his last few months, all of which he spent at Kofu castle.
Lying in his bed, he could barely stand or talk by the end of the spring, and once summertime had reached, there was little it could be done for the man that had in the span of 60 years unified a great part of a country turn asunder by war. His closest heir, that is his grandchild Takeda Nobukatsu, was far from having the age to take over the obligations of a normal daimyo, much less the ones of a lord in charge of over half of the country.
Shingen’s son, Katsuyori, whom Shingen had not chosen to be his immediate successor, was thus able to take the reins of power as regent for his son once Shingen had died in July of 1578.
Notes:
1. Shingen was indeed known as the Tiger of Kai while Kenshin was known as the Dragon of Echigo, nicknames that played with the known Eastern theme of the Tiger and the Dragon; The rivalry between Shingen and Kenshin would become just as legendary in Japan;
2. Kenshin subdued the Jinbo Clan IOTL as well after having mediated some conflicts between them and the Shiina Clan, which Kenshin took over some years later;
3. Ashigaru is the name given to the typical Japanese infantry of the Sengoku Period: conscripted peasants and common men, often armed with Naginatas, pikes and spears and light armor;
4. Odawara had been first besieged by Uesugi Kenshin in 1561, and then by Takeda Shingen in 1569, both operations ending as failures and Odawara not falling until Toyotomi Hideyoshi broke the fortress in 1590;
5. Ujimasa kills himself as OTL, only that nearly 13 years earlier;
6. The use of doubles or Kagemushas (Shadow Warrior) was common in the Sengoku Period, and Takeda Shingen had several of these, of which the most famous and common one was his brother;
7. It was one of Kenshin’s dreams to return to the Kanto and reclaim his title as Kanto Kanrei, although he was unable IOTL; He probably wouldn’t like the way in which his family reclaimed the ancestral lands ITTL either;
***
Part III:
The Son Also Rises
The First years
Over two year that passed between Shingen’s death and Katsuyori’s departure from Kofu Castle in the summer of 1580, spent in what could be considered a rest in the expansionist momentum built by the Takeda in the past five years. Takeda Katsuyori was not the great state builder and administrator Shingen was, and he was surely not expected to adequately succeed in the enterprise that was to succeed the great Shingen, but the regent was nonetheless able to surprise his detractors and rise to the challenge of managing the large domains of the Takeda.
The economic and administrative system built by Shingen between the 1540s and 1578 was largely kept and even expanded, as the growth of the domains and the redistribution of the conquered lands between the Takeda loyalists and retainers, especially the division of the large and rich province of Echigo, forced the system to be reorganized and the Takeda Domain to be administrated in a different manner. The core of more loyal retainers, that is the 24 generals, were the most benefited, especially Yamagata Masakage, Baba Nobufusa and Obata Masamori, who gained the largest extensions in the northern province of Echigo.
The new government saw a rapid decentralization between 1579 and 1585, a tendency that would be reverted in the 1580s but that in the early years of Katsuyori’s government allowed the daimyo to concentrate on important issues other than the administration of his vast realm.
The Takeda lands prospered economically and politically, as the most powerful domain in the Empire of Japan grew in power and influence. This growth was accompanied by a growth in the power of the lords under the Takeda, not only the Generals such as the Yamagata, the Obata and the Sanada, but also some of the sakikata-shu (the group of vanquished enemies), such as the Christian Daimyo of Yamato, Takayama Ukon, and the vassal daimyos such as the Asai and the Asakura.
Religious freedom in the Takeda domain continued to be restricted as the Ikko-Ikki presence in the Takeda lands remained limited, a policy that Shingen himself had started and that he continued even after his alliance with the Ikko-Ikki against Oda Nobunaga.
The rise of Christianity in the western provinces, the maintenance of the Buddhist sects in the east and the growth of the Jodo Shinshu faith, the sect of the Ikko-Ikki, showed that the religious structure within the Takeda Domain had vastly changed from the old mono-religious nature of Shingen’s Buddhist fanaticism.
In 1573, the Empire of Japan was dominated by dozens of small daimyos with small to medium domains while the largest domains within the nation were under the greatest clans of the Empire: the Hojo of Kanto, the Takeda of Kai, the Otomo of Bungo, the Uesugi of Echigo, the Tokugawa of Totomi, the Mori of Bunzen and the rising Oda Nobunaga of Owari. Seven years later, Nobunaga, Ieyasu, Kenshin, Ujiyasu and Shingen were dead and only 3 of the seven great clans and three great lords were still standing strong: Otomo Sorin in Bungo, Mori Terumoto in Bunzen and Takeda Katsuyori, who’s domain extended from Kyoto to Kofu.
And apart from the three great surviving Daimyo clans (five if the relocated Uesugi of the Kanto and the then rising Shimazu of Satsuma were to be counted), another regional power was rising in the form of the Ikko-Ikki, the fanatical followers of the teachings of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism. Prior to 1573 and the Oda-Takeda war, they had come to dominated vast territories, including the rich province of Kaga, and were involved in a bloody war with the Oda of Owari as the rising daimyo besieged the fortresses of Nagashima and Hongan-Ji. [1]
Following the war, not only did their power and influence grow as their cities were saved and their ranks swelled by thousands of new followers joining, but their geographical base was also augmented. The death of the Hakateyama lord of Noto province, Hakateyama Yoshinori, in 1577, in the midst of the Uesugi-Takeda war, ignited a civil war in the province between the successors and retainers of the deceased daimyo, thus giving the Ikko-Ikki the perfect opportunity to invade and overrun the province. [2]
The retainer that had killed Yoshinori, Cho Shigetsura, was amongst the killed at the siege of Anamizu Castle in late 1577. By the spring of 1578 the Ikko-Ikki had completed their conquest of the province and their purging of the old feudal system in the region had begun in earnest, as well as the spreading of the teachings of Jodo Shinshu.
The reorganization of the lands, the administration of the conquered territories in the east and the overseeing of infrastructure projects, as well as the relocation of the Uesugi from Echigo to the Kanto and the destruction of much of the old Hojo political apparatus in their former domains; all of these tasks took much of the time of Katsuyori between 1578 and 1580, proving that the son had inherited the father’s administrative skills, as well as many of his old military abilities.
But it would be the year of 1580 the one to definitely cement Katsuyori’s place and position as the heir of Takeda Shingen, when he finally assembled a force to return to Kyoto and depose the last of the Ashikaga Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the man that had plotted to kill his father and destroy the Takeda clan by rallying the Uesugi and the Hojo against them.
On March of 1580, Takeda Katsuyori was joined by 10 of the original 24 generals of Takeda Shingen as well as a force of 30,000 men, and began his march from the eastern capital of Kofu to the Imperial capital of Kyoto.
The balance of power in 1580 had changed greatly since Takeda Shingen decided to wage war upon the Oda and the Tokugawa on the behalf of the Ashigaka Shogun. The march that the army of 30,000 men undertook from Kofu in Kai to the Imperial Capital of Kyoto in the spring and summer of 1580 was, unlike the original entry of the Takeda armies into the great capital, not as much a triumphal march but a quest for vengeance and settlement.
The Ashikaga shogun had instigated the war between the Uesugi and the Takeda just as he had done with the Oda five years earlier. Yet this is only one reason why the Takeda armies took their banners once more and embarked on the quest of subduing Kyoto and overthrowing the last Shogun.
Ashikaga Yoshiaki was the last of the Ashikaga clan, an eastern daimyo clan that had taken power as Shoguns in the aftermath of the downfall of the Kamakura Shogunate in the 14th century, only to lose their hold over the Empire at the dawn of the Sengoku period in the 15th century. As the 15th shogun of the Ashikaga bakufu, Yoshiaki had seen his power diminished and his position dependent upon daimyo such as Oda Nobunaga and Takeda Shingen, and by 1580 his power base was limited to a reduced group of loyalists at the capital and some rather weak neighboring daimyo.
The engagement at Kyoto was not particularly uneventful, as the last Shogun was able to mount a surprising defense of the city for about three weeks before his contingent of 10,000 men was legendarily betrayed by a group of ronin bought off by the Takeda, thus showing them the vulnerable flanks of the city and opening the strategic gates to them. Several legends and tales like these circulated in the aftermath of the fall of Kyoto, especially about the burning of temples, the execution of Ashikaga loyalists and the massive suicides of the Shogun’s generals, culminating in the ominous and hasty ceremony of seppuku of Yoshiaki himself at Shoryuji castle, as the Takeda forces approached his last stronghold.
Thus was ended the Ashikaga Shogunate and a new stage of the Sengoku period inaugurated: the end of the Warring states period was approaching faster than anybody could have expected after over a century of civil war.
Kyoto fell in the summer of 1580 according to most sources, 8 years after Takeda Shingen declared open war upon the Tokugawa and the Oda, and 10 years before the end of the Sengoku period. The definitive end of the Shogunate meant the ascension of Takeda Katsuyori to a position of near absolute power, as he became the de facto ruler of most of Nippon and the possessor of the vastest domains in the island of Honshu. Yet the Empire of the Sun was far from complete political unification, as powerful daimyo still remained with the capabilities to challenge the central authority of the Takeda.
At the time, these daimyo existed in the west of the nation, in the domains of Bungo, Tosa, Satsuma and Bunzen. The Takeda had previously countered the power of the Mori and the Shimazu by forming a loose alliance with the Christian daimyo of Bungo, Otomo Sorin, but following the Kyoto campaign of 1580 the western daimyo could no longer ignore what was happening to their left and thus in the winter of 1580, the Shimazu of Satsuma, the Chosokabe of Tosa and the Mori of Bunzen forged an alliance against the Takeda and the Otomo, what would later be called the second anti-Takeda coalition.
The alliance, motivated by a desire to defend themselves against the perceived threat of national unification and conquest under the Takeda was led by no other than Mori Terumoto, lord of Bunzen and ruler of most of western Honshu, grandson of the Great Moro Motonari. And alongside him were his uncle’s Kikkawa Motoharu and Kobayakawa Takakage, his greatest advisors and generals, and avid enemies of the Takeda order that had been imposed in central Nippon at the time. Far from being unmoved by the threat of a new enemy alliance, Takeda Katsuyori saw the formation of a league between the remaining daimyo as well as the resurgent expansionism of the Mori, the Shimazu and the Chosokabe to be a direct menace to his own national project, and the animosities between the Takeda and the Second Anti-Takeda Coalition grew as the decade progressed.
Notes:
1. The Ikko-Ikki took over Kaga a few decades before, while establishing fortresses outside of Osaka at Ishiyama Hongan-Ji, at Nagashima, not to mention temples in Ise, Mikawa and Owari as well;
2. IOTL this event led to a war between Uesugi Kenshin and Oda Nobunaga and Kenshin’s victory over the later at the Battle of Tedorigawa in 1577; shortly afterwards Kenshin died IOTL; without Kenshin or Oda and with Shingen preoccupied, the Ikko-Ikki have free reign to interfere as they see fit;
***
Unlike the state of generalized war that had characterized the better part of the Sengoku period from the late 1400s to the mid-1500s, by 1582 the situation in Japan had led to a polarization of the Empire’s daimyos into two separate bands, with a third category of neutrals that exercised little influence in the general outcome of the period.
In the east there was the Takeda domain, under which there were dozens of vassal daimyos and retainers that swelled the ranks of Takeda Katsuyori’s armies; while in the west the triple alliance of Mori Terumoto with the Chosokabe and the Shimazu provided some balance in the internal situation of the empire. Until war was finally unleashed in 1582 that is, and the balance was lost. The war between the Takeda and the second anti-Takeda coalition officially started on the spring of 1582, by a small border skirmish between the Mori domain and the small realm of the Ukita clan, an ally that the Takeda had made in their effort to form a platform from which to invade the Mori provinces in the west.
The conflict between the Ukita and the Mori escalated into a general war within weeks, as the Takeda were preparing themselves for a final war of national unification ever since Katsuyori’s return to Kyoto and the overthrowing of the Ashikaga.
The Mori invasion of the Ukita domain was followed by the outbreak of war in Kyushu, where the Shimazu led their allies, the Sagara, the Ryuzoki and the Ito into an invasion of the Otomo domains in the northern half of the island. What followed was the gathering of the main Takeda armies at Kyoto and of the Mori forces at Hiroshima castle, while the mighty Mori fleet prepared for a surprise attack against the inferior naval forces of the Takeda, mostly composed of allied pirates that had served Shingen in his quests against his old enemies.
Osaka bay was the first scenery of the war, as the Mori fleet obliterated the few ships the Takeda had at their disposal and put Osaka under occupation, with the help of the Ikko-Ikki of Ishiyama Hongan-Ji, old allies of the Mori during the times of Oda Nobunaga.
The swift action was followed by the arrival of the Takeda army under Kosaka Masanobu and Hara Matasane at the outskirts of Osaka on June of 1582. 20,000 men spearheaded the Takeda offensive, while other 15,000 troops under Baba Nobufusa were marching from Kyoto towards the lands of the Mori, in order to gather the combined forces on the eastern borders of the Mori domain and launch an attack against Hiroshima itself.
This could be called the first act of the wars of unification, taking place from June of 1582 to February of 1583. The campaign against Osaka was short-lived, as the Ikko-Ikki broke their league with the Mori, as Takeda Katsusori himself demanded that they honored the alliance established by his father. With only 5,000 men at his disposal, Kuki Yoshitaka, the Mori admiral in charge of the defense of Osaka, retreated and left the city after a few skirmishes, returning to his ships with the decision of continuing the war from the sea. [1]
The successive campaigns against the Mori would nevertheless be far from being as easy as Osaka was.
The march on Hiroshima began on August of 1582, when 40,000 men, including the Ashigaru infantry of 20,000, Samurai troops numbering the 5,000 and the force of Arquebusiers and recruited ronin composing the rest of the grand army, met at the lands of the Ukita, where they were greeted by the Ukita lord and his loyal forces.
The Mori had in the meantime been less than prepared to face the imminent invasion. Forces were gathering in the western provinces of the domain, leaving only 10,000 available for the defense of Hiroshima castle. Reinforcements could not be expected from the west for about another month; the Mori allies in Kyushu were in the meantime preoccupied with their war against Otomo Sorin. Thus, the Siege of Hiroshima began on September of 1583, when 30,000 Takeda soldiers surrounded the city and the castle, only defended by 10,000 men under the able and beloved Kikkawa Motoharu.
As many sieges of the Sengoku period, the operations against Hiroshima during the fall and winter of 1583 were undertaken with extreme care and determination, and like in many cases, such as the ones of Odawara and Nagashima, both the defenders and the attackers proved to be especially determined to emerge victorious. The numerical advantage yielded by the Takeda was to a degree mitigated by the complete naval superiority of the Mori, which assured that the fortress would be well supplied and impossible to attack from the sea. Furthermore, the march from Kyoto had left the Takeda forces exhausted and in need to make preparations for a winter camp around Hiroshima.
Of the 30,000 troops stationed around the main Mori stronghold, only 12,000 of them under Obata Masamori and Tsuchiya Masatugu undertook offensive actions against the fortress, trying to cut the city’s water supply in October of 1583 and to break the city’s weaker defenses later that month, as the rest of the army simply limited itself to wait until the main Mori army under Terumoto and Kobayakawa Takakage arrived. [2]
The arrival did not take place until late October of 1583, shortly after the failed attacks against the castle. Terumoto and Takakage had spent great part of the time that had passed gathering forces from the domains of the Mori, recruiting peasants, Samurai and Ronin into a force of 25,000 men that arrived to the west of the Takeda camp at Hiroshima on October of 1583.
The result was the only important battle of the Hiroshima campaign, which is the battle of Hiroshima that took place on November 2nd of 1582, according to most sources.
1. This is a matter of survival for the Ikko-Ikki, of course, so switching sides is not beneath them;
2. While Mori Terumoto is nominally the Daimyo, his uncles Kikkawa Motoharu and Kobayakawa Takakage are in charge of the wars and yield a great deal of influence, being the sons of the great Mori Motonari;
The battle of Hiroshima, as it was later known, was in reality a series of engagements and skirmishes that took place between November 2nd of 1582 and January 3rd of 1583, in the proximities of the port of Hiroshima and the Mori stronghold at Hiroshima castle.
As many sieges of the Sengoku period, a relief force had arrived in rescue of the defenders and thus the fate of the castle would have to be decided on the open battlefield rather than by a bloody assault against the walls of the fortress or by an inner treachery on the behalf of the defendants, as it also usually happened in cases like this.
The first series of skirmishes between Obata Masamori’s right flank and Kobayakawa Takakage’s Samurai relief force took place as an attempt by the Mori army to break the siege evolved into a chain of light attacks and counterattacks. A battle of positioning and maneuver; little casualties and considerable time were wasted, and by the end of the month both sides had achieved very little.
What followed was the arrival of the winter and the entrenchment of the defendants, as Takeda Katsuyori was advised to leave the siege and return once the conditions were more favorable. Feeling the weight of his father’s legacy on his shoulders, Katsuyori, backed by his younger and most reckless generals, refused to leave the Mori domain without a single victory, without a castle taken. With time running out and the winter becoming harsher and colder, Katsuyori pressed for an attack and thus on December of 1582 the bulk of his army center attacked the Mori camps west of the Otagawa river, defended only by 10,000 men of the Mori right wing.
The battle nonetheless turned into a bloodbath as the Takeda ashigaru infantry was unable to break the Mori lines of defenses. Mori Terumoto’s next move was to force a war of attrition upon the Takeda by sending heavy ashigaru reinforcements to the center of his line, adding more cannon to the bloody massacre.
Three days later the Takeda retreated from the Otagawa River with 8,000 dead, including his general Hara Matasane. Momentum was now on the Mori side and Terumoto was very able when the advantage was on his side. Having depleted the left flank of the Takeda army at the Otagawa River, he rallied 14,000 men between Samurai warriors and ashigaru infantry and pressed upon the retreating Takeda forces on their left flank, while the Kobayakawa force provided a distraction by attacking the center of the Takeda line for a third time in less than two weeks.
The result of the fourth battle was the near annihilation of the Takeda left flank and the near end of the siege operations right there and then on December of 1582, but the Takeda forces were able to resist the offensive long enough to organize an effective retreat and consolidate the center of the army into a cohesive force once more.
By mid-December the Takeda were ready to strike at the Mori army once more when disturbing news arrived from the east: a rebellion had begun at the Kanto province and the allied Uesugi Kagetora had been deposed by his half-brother.
After an entire season of battling, the Takeda forces were exhausted and depleted, yet Katsuyori saw victory as imminent, even upon losing over 10,000 men. Practical matters were nevertheless not on Katsuyori’s favor. His armies needed more time to complete the war against the Mori and Hiroshima castle was not about to fall that winter. Besides, the necessity to eliminate any threat to the Takeda hegemony in the west came first.
Thus, in late January of 1583 the Takeda army began to leave, not without having to suffer further attacks by the Mori army as they left the enemy province, but nonetheless reaching the safety of Osaka in February and beginning the march towards the Uesugi domain once the army was rested and reorganized at Kyoto.
Such was the name given to the civil war that took place at the Uesugi domain of Kanto between December of 1582 and October of 1583.
Uesugi Kagekatsu, second son of Nagao Masakage, Echizen no Kami and husband of Uesugi Kenshin's elder sister Ayahime, was an adopted son of Kenshin along Uesugi Kagetora, who had been Hojo Ujijasu’s seventh son. [1]
While following the Takeda-Uesugi war in the 1570s the Uesugi clan had been left under Kagetora’s guidance in the quality of a virtual Takeda vassal, a strong faction within the clan and the Kanto domain aligned itself with the alternate heir, Kagekatsu for a variety of reasons, from the greed of power to the desire for a return of the past glories of the great house of Uesugi.
Kagekatsu’s rebellion overthrew Kagetora on late December of 1582, taking over Edo castle and several other important Uesugi strongholds and towns, forcing Kagetora to take refuge at Odawara under the protection of the Takeda retainer, Yamagata Masakage. While he only had barely 20,000 men under his service, including the ronin from neighboring provinces that had joined him but without mentioning the drafted Ashigaru infantry of peasants; the war would nonetheless drag for several months for a number of reasons.
Firstly it was the matter of distance, as the Takeda were forced to march from Kyoto to Edo in order to engage the rebel forces. Secondly, it was the war in the west, still raging, that forced the Takeda to leave considerable forces defending Kyoto, Osaka and other western strongholds. Finally, the Takeda that arrived were only 25,000 exhausted and overstretched soldiers that considered the rebellion to be a simple walk in the park, a show of strength.
The first reverse came when Kagekatsu launched a surprise night raid upon the Takeda camp near Odawara, which forced Katsuyori’s army to retreat to the castle and delay the invasion of the Kanto for three weeks as Kagekatsu returned to prepare his forces at Edo.
Ergo, once the invasion began on late July of 1583, the enemy forces left vast areas of territory undefended. The castles between Edo and Odawara were only defended by small garrisons, most of which surrendered by defecting to the Takeda side or after being cut off from supplies and water. Edo castle, the Uesugi capital, was another story whatsoever. While Kagekatsu was not the ablest of commanders, he was a brave and determined leader, and when the tired Takeda army arrived at the walls of Edo to meet the fresh and prepared Uesugi force, the massacre was inevitable.
The first defense saw the Uesugi easily push the Takeda force northwards before falling back to their defensive positions.
What ensued was a bloody onslaught that lasted for another month.
By mid-August, the Takeda force was fully rested and a new offensive began against Edo. This time fate was not on the Uesugi side, as the experienced and battle hardened Takeda commanders smashed at the center of the enemy line with overwhelming force in a swift maneuver. The Takeda superiority in the matter of fire weapons, with the possession of 1,280 Arquebusiers in comparison to Kagekatsu’s 230 was decisive in the outcome of the battle, although also it was the capabilities of the army commanders.
Following the second battle, Kagekatsu headed north with the remains of his army, some 5,000 men, while 8,000 remained defending the castle. The rest, some 7,000 men, had been either killed or had committed suicide in the face of defeat. This included most of Kagekatsu’s ablest and most loyal retainers. Edo would fall a week later, once the supplies had been denied to the castle and the option to either sustain a bloody assault or surrender the fortress was given to the defendants.
Uesugi Kagekatsu was subsequently caught near the northern borders of the Kanto, about to enter the northern provinces of Dewa and Woshu, where he had hoped to live in exile and prepare for further war with the help of the northern daimyo. The rebel daimyo’s end was nonetheless quite different. One final skirmish decimated his army, and as the mercenaries left him, he gathered with the loyal retainers he had left and committed suicide on September 14th of 1583.[2]
Thus was the end of Uesugi Kagekatsu, heir to Uesugi Kenshin, Kanto Kanrei.
Notes:
1. This is IOTL; Echizen no Kami is a title meaning Governor/Lord of Echizen; both adopted sons existed IOTL and so did the Succession struggle in 1579;
2. IOTL Kagekatsu won the succession struggle and Kagetora died; the situation is reversed ITTL due to the divergent circumstances;
The Takeda army that returned to Kyoto in late 1583, upon clearing the last remnants of Uesugi Kagekatsu’s loyalists at the Kanto, spent much of the winter of 1583 and 1584 reorganizing and expanding its base.
Of the original 24 generals that Takeda Shingen had at its service during his life, from his rise at Kofu to his death at Kasugayama, only 10 remained. And of them, only 6 would take part in the final invasion of the Mori holdings in the west, many having retired to their own domains in the east and replaced by younger and more impetuous successors, who shared Katsuyori’s ambitions and plans for Japan. The army that was built at Kyoto from the ashes of the old one reached an impressive number of 58,000 men by the time the invasion of the west was launched, counting Samurai warriors, Ronin mercenaries, Ashigaru conscripts, cavalry, infantry and Arquebusiers.
The Takeda Grand Army began its march westwards in the spring of 1584, just as the Mori continued their own preparations for the continuation of the war. Just like in the previous year’s campaign, the Takeda army began by launching a swift invasion of the eastern Mori holdings, taking over the smaller castles and annihilating the small forces under the Mori vassals in their eastern border. Thus the path towards Hiroshima Castle, the Mori capital, was cleared. It was in this early part of the campaign that the castles of Takamatsu and Gassan-Toda were taken in the eastern limits of the Mori domain.
Takamatsu was more of a challenge that Hiroshima was in the first campaign, lasting for about 60 days of a prolonged siege in which only a small relief force arrived to provide assistance for the castle. Terumoto had miscalculated the size and force of the new Takeda army and the relief force was crushed after two days, after which the castle was forced to surrender after the ploys employed by Katsuyori to force his victory, from the cutting of the supply lines to the flooding of the castle grounds to turn it into a moss, a tactic which he employed by diverting a nearby river.
What followed were the sieges of Tottori castle, in the northern provinces of the Mori Domain, and the siege of Miki Castle. While Miki’s small garrison proved to be an easy nut to crack, Tottori presented a more difficult target, resisting for 200 days the besieging forces of the Takeda thanks to the reinforcements of the Kikkawa and Kobayakawa clans, as well as the resourcefulness of Kobakayawa.
There were nonetheless two main problems the Mori were forced to face: the issue of the numerical superiority of the Grand Takeda army, which allowed them to overwhelm the fortress and cut its supply lines while a secondary force advanced on Hiroshima and threatened the fortress in a series of skirmishes. Secondly there was the inability to receive further reinforcements since the capital was directly menaced. Starvation was what brought Tottori castle down. With the defending forces decimated and demoralized and the commanders committing seppuku as the possibility of surrender became inevitable, the main Mori stronghold in the north surrendered after 200 days.
Believing in the use of overwhelming force to route the enemy and isolate the castle more than in the need to instantly obliterate the enemy army, Katsuyori’s attack upon the fortress-town of Hiroshima began with a division of his force and by a surrounding move around the Mori armies around the town, this time numbering about 35,000 men, against the nearly 60,000 of Takeda Katsuyori.
Ever since the death of the great Mori Motonari, the reign of Daimyo Mori Terumoto depended upon the two great rivers, his uncles Kikkawa Motoharu and Kobayakawa Takakage, sons of Motonari who had been adopted into allied clans under their rule [1]. The two rivers, both extremely intelligent and able commanders, had for the duration of the war led the Mori domain, but by 1585 the realm was exhausted, the nine provinces bled white and morale had vanished into thin air.
In charge of the defense of Hiroshima was Kobayakawa Takakage, the most intelligent of the two rivers and the most experienced. With the aim of holding the enemy at bay in the hope of receiving reinforcements and winning more time for the preparation of the defenses, the Mori army was prepared to face the Takeda on the open field in the bloody battles of the five villages.
The result was the routing of the enemy army after two days of bloody engagements around the town, after which they were forced to retreat to the west of the Otagawa and leave only 11,000 defenders behind the castle’s walls. The new camp was placed west of the river, leaving Takakage with a divided and beaten force. It took nearly six weeks for Hiroshima castle, the main and newest stronghold of the great Mori domain to surrender to the great national army that Takeda Katsuyori had assembled throughout his vast domains. The water supplies had been cut off and while the fleet could provide some relief, the commanders of the garrison were confronted with the choice of either surrender or sustain a prolonged siege and then a brutal assault.
Attempts to break the Takeda lines and lift the siege took place throughout the spring of 1585, each as fruitless as the one before, the most important one taking place in late May of that year, with 10,000 men of the Mori clan charging across the river and driving the Takeda several miles eastwards before being stopped by the Takeda line of Arquebusiers, over 2,000 at the point of the charge, and then repulsed by a counteroffensive led by Katsuyori and Nobufusa themselves. With over 3,000 left on the fields dead or wounded, the war was over.
Kobayakawa himself returned to the camp wounded and shocked, pale and with his spirit gone, according to the several accounts of the battle that survived the period. The night of the battle, back at the Mori camp, the Mori general took his sword and committed suicide in the presence of his most loyal retainers. Thus was the end of Kobayakawa Takakage, Great River of the Mori clan.
His brother Kikkawa Motoharu would die two days later on the field, during a Takeda attempt to take the Mori camp. [2]
The official surrender took place on June 20th of 1585 according to various sources, being followed by ceremonies of ritual suicide on the behalf of 15 Mori retainers in charge of the defense of the fortress, only three choosing to change sides and join the Takeda.
While Mori Terumoto found himself with a decimated domain on the losing end of a war with the Great Takeda army, the Mori would not be the last to suffer the strength of the National army, and even the Mori could find a chance to redeem themselves in the years that remained of the Sengoku period.
Notes:
1. An usual practice in Medieval Japan, to adopt an allied Clan’s sons and to give one’s owns on adoption;
2. IOTL they lived enough to take part in the Invasion of Korea in 1592 under Toyotomi Hideyoshi;
Chosokabe Motochika had been the daimyo of Tosa for only a few years when the second anti-Takeda coalition was created and the last major war of the Sengoku period started. Having been born to the Chosokabe clan, vassals of the Ichijo clan of Tosa, he led the rebellion that ousted the last of the Ichijo and unified the province of Tosa from his base at the Koichi plain by 1574, and by 1582 he had unified the entire island of Shikoku. [1]
1582 was also the year in which the coalition of Buzen, Satsuma and Tosa under the Mori, the Shimazu and Chosokabe Motochika himself declared war upon the Takeda of Kai and their eastern allies. But while the war was quick to reach and fall upon the Mori as a rain of fire from above, resulting in the destruction of its armies, the invasion of its domains and the death of its most loyal and capable retainers, for Chosokabe Motochika the war had been simply limited to his small island of Shikoku, where he was able to quickly dispose of his enemies and unify the island in a series of undemanding campaigns against the forces of Kono Michinao of Iyo province, who later fled to a safe haven in Otomo Sorin’s domains.
The fall of the Mori in 1585 nevertheless meant an end to the second anti-Takeda coalition, as the most powerful partner in the alliance had been defeated, and an end to Chosokabe Motochika’s comfortable way of life. In late 1585 preparations for the invasion of Shikoku were being made, mainly at the ports of Hiroshima and Osaka, where the reassembled Mori armies were forming as part of the treaty between Terumoto and Katsuyori. The daimyo of Buzen would lead the invasion of Shikoku and Tosa himself, as part of the spearhead offensive made by his own 20,000 men contingent.
The actual invasion came on February of 1586, when the new Mori army invaded the island, only finding token resistance. The state of the Chosokabe army was deplorable; 10,000 poorly armed men with low morale. The state of the outdated equipment and the lack of cohesion found in the enemy army surprised the Mori invaders, to the point in which further reinforcements were later cancelled due to the need to save men from the upcoming campaign in Kyushu.
Motochika was found to be incredibly eager to negotiate with Terumoto and Katsuyori when they approached his castle, and the conditions were found to be most generous and acceptable; the defeated daimyo would be allowed to keep his province of Tosa as well as his head, an offer Motochika was not inclined to refuse.
Six weeks after the invasion, the provinces of Shikoku had been pacified and a fleet was being readied for the reinforcement of Otomo Sorin’s positions in northern Kyushu, where the Christian daimyo of Bungo had held for nearly three years with incredible tenacity.
In the island of Kyushu, the second in the Empire of the Sun in importance, size and population, existed two rival realms in the final years of the Sengoku period.
To the south laid the province of Satsuma, a domain governed by the Shimazu under warlord Yoshihisa from his capital of Kagoshima; and in the north there was the realm of Bungo, under the rule of daimyo Otomo Sorin, who by 1582 By this point, Sôrin could claim control of Bungo, most of Buzen, Chikuzen, Chikugo, and considerable influence over Higo and Hizen. Shimazu Yoshihisa on the other hand only controlled his rich province of Satsuma, but by alliance the southern clans, enemies and rivals of the Otomo, fought under the banner of Yoshihisa. [2]
Otomo Sorin, known in western sources as Francisco Otomo, following the expansion of his realm in the 1550s and 1560s, took interest in religious affairs when in the decade of the 1570s he became involved in the activity of the Jesuit missionaries within his realm despite the resistance of several retainers and his own wife [3]. The issue of Christianity as well as the rivalry with the Shimazu, which had become a force to be reckoned with in those years, plunged the Christian daimyo and his realm into a crisis and an eventual war against the Shimazu as part of the second Anti-Takeda coalition.
Even before the Mori, the Shimazu and the Chosokabe had allied against the Takeda of Kai, Otomo Sorin had been approached, first by Shingen and then by Katsuyori, with the prospect of an alliance to keep the Mori in check, a proposition that the lord of Bungo was quick to accept.
Limited operations had been undertaken in the island of Kyushu in the late 1570s, the Shimazu invasion of Hyuga and occupation of Sadowara had let to the fleeing of the Ito lord of Hyuga, who sought refuge in the Otomo lands; Then followed a limited war that was interrupted when news of a gathering of Mori troops near Buzen and the Otomo took defensive positions. A general war was averted by the second entrance of the Takeda army in Kyoto, this time under Katsuyori, a threat too great for the Mori at the time.
War would nonetheless come three years later, and this time Kyushu was not spared.
The Satsuma had consolidated their gains in Hyuga province, which prompted the impetuous Otomo Yoshimune (Constantinho) and his retainers to launch a general invasion of southern Kyushu in 1581, with as many as 40,000 men under his command. The father followed the son, upon whom the nominal rule of the realm had been delegated, and the clan marched as a family.
The invasion, followed by a vicious campaign of destruction of Buddhist and Shinto Shrines and Icons through Hyuga, caused discontent amongst the Otomo ranks and the local population, a fact that did not stop the father and son team from crossing the Omura river and besieging the castle of Taka-Jo, under the command of Shimazu Yoshihise’s brother, Iehisa. The siege was short as the numerically superior Otomo army allowed them to overwhelm the fortress after thirteen days, a period short enough to be considered a victory but too slow for the Otomo, who wished to crush the Shimazu and create their Christian realm of Kyushu as rapidly as possible. [4]
This rush and the overconfidence of the Otomo retainers and lords would nonetheless result in the disaster of Mimigawa. [5]
On September of 1582 50,000 men of the Otomo clans stood near the Mimigawa river after their success at Taka-Jo castle and a series of maneuvers by which the Shimazu had driven north and eluded the Otomo until that day. Yoshihisa only had 30,000 men under his command. Tawara Chikataka, relative and retainer of the Otomo, was as impetuous and impatient as his masters, and had the Otomo army under his command at Mimigawa, while the Shimazu army was led by Yoshihisa and his brother Yoshihiro, both very capable and accomplished tacticians.
Adopting a defensive posture, the outnumbered Shimazu army was inviting an attack. Tawara saw this as a sign of weakness and considering the battle to have been won already, led a charge with the entire Otomo army upon the Shimazu troops at the Taka area. The sheer force of the attack tore apart the center of the Shimazu line and several generals fell along with thousands of men; it seemed to spell the ruin of the Shimazu clan. But the catastrophe did not fall upon Yoshihisa.
The Shimazu daimyo was not the kind of man to flinch or panic and refused to take his banner one inch back and stood firm, rallying his faltering men and proving the kind of general he was. Yoshihisa ordered the troops at his flanks to charge at the Otomo flanks in a pincer movement. The Ôtomo levies panicked and suddenly the battle had developed into a rout, with the Shimazu mercilessly riding won their defeated enemy as they fled north. Hundreds if not thousands were drowned attempting to cross the Mimigawa.
Over 20,000 men of the Otomo camp lay dead at the battlefield, most along the Mimigawa, after the battle, including Tawara Chikataka and several other retainers. As the Otomo flee northwards, back to the safety of their domain, Shimazu Yoshihisa marches through Hyuga and central Kyushu rallying support for his campaign against the Otomo as his popularity and reputation soars.
By 1583, he is able to launch an invasion of the Otomo domain proper.
Notes:
1. Motochika unified the island under his rule by 1575 IOTL but was later forced to give back some of the new lands by Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasion in 1585;
2. This is as IOTL;
3. Ditto;
4. Similar events took place IOTL in the 1570s as well;
5. The ITTL battle of Mimigawa is based on the IOTL battle of Mimigawa, but ITTL is 1582 rather than 1578.
***
This Town is Not Big Enough for the Both of Us
In the weeks that followed the disaster otherwise known as the Battle of Mimigawa, the island of Kyushu became a scenario to a convulsion of events and a comedy of errors better known as the Shimazu-Otomo war.
As what remained of the Otomo Armies began a hurried and desperate retreat to the safety of the Otomo castles, the marauding armies of Shimazu Yoshihisa wasted no time before regrouping and restarting their campaign by reinvading Higo and Hyuga, occupying the castles and towns of Obi and Minamata and engaging in a series of diplomatic and military operations in central Kyushu with the intent of supplanting the Otomo sphere of influence in the island.
Hyuga offered little resistance after the destructive march of the Otomo army back and forwards. Several warriors and local lords joined the Shimazu were wise enough to see which way the wind was blowing and offered their fealty. Higo nevertheless proved to be a tougher nut to crack, and offered at least some resistance in the form of Sagara Yoshiaki of Minamata, the main daimyo of the region, which refused to allow the passage of the Shimazu armies through his land.
The stand at Minamata led to a five day siege which the Shimazu armies won by force of arms and speed against the smaller and unprepared force of Yoshiaki. The Lightning Campaign of late 1582 and early 1583 led to the near complete conquest of Higo and Hyuga by the Shimazu, thus giving Yoshihisa control of the southern half of the island.
These campaigns, occurring in the aftermath of Mimigawa, were at the same time joined by the entrance of yet another Kyushu daimyo into the scene: Ryuzoji Takanobu of Hizen, who took the opportunity given to him by the Shimazu to expand his own domains at the expense of the Otomo, the traditional regional power. [1]
Now the scene was dominated by two rising powers, the Ryuzoji and the Shimazu, taking advantage of the downfall of the Otomo yet finding themselves at opposing ends of a fight; had they joined forces or even ignored each other, the Otomo would have been vanquished in the spring and the summer of 1583 before the Takeda could come in their aid, but blind ambition proved to be a greater foe for Shimazu Yoshihisa’s and Ryuzoji Takanobu’s dreams of a Kyushu unified under their Banners. The peninsula of Shimabara, in western Kyushu, had been under the rule of the daimyo Arima Haronobu since the death of the previous lord, Arima Yoshisada.
Haronobu’s northern neighbor, Ryuzoji Takanobu, had first made his expansionists intensions clear in the late 1570s, when Shimabara was first threatened and the daimyo was forced to follow the same policy as his uncle Omura Sumitada, and ask for the help of the Jesuits. Portuguese weapons and ships in 1579 following Haronobu’s baptism as Protasio gave him time. The intervention and mediation of Otomo Sorin finally put an end to the conflict. Then the battle of Mimigawa took place. [2]
Takanobu’s invasion of the Shimabara domain came in earnest in late 1582 following the defeat of the Otomo at the hands of the Shimuza; as two vultures preying on a carcass, the Shimazu and the Ryuzoji launched their hordes upon the Otomo domains. The Shimazu began expanding their areas of influence over Hyuga and Higo as the Ryuzoji did the same attacking the Arima and the Omura at Hizen while also trying to expand their domains east of Hizen, invading the province of Chikugo, defeating the undermanned Otomo garrisons there and entering northern Higo, just in time to meet with the invading armies of Shimazu Iehisa.
Thus what had initially begun as a two way war in the contest of a national civil war, had now turned into a regional three-way war for regional supremacy.
The spring of 1583 saw what was left of the Otomo armies and establishment barricading themselves at Funai castle, gathering men and supplies, while the Shimazu were forced to engage the more assertive Ryuzoji before dealing a coup de grace to the Otomo. Ryuzoji Takanobu, in the meantime, had made the tactical mistake of splitting his forces, sending only a token force of 6,000 men to Shimabara castle while 12,000 soldiers stood at Higo.
Even when Nabeshima Naoshige’s army of 12,000 men outnumbered anything that Shimazu Iehisa could bring to northern Higo, the fact that Shimabara refused to fall meant that a significant amount of men and resources were being diverted to the Shimabara peninsula when they were needed in the east. Both Nabeshima Naoshige and Shimazu Iehisa were first engaged in a series of meaningless skirmishes until the battle of Yanagawa, near Yanagawa castle.
The Ryuzoji had conquered that castle upon their invasion of the Chikugo province in early 1583, but Shimazu Iehisa was aggressive enough to push the numerical superior Ryuzoji northwards from Higo towards Chigoku through a series of flanking maneuvers and feigned attacks through late July of 1583.
The ultimate defeat of the Ryuzoji army, 4 times bigger than their opponent force, came in early August of 1583 as the two forces were approaching Yanagawa castle; Shimazu Iehisa launched a bold attack with his 2,500 men through the unprepared enemy lines. The swordsmen reached the enemy command post where Takanobu and his generals were discussing the battle strategy and the rest was history.
Only two men were nowhere to be found in the ensuing carnage: General Nabeshima Naoshige, whom had been supposedly sidelined and overruled by Takanobu earlier that day as the daimyo took supreme command of his armies; and Ryuzoji Masaie, Takanobu’s son, who was camping with a minor force north of the Castle and did not take part of the battle or the rout that took place following the massacre at the command post. [3]
Peace was brokered between the Ryuzoji and the Shimazu. Masaie and Naoshige agreed to evacuate Higo and Shimabara, therefore ending the siege of Shimabara Castle, whereas their occupation of the Chigoku province would be accepted as a fait acommpli. September of 1583 was the zenith of Shimazu Yoshihisa’s power; the Otomo could not move from their castle at Funai until the Takeda were done with the Mori, and the Ryuzoji had been eliminated as a threat to his dreams of domination. Now, the only true menace stood to the other side of the island, at the castle of Funai.
Funai Castle was built in 1562 by order of the lord of Funai, Otomo Sorin, and had since then served as a stronghold and capital of the vast Otomo domains that stretched through northern Kyushu. 20 years later, what had once been the most powerful clan of the island found itself on the run, preparing to make a desperate stand at their own fortress against an invading army that had once only been a backwater and a minor threat.
The once mighty Ôtomo shichikakoku no zei, The Seven Province Host of the Otomo, was now mostly in ruins; the domains predated by its neighbors, the clan’s allies deserting their master along with several disloyal retainers that have chosen either to be neutral or ally with the invading Shimazu. [4]
While Otomo Sorin had been the most powerful daimyo of Kyushu and his domains the most vast, with the north and east of the island under his banner, the lord had never achieved the same control over his retainers and vassals as other daimyos of the same period had, in many cases these retainers being more like allies than vassals and operated with such a degree of independence that some were like daimyo themselves. This was the case of minor clans such as Tachinaba and the Tamura. Embracing Christianity and the Portuguese missionaries that brought it with them did not do much to endear him with his vassals either.
Winter was rapidly approaching in late 1583, yet the Shimazu wanted to move fast after their lightning victory over the Ryuzoji, and thus their armies gathered once more at Hyuga with the intention of rallying a big enough army to march upon Funai, on the northeastern corner of Kyushu.
The invasion was swift, as 30,000 men carrying the Shimazu banners marched into Bungo and facing no resistance, reached Funai by late January of 1584, laying siege to the Otomo fortress as they arrived.
The third stage of the Kyushu campaign began in the winter of 1584, when Shimazu Yoshihisa led an invasion of Bungo in northern Kyushu. Between September of 1582 and January of 1584, that is nearly 15 months, the Otomo waited and observed as their rivals, the Ryuzoji and the Shimazu, launched themselves at each other’s throats for the opportunity of devouring the carcass of the Otomo domains. The time was nevertheless well spent by the Otomo, who did their best to rally their allies and troops, prepare and improve their defenses and gather supplies as emissaries sent to the east returned with nothing with bad news; the Takeda and the Mori were still battling and no reinforcements could arrive.
Of the mighty 50,000 men strong army that marched on Satsuma over a year ago, the Otomo have only been able to save a force with figures just above the 20,000 men. No immediate help or reinforcements are expected. The Portuguese are allegedly helping the Christian daimyo of Shimabara in the west, but they are unable to reach Funai castle. The Takeda are otherwise engaged, and several former vassals are either deserting, making deals with the Shimazu or preoccupied with defending their own domains, as is the case of the Tachinaba at Buzen.
The siege itself, in its length and rather colorful development have given the siege of Funai a rather distinguished place in the history of the Otomo Clan, Bungo province and the island of Kyushu as a whole. The campaign started when an impatient Shimazu Yoshihisa offered the Otomo the chance to surrender, to which the aging lord of Bungo replied with a long and rather messy letter that most sources call a “long list of thinly veiled insults, overtly dramatic dares and even a reference to having Kagoshima burnt”
Having lost his temper, Shimazu hurled 10,000 tired and poorly organized men at Funai trying to force an entrance. The results were rather miserable. A second and a third attempt to enter Funai by force brought similar results, with the added complication of having lost a week in the attacks, taken several casualties and needing nearly two weeks to recover.
While Yoshihisa still fell outraged, he was persuaded to continue the campaign with a more conventional tactic of simply starving the defenders.
The Otomo were nevertheless prepared and had enough supplies to resist the Shimazu for considerable time. Sorin was nevertheless determined not to sit down and wait for help until the Takeda were able to ‘rescue’ him. An even more bizarre episode than the one involving the letter took place on May of 1584, when a retainer of the Otomo whose name has been long forgotten by history, led his men under the cover of a rainstorm into the Shimazu camp and set a number of fires and generally created chaos.
The ensuing anarchy at the Shimazu clan claimed the life of over 500 men. The similarity of this tale with a similar move made during the Fourth siege of Odani 12 years earlier, in which an Asakura retainer under similar circumstances achieved the same at the Oda camp, has led some to doubt the veracity of either tell, even when most tellings of the story include said tale as historical.
Nevertheless, just as happened at Odani, the Otomo were unable to take advantage of the fiasco at the enemy camps, as the attack that followed was bogged down and ultimately unsuccessful due to its lack of organization, hasty execution and the poor terrain and weather conditions that the storm had left, making the battlefield hardly suitable for an operation such as the Otomo launched after the camp fires. The next months, the siege would continue more or less as a chaotic and fluctuating maelstrom of attacks and counterattacks as the results proved more and more indecisive. [5]
Notes:
1. This happened after the IOTL Battle of Mimigawa as well;
2. This is more or less IOTL;
3. Nabeshima Naoghige IOTL took the chance presented by Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasion and the weakness of Takanobu’s heir Masaie to switch sides and join with Toyotomi’s army; ITTL, he throws his lot with the Shimazu;
4. Due to age and the controversy over the conversion to Christianity, Otomo’s domain suffered a lot of decay around this time, just as IOTL;
5. The Shimazu had indeed conquered most of Kyushu and only the Otomo remained by the time Toyotomi invaded in 1587; the Otomo avoided conquest by allying with Toyotomi, but ITTL the Takeda are taking too long and thus the Otomo are directly threatened by the Shimazu Armies;
The Cavalry Arrives
Siege operations continued during June of 1584 at an alarmingly slow pace. Following the disaster suffered in their camps on may, the Shimazu army was forced to move and fortify their positions around Funai, changing their tactic to a plan of out-waiting the Otomo until they ran out of supplies and dissent spread through their ranks.
Morale and strength within the walls of Funai castle began to wane by the third week of June, and with a lack of truly loyal allies and retainers, support for the Otomo began to dissipate and desertion began to be a common practice amongst the defending forces.
Nevertheless, Shimazu Yoshihisa refused to accept deserters, with the intention of reducing Funai’s foodstuffs as quickly as possible. The desperate situation was of course worsened by the absence of Sorin’s son, Yoshimune, who had gone to Kyoto to plead for assistance and relief from the Takeda clan. The disappearance of the daimyo’s son along with several retainers, along with renewed attempts by the Shimazu to encircle and break through the fortress caused panic to spread like wild fire within the walls of the castle.
Emboldened by the growing calamities falling upon Funai and angered after weeks of waiting, the Shimazu generals finally convince Yoshihisa to lead an attack against the fortress, not with the intention of overwhelming the defenses but of destroying the will of the defenders.
The attack that came on June 22nd of 1584, began with a double thrust against the Otomo camps north of the Castle, and was only interrupted on June 23rd, when disturbing news arrived from the eastern shore of Bungo: Otomo Yoshimune had returned, with a relief force sent by Takeda had landed and was ready to march to the defense of Funai.
The rumors that arrived on the Shimazu camp on June 23rd paralyzed operations against the Otomo for three days until they were confirmed. Yet the panic had been to a degree senseless; the Takeda auxiliary force under Urano Shigenari numbered only 3,000 men, all that could spared from the main campaign against the Mori.
The rumors, mostly spread by agents of the Otomo clan, nevertheless proved quite useful for the defenders of Funai: first, it stopped the Shimazu attack for a moment, forcing them to regroup in panic; and secondly, it temporarily restored the morale of the Otomo clan, while buying some time to allow for the Takeda force to arrive and the Otomo forces to regroup. The 3,000 warriors that arrived carrying the Takeda banners boosted the Otomo numbers just north of 18,000 men. Their presence was nonetheless enough by itself to convince the defenders to resist until a proper relief force could arrive. Yet even this boost was not enough to keep the number of deserters from rising, and retainers of the peace party to meet and whisper in the darkness.
Two more skirmishes in mid-July of 1584 cleared the path for a major battle on a date that most experts agree to be July 19th of that year. In the main island of Honshu, the Takeda had begun their grand invasion of the Mori domains and were besieging Hiroshima and Tottori castle, whereas in Shikoku, Chosokabe Motochika calmly waited, sitting on the throne of a unified island of Shikoku.
Across the Oita River, the two armies set camps in anticipation for the battle. As the war in the east was seemingly approaching its climax, the two most powerful clans of Kyushu decide to end the stalemate in a single move, with the intention of presenting their victory as a fait acomplii to whoever stands victorious in the Honshu showdown.
The battle begins in the early hours of the day, when Urano Shigenari spearheads the Otomo offensive with his 3,000 men, with the support of 2,000 Otomo infantry soldiers, and despite the numerical superiority of the enemy, great progress is made on the battlefield in the first moments of the attack. The tide does not turn until midday, until after the Otomo commit up to 7,000 troops on the attack, when Yoshihisa finally reacts by flanking Shigenari with his reserves while the main troops keep the Otomo, father and son, occupied at the center of the formation.
Seven hours after the beginning of the table, both sides of the Oita River are covered by the remains of both camps, lost banners, armors, spears and bodies. Urano Shigenari and 2,000 of his men lay dead on the battlefield along with 1,200 soldiers of the Otomo clan and 1,350 of the Shimazu army.
Beaten and hopeless, what remains of the once great Otomo host retreats to the other side of the Oita River leaving a trail of blood and despair behind them.
***
Truce
Following the massacre that took place on late July, the siege of Funai reaches its final stages. The fate of the entire campaign and even of the Otomo clan had been risked in one last gamble and Sorin had lost. After the disaster on the battlefield and the obliteration of the Otomo forces, Shimazu Yoshihisa sees his chance and reverses his policy on deserters: by accepting them now, the defending forces are now even more depleted and weakened. A week after the battle along the Oita River, only the most loyal of retainers remain behind their master, whereas a majority of allies and former vassals have fled to save their lives.
The ceasefire that took place on the first week of August of 1584 signaled not only the fall of Funai and the end of the campaign, but an effective end of the Otomo dominance over Kyushu and their direct control over the northern half of the island. With the Ryuzoji controlling the west and the Shimazu the south and the center, the domains of Otomo Sorin and his son were torn asunder; several vassals and allies such as Akizuke Takezane had rebelled during the course of the war, dissent was running high, and with the loss of their capital, the fate of the once great clan was sealed.
Shimazu Yoshihisa’s greatest victory would nevertheless prove to be only temporary. Even as a definitive military triumph had been achieved, there were more pressing matters at hand: firstly, news had arrived from Honshu: Tottori castle was about to fall and Hiroshima, the Mori capital, was directly threatened by the Takeda. While this meant that it would take the Takeda army months if not years to directly threaten his domains in Kyushu, if the Mori were defeated, then nothing else in the entire empire could stop Takeda Katsuyori. The only choice left was to present the unification of Kyushu as a done deal and negotiate with the Takeda daimyo upon his arrival. [1]
The second main problem was the general situation with Kyushu itself: the Otomo domains in Bungo had disintegrated, but where order once reigned now chaos prevailed. Several if not most of the former vassals and allies were in open rebellion and seeking their independence from the Otomo, and in many cases, entering into alliances with the other two clans, the Shimazu and the Ryuzoji.
Even worse, matters in the west with the Ryuzoji clan had not been properly dealt with or even concluded, to the point in which the situation at Hizen and Chikugo were even worse than when the Shimazu had left a year before. Upon the Ryuzoji defeat at the hands of Yoshihisa and the death of his son Ryuzoji Takanobu, a power struggle erupted, mere weeks after stability had returned to the region.
The eldest son Masaie, a weak and indecisive man, lost the allegiance of the most powerful retainer of the clan, Nabeshima Naoshige, who formed an alliance with Masaie’s brother Ryuzoji Ietane. What at first seemed a common war of succession over the lands and titles of the Ryuzoji clan became a regional conflict that engulfed three provinces in western Kyushu (Hizen, Chikugo and Chikuzen) as minor daimyos and retainers began to take and exchange allegiances in the midst of the Ryuzoji war. [2]
By August of 1584, Nabeshima Naoshige was in alliance with two of the Ryuzoji brothers, the strong willed Ietane and the Christian sympathizer Ienobu, as well as the Christian daimyo Arima Harunobu of Shimabara, and Akizuki Tanezane of Chizuken.
Ryuzoji Masaie, the weakest brother was assisted by his uncle Ryuzoji Nobuchika and a coalition of local daimyos that remained loyal to him, but he nonetheless had several military and political disadvantages that forced him to ask for the help of Shimazu Yoshihisa on September of 1584.
Shimazu Yoshihisa intervened in earnest a month later, but after years of war, his strategy revolved around diplomacy at first, hoping that his recent victory over the Otomo would compel the rebel factions to accept his authority and submit to him.
The lord of Kagoshima was nevertheless sadly mistaken. His token force of 5,000 men arrived at Saga castle was barely enough to deter Nabeshima and his allies, but it showed that the de facto ruler of the island had chosen a side.
Notes:
1. It’s certainly taking a lot of effort to subdue the Otomo: partly due to me wanting to make it more dramatic, partly because of poor luck and overconfidence;
2. This is the one part of the TL in which I’m complicating something rather than simplifying it: IOTL Toyotomi invaded, Nabeshima Naoshige switched sides and he was rewarded with the old Ryuzoji domain, whereas ITTL, there’s a bloody succession struggle;
The war in western Kyushu, representing more than an inner power struggle but a great battle for the domination of the island, while starting as a minor nuisance to the Shimazu designs for regional domination, had become by late 1584 into a bloody labyrinth without exit.
The bulk of the Shimazu forces were elsewhere, pacifying the island, overseeing the recently conquered or occupied territories and preparing the clan’s armies and fortresses for the eventuality of a Takeda invasion. Thus, when Nabeshima Naoshige began his final drive towards Saga on October of 1584, a much delayed move thanks to months of preparation, diplomatic battles between daimyos and minor skirmishes throughout the province, the Shimazu-Ryuzoji forces were barely able to take the blunt force of the attack.
Furthermore, thanks to his alliance with the Christian daimyos of Shimabara and Nagasaki, Arima Harunobu and Omura Sumitada, Nabeshima and the two rebel Ryuzoji brothers were in alliance with the Jesuits and were able to exploit their support to obtain weapons and even the help of Portuguese ships, thanks to the ambition and greed of some of the European captains. The three sieges of Saga are of course only a minor conflict within a regional conflict for the domination of Kyushu, whereas the main battle for the domination of Japan takes place elsewhere.
The distraction that keeps Shimazu Yoshihisa occupied in a minor dispute to the other side of the island is nonetheless the perfect opportunity for the fallen Otomo clan. News of the siege operations in the western provinces arrived to Bungo in only a matter of days, and thus Otomo Sorin hatched his plan. Abandoning his place of mandatory retirement, Sorin left Usuki on November of 1584 in the company of the few loyal servants that had been allowed to stay by Yoshihisa, and upon eluding the Shimazu guards and soldiers at the town and throughout the province, Sorin finally reached Osaka in early December, with the intention of meeting with Katsuyori himself at Hiroshima.
Otomo Sorin accompanies Takeda Katsuyori in his conquest of the Mori Domains throughout 1585, serving as an involuntary witness as he waited for his chance to talk to the rising super-daimyo on his path to unification, and convince him to intervene in the tribulations of Kyushu on his behalf.
The last days of Tottori and the entirety of the Hiroshima campaign passed, as did the surrender and near destruction of the Mori clan, with Sorin as an unwilling and impatient spectator yet he waited. It wasn’t until the summer of 1585 that the war against the Mori was concluded and the Takeda Armies were free to eliminate the last remnants of resistance to Katsuyori’s rule: the Chosokabe and the Shimazu.
Chosokabe Motochika was the first to suffer the consequences of his disobedience, and following a six weeks campaign he saw his domains occupied and reduced to his province of Tosa, denying him the dream of unifying Shikoku once more. [1] The rush campaign through Buzen and Shikoku was followed by the invasion of Kyushu on September or 1586, with over 30,000 men under the personal command of Takeda Katsuyori while his ally Mori Terumoto joined him with a host of 60,000 troops.
In the time between Otomo Sorin’s escape to Kyoto and the arrival of the Great Takeda army, Shimazu Yoshihisa spent his resources consolidating his position in the island and pacifying the provinces that refused to acknowledge his rule. The rebellious daimyo of the north had been crushed just in time for the Shimazu to barely be prepared to meet the Takeda, and even then, the Ryuzoji succession war still raged in the western provinces when Yoshihisa was forced to leave his allies to his own devices. Having to leave his allies to prepare his own forces would cost them the war, as Nabeshima Naoshige captures Saga two months later, on August of 1585.
Following the landings at Northern Kyushu, the Takeda and Mori forces advanced southwardly at fast pace, facing little to no resistance from the Shimazu armies. With his numbers just barely north of 40,000 men, Yoshihisa decides to abandon his conquest in Bungo and Katsuyori raises his banners over Funai Castle by mid-September, being followed by Mori Terumoto and Otomo Sorin.
The conquering armies march through Hyuga effortlessly as the Shimazu prepare for the inevitable, fortifying their positions at home, at their capital of Kagoshima.
The only resistance before Satsuma proper is invaded is seen at the Sendai River on October of 1586, when Shimazu loyalists under Niiro Tadamoto led a fanatical charge against the vastly superior Takeda army, delaying their advance by a day but losing nearly 500 men and his own life before his forces were forced to retreat.
Kagoshima became the main target on November of 1586, and as winter approached, it was feared that a prolonged siege would take place as had happened during the wars against the Mori and the Uesugi. Nevertheless, the final conflict is anticlimactic. Even though over 30,000 men were ready to fight the Takeda Juggernaut, Yoshihisa saw his fate sealed and took the most reasonable road: surrendering to Takeda Katsuyori as his armies surrounded Kagoshima from land and sea. [1]
Notes:
1. This was not particularly more complicated for the Takeda Army than for the Toyotomi Army of IOTL, but there’s a lot more drama in the prologue to the invasion;
Shimazu Yoshihisa, who had for nearly two years come closest of any daimyo to achieve the unification of Kyushu, presented himself with his head shaved and with a submissive attitude at the Takeda Clan, presenting his respects to the son of Shingen.
The Shimazu domain was reduced to Satsuma, Osumi and southern Hyuga and most lives spared, while Yoshihisa would be forced to abdicate and his younger brother Yoshihiro would take the reign of the Clan.
The Otomo domains were restored, but the clan lost most of their power and influence, remaining as an empty shell, becoming puppets of the Takeda Clan in Kyushu with little power by themselves, as had happened to the Uesugi relocated in Kanto.
Peace was elsewhere forced down upon the people of Kyushu: the minor lords that refused to obey were punished and their land redistributed amongst the loyal generals and the local daimyos that became part of the Takeda camp. The last include men like Nabeshima Naoshige, virtual lord of Hizen and Chikugo, joined by his vassals, the Ryuzoji brothers.
An unexpected effect of the new system of allegiances was the growth of the Christian influence in Kyushu, especially in the west and in the north, as the catholic daimyos of Nagasaki, Bungo and Shimabara saw their influence grow and the Catholic faith brought mainly by the Portuguese and the Jesuits soon expanded through the island, especially in ports such as Nagasaki, Hakata (later Fukuoka) and Kagoshima. The path to Unification had been cleared and the only group not directly under the rule of the Takeda banners was those daimyo of the west and the north in Honshu, whom Katsuyori would visit soon enough. [1]
Notes:
1. This is a rather similar result to what happened IOTL except for the stronger Christian presence and a stronger puppet Otomo domain;
By the winter of 1586, peace had returned to the empire of Japan, as all the lords of the Great Clans, the Uesugi, the Shimazu, the Mori, the Otomo and so many others fall under the banners of the Takeda Clan and the marching armies of Takeda Katsuyori.
But even as the daimyo of Kai returns to Kyoto in the spring of 1587 at the head of an ever victorious conquering army, a small quarter of the nation remains independent from the central government at the Imperial Capital: the North. Beyond the western borders of the Takeda and Uesugi domains at Echigo and Kanto, beyond the control of the great lords of central and western Honshu, the local clans acted with great autonomy and in many times with indifference to events in the central provinces, even as Takeda Shingen and Katsuyori began their quest to bring the nation under one banner. The destruction of the Hojo and the Uesugi, the return of the Uesugi to the Kanto, all served as signs to show them the shape of things to come. The northern provinces of Dewa and Mutsu were ruled by several warring clans including the Ashina, the Date, the Nambu, the Hatakeyama, the Mogani and several others.
Two reasons explain why Takeda Katsuyori didn’t bother to subdue the region and its daimyos, or even care about Dewa and Mutsu until the summer of 1588.
Firstly, the Takeda were always preoccupied with more immediate concerns and threats. Following the war against the Uesugi and the Hojo in the 1570s, the Takeda faced the new administrative and military challenges of controlling such a large domain, and then a war against the Mori and the Shimazu. And once this new menace was dealt with, Katsuyori was forced to spend considerable time in Kyoto dealing with the administration of a unified Japan.
Secondly, the region lacked any significant political or economic importance that could have warranted the attention of the Takeda Daimyo. It was the personal ambition of Katsuyori, the goal of having the entire nation under his control, what drove him to the northern confines of Honshu in 1588. Now, as opposed to the bloody wars against the Oda, the Uesugi and the Mori, or the shorter military campaigns against the Shimazu and the Chosokabe, marching from Kyoto to Sendai was more of a political show of will than a military show of strength.
Having destroyed the greatest armies that the rivaling clans could yield on the field, there were no battles left to fight, no one to resist. By July of 1588, the hegemonic power in Mutsu was a Daimyo by the name of Date Masamune, a resourceful and intelligent tactician known as the “One-Eyed Dragon.”
In the years spent between 1573 and 1588, the fight for supremacy in northern Japan had devolved in a two-way war between the Date led by Masamune and whatever coalition was formed to stop him, generally led by the rival Ashina clan. Upon taking the reins of power in 1582, Masamune soon found himself entangled in conflicts with the Ashina, over the defection of several Date retainers, and the traditional rivals of the Date, the Hatakeyama. The wars against these two clans would come to show the great ability and the ruthlessness of the man Masamune. [1]
Having marched south and defeated the Ashina of Aizu in a surprising victory at Hibara, he inflicted a terrible vengeance on the traitors to the clan, putting nearly 800 men of all ages to the sword. News of the massacre soon reached the Ouchi at Obama Castle, causing them to panic and flee. [2]
But his reputation as a warrior without pity came when fighting the forces of Hatakeyama Yoshitsugu, who after failing to negotiate with the young and hot-blooded daimyo, asked his father Terumune to mediate between the two. Yoshitsugu nevertheless kidnapped Date Masamune’s father in a trap. Masamune and his men caught up with them near the Abukuma River. In the ensuing confrontation, Terumune ordered his son and his men to open fire regardless of his own safety. Without hesitating [3], the men fired at the Hatakeyama party, killing everybody including the Hatakeyama lord and Date Masamune’s own father.
Following the incident, Masamune marched upon Nihonmatsu castle. A few months later, a general war erupted as the Hatakeyama rallied the Ashina, the Satake, the Soma and other clans to fight the Date. The coalition would nevertheless prove to be short-lived, as the Satake would be forced to leave the war in order to defend their own lands from the Satomi, upsetting the balance of power and giving the Date the chance to broke new deals and clear his path to regional hegemony. When Katsuyori met Masamune on August of 1588, he had subdued the Soma and was in the process of besieging the Ashina headquarters at Kurokawa. By the end of the operation, the Takeda recognized the Date as the main clan of Mutsu, whereas Masamune presented Kurokawa and an over 2,000 enemy heads on pikes as a sign of respect and vassalage.
The conquest of Aizu and the lands of the Hatakeyama, authorized by Katsuyori in the fall of 1588, would put the Date domain at the height of its power; coincidently just as the Takeda themselves were at the pinnacle of their own.
Notes:
1. IOTL, Masamune took over in 1584;
2. IOTL, Masamune was stopped at the Hibara by Iwashiro Morinuki, not present ITTL;
3. IOTL, two versions exist: a. Masamune hesitated before shooting, and the Hatakeyama lord escaped; b. Masamune did not hesitate, and killed them all...I'm going with version B for ITTL;
The year is 1589, and for the first time since 1467, the beginning of the Onin war and the Warring states period, there is a centralized government at Kyoto under the near absolute authority of Takeda Katsuyori, son of Takeda Shingen, lord of Kai, Shinano and most of central Japan.
This first period of peace and centralized government before the establishment of the official shogunate would be known as the Kofu-Fukuchiyama period, in reference to the two capitals of the Takeda domain: the fortified palace of Tsutsuijigasaki at Kofu (Shingen had never needed a proper castle for his domain) and Fukuchiyama Castle, at which Katsuyori set his residence at Kyoto.
When Takeda Shingen first entered Kyoto in 1573, he settled in the old and strategic Shoryuji castle, which guarded the western gates of Kyoto. It was Katsuyori the one to choose Fukuchiyama castle, originally property of the Yokoyama clan, as his residence in the capital. In his absence, Katsuyori’s uncles Nobukado and Nobuzane served as administrator of the Takeda domains in Kai and Shinano while Katsuyori remained the military leader of the nation.
It is important to notice though, that while Takeda Katsuyori had a nigh absolute power as military governor of Japan, and as son of Shingen, he was a descendant from the Minamoto Clan, Katsuyori was never given the title of Shogun, as his son Nobukatsu was the true heir to the Takeda clan. Thus, even as Katsuyori wielded all the power, he was merely a regent for his son.
Katsuyori’s government, assisted by several veteran retainers and advisors, would last many years after his son Nobukatsu had reached the age of majority, continuing and expanding the intricate and efficient war machine and system of governance that it had taken the great Takeda Shingen 30 years to build.
Amongst the measures initiated in Kai and expanded on a national level by Katsuyori in the late 1580s and early 1590s, there was doing away with the corporal punishment for minor offences, instituting in its place a system of fines - an act that earned him considerable praise from the peasants and townspeople of Kai and all of the country.
Furthermore, the tax system instituted by the Takeda in this early years was the first to tax most of the people evenly (most exempted powerful samurai families and/or religious establishments at the beginning), and with the option of payment in either gold or rice (a forerunner, in some ways, to the later Kandaka system, which assessed the value of the land in terms of a cash unit and determined the size of the land and military obligations each vassal and daimyo owed).
Further measures extrapolated from the rules of the Takeda code of Kai included limitation of the activities of the Ikko-Ikki and the Nichiren Buddhist sects in land directly administered by the Takeda (although not in other domains), and limitations and prohibitions to the abilities of subjects to move freely and communicate with other provinces, restrictions that had existed well before Katsuyori due to the permanent state of war.
As Established by the Takeda House Code:
“The Pure Land Sect and Nichiren Band (tô) are not permitted to engage in religious controversy within our domain (bunkoku). If there are people who encourage such controversies, both the priests and their parishioners will be punished”
Pay proper reverence to the gods and the Buddha. When your thoughts are in accord with the Buddha's, you will gain more power. If your domination over others issues from your evil thoughts, you will be exposed, you are doomed. Next, devote yourselves to the study of Zen. Zen has no secrets other than seriously thinking about birth-and-death.
These policies nevertheless did not affect the activities of Christian missionaries in western and even central Japan, although their activities were frowned upon in Tokyo. This can be attributed to Katsuyori never having displayed the same levels of Buddhist fanaticism that his father had. Christianity thus spread like wildfire in Kyushu and other provinces, in contrast to the monolithic Buddhist hegemony in Shikoku and the growing confrontation between the Zen Buddhism of the Takeda Domain and the more fanatical Ikko-Ikki and Nichiren sects.
Public works that imitated the damming of the Fuji River in the 1560s also took place in the 1590s, the 1600s and again in the 1650s, all with various degrees of success but only a few matching to the feat that was the Fuji damming project as built by Shingen.
The Third Shogun, Takeda Nobukatsu, was, as his father before him and the great Takeda Shingen before him, a follower of Buddhism. Thus he devoted himself to the study of Zen, one of the main schools of Buddhism in Japan. And as those of his lineage before him, the third Takeda Shogun was well aware of the dangers of religious sects and their pervasive influence in society.
Buddhism can be divided into two main branches: Theravada (Ancient Teaching), which is widespread in south-east Asia; and Mahayana (Great Vehicle) which is prevalent in eastern Asia.
Mahayana Buddhism, the dominant religion in Japan, can be divided into several sects, which interact in different manners with Shintoism, which has lost popularity since the arrival of Buddhism, and the central government.
Zen Buddhism, seen by the Takeda as an unofficial state religion to be encouraged, is amongst the biggest ones, followed in the early 17th century by Nichiren Buddhism and by the Pure Land Buddhism, which itself contains the more radical True Pure Land School. Tendai and Shingon Schools of Buddhism are also important, but are not seen by the Takeda as a direct threat. (2)
The Nichiren School was founded by the 12th century monk Nichiren, a revolutionary and progressive thinker. The Controversy around the Nichiren sect, besides the fanaticism of some of its members, was caused by Michener’s ideas: that every other Buddhist sect was wrong in its dogma and did not teach the truth path to enlightenment, and that woman could too achieve enlightenment. Nichiren Buddhism is generally noted for its focus on the Lotus Sutra [3] and an attendant belief that all people have an innate Buddha nature and are therefore inherently capable of attaining enlightenment in their current form and present lifetime.
The Pure Land Sects on the other hand, based on the teachings of the Pure Land Sutras. Adherents believe that Amitabha Buddha provided an alternative path towards attaining enlightenment: the Pure Land Path. In Pure Land Buddhist thought, Enlightenment is difficult to obtain without the assistance of Amitabha Buddha, since people are now living in a degenerate era, known as the Age of Dharma Decline. Instead of solitary meditative work toward enlightenment, Pure Land Buddhism teaches that devotion to Amitabha leads one to the Pure Land, where enlightenment can be more easily attained.
The practices of Pure Land Buddhism are particularly popular amongst those considered “impure” such as hunters, fishermen, those who tan hides, prostitutes and so on. Pure Land Buddhism provided a way to practice Buddhism for those who were not capable of practicing other form.
This leads us to the Jodo Shinsu (True Pure Land Sect) and the Ikko-Ikki, its militant wing. Unlike the other Buddhist sects, the True Pure Land rejects Shintoism and any meshing of the Pantheons. At the same time, it discouraged all of the traditional Buddhist practices of the other sects and discouraged Kami (deity) veneration. Relations were extremely bad with the Nichiren sect in particular. Mobs, peasants and farmers along with Shinto priests and local nobles began to rise against Samurai Rule in the 15th century following the teachings of the Jodo Shinsu priest Rennyo [4]. Thus the Ikko-Ikki, the “Single-Minded Leagues” were thus born in the 1480s, and by the decade of the 1570s, as a result of the fanatical extermination campaigns of Oda Nobunaga, would become a highly organized and feared force in Japan.
The provinces of Kaga and Noto were taken in the last decades of the Sengoku period, the first time Japanese provinces were ruled by commoners, and the revolutionary ideas of the Ikko-Ikki spread, thanks to their success and their hold of Ishiyama Hongan-Ji, just outside of Osaka. Warrior monks, peasants, former prostitutes, farmers, ronin that found themselves without purpose given the new peace, local nobles, all were attracted by the militant sect and their growth in the early decades of the 17th century was only equaled by the only other sect that was as dangerous to the central government: Christianity.
Notes:
-Ah! Kamisama!=Oh! my God!
2. Tendai and Shingon are along with Zen and Pure Land, the biggest sects in Japan, part of Mahayana Buddhism;
3. Sutra: rope or thread; a type of literal composition, in Buddhism, refers to the canonical scriptures that are the teachings of Buddha; so, for practical purpose Sutra=Gospel
4. Rennyo (1415-1499), a Buddhism missionary and thinker, was ambivalent and rather neutral to the Ikko-Ikki.
During the years of the Takeda Shogunate, six ports were opened for trade with foreign nations: Hakata (later Fukuoka) and Nagasaki in Kyushu, along with Kagoshima under the Shimazu; Osaka; Sendai in the domains of Date Masamune in the North and Hiroshima under the rule of the Mori Clan.
Hakata was a city of merchants which is believed to be the oldest city in Japan, had benefited from commerce with the Chinese, Korean and other foreign merchants, before decaying as a result of several wars including the Mongol invasions. It was under the rule of Kuroda Nagamasa that the city would become prosperous again, as Takeda Nobukatsu gave the city its role as gateway to the continent. Fukuoka castle was built in the early 1600s on the southern shores of the Naka River. [1]
Nagasaki, the only port under the control of a Kirishitan (Christian) daimyo, was not only ruled by the convert Omura Sumitada, one of the first daimyos to convert and open his domains to the richness of western culture and products, but surrounded as well by catholic domains, as the port served as a gateway for the entrance of European (chiefly Portuguese and Spanish) merchants and missionaries. [2]
The neighboring daimyos, including the Arima of Shimabara and the Ryuzoji, soon became influenced by the preaching and the economic advantages of dealing with the Portuguese, and soon enough Catholicism spread like wildfire through western Kyushu as Nagasaki became a permanent foothold of the Society of Jesus and other minor orders, including the Augustinians and the Benedictines, which arrived in the 1600s and 1610s, decades after the Jesuits.
The policies of Otomo Sorin in the northeast and the Kirishitan daimyos of the west assured that Christianity would become a mayor influence through Kyushu, and it was even rumored that the Nabeshima had converted in order to benefit from the trade and avoid isolation.
In the south, on the other hand, the Shimazu through the port of Kagoshima had learned to deal with the always willing Dutch and the English, and thus now religious links were attached, even if deals with the Portuguese were also made. Despite their debilitation after the Takeda campaign of the 1580s, the Shimazu Clan of Satsuma was able to recover thanks to the seas. Expansion through the seas was encouraged by the daimyo at Kagoshima, and while European merchants were welcomed, military adventures against pirates and the independent kingdom of Ryukyu were undertaken with the tacit consent of the Shogunate. [3]
In 1612, the Shimazu under the daimyo Tadatsune led the invasion of the Chinese vassal Kingdom of Ryukyu. The trade benefits thus acquired, and the political prestige of being the only daimyo family to control an entire foreign country secured the family's position as one of the most powerful daimyo families in Japan at the time.
Hiroshima, under the rule of Mori Terumoto, the man that had built it out of nothing just years before, was somewhat more isolated that the other ports, but was nevertheless given the status of Open Port due to the importance of the Mori Clan within the Shogunate. Inviting a mixture of European merchants, it didn’t gain the importance of some of the other ports, although it did bring considerable profit for its daimyo. [4]
Osaka was one of the reasons Hiroshima never prospered as much as Nagasaki or Kagoshima, as it had been for a considerable part of Japan’s history one of its most important economic and cultural centers. Most interestingly, it also became the center of Japan’s most violent religious controversy in the 1630s and 1640s, as the Ikko-Ikki, who had their base at Ishiyama Hongan-Ji, became involved in several disputes with the Jesuit missionaries that arrived at Osaka. [6]
Finally Sendai, the last of the ports to be opened and the most isolated, was nevertheless the one to grow the faster, thanks to its exclusive trade with the Spanish in Mexico and the Philippines. Date Masamune had through a diplomatic mission sent by him and led by his retainer Hasekura Tsunenaga, made contact with the governments of France, Spain and the Papal States, and assured a constant economic link with the Spanish Empire, as well as the establishment of a Jesuit Dioceses in Sendai. [6]
The building of the Dioceses under Padre Sotelo, an emulation of the policies of the rich daimyos of Kyushu, assured that Christianity would have two entrances to Japan and a lasting influence over its society, economy and culture.
Notes:
1. The Fukuoka area is believed to have been the oldest city of Japan, being the closest port to China and Korea, and is among the oldest non-Jomon settlements in Japan;
2. Omura Sumitada profited greatly from his conversion to Christianity as he gained access to European weapons and products, and under his reign a port was built to accommodate the Portuguese Ships in 1571; IOTL, Nagasaki was briefly under the administration of the Society of Jesus, but that doesn’t happen ITTL;
3.Having seen how the Omura have profited from their alliance with the Europeans, it stands to reason to see the Shimazu try to do the same, and only the Dutch have enough presence in the area, the Spaniards being confined to The Philippines and otherwise stuck in a Monarchic Union with Portugal between 1580 and 1640;
4. This is basically a ploy by the Mori to not fall behind the times and a bribe that the Takeda give them as a “reward”, although there is not as much European traffic for the time being;
5. Osaka is technically the Takeda Port, but the city works as a de-facto city state run by Merchants, Catholic missionaries and Ikko-Ikki Priests;
6. Meaning Sendai profits mainly from trade with the Philippines and Mexico, and later Peru, obtaining Spanish products and gold while receiving copious amounts of bibles, Jesuit and Dominican Missionaries, Coca plants, Coffee, etc;
**
Foundations
Unlike the state of generalized war that had characterized the better part of the Sengoku period from the late 1400s to the mid-1500s, by 1582 the situation in Japan had led to a polarization of the Empire’s daimyos into two separate bands, with a third category of neutrals that exercised little influence in the general outcome of the period.
In the east there was the Takeda domain, under which there were dozens of vassal daimyos and retainers that swelled the ranks of Takeda Katsuyori’s armies; while in the west the triple alliance of Mori Terumoto with the Chosokabe and the Shimazu provided some balance in the internal situation of the empire. Until war was finally unleashed in 1582 that is, and the balance was lost. The war between the Takeda and the second anti-Takeda coalition officially started on the spring of 1582, by a small border skirmish between the Mori domain and the small realm of the Ukita clan, an ally that the Takeda had made in their effort to form a platform from which to invade the Mori provinces in the west.
The conflict between the Ukita and the Mori escalated into a general war within weeks, as the Takeda were preparing themselves for a final war of national unification ever since Katsuyori’s return to Kyoto and the overthrowing of the Ashikaga.
The Mori invasion of the Ukita domain was followed by the outbreak of war in Kyushu, where the Shimazu led their allies, the Sagara, the Ryuzoki and the Ito into an invasion of the Otomo domains in the northern half of the island. What followed was the gathering of the main Takeda armies at Kyoto and of the Mori forces at Hiroshima castle, while the mighty Mori fleet prepared for a surprise attack against the inferior naval forces of the Takeda, mostly composed of allied pirates that had served Shingen in his quests against his old enemies.
Osaka bay was the first scenery of the war, as the Mori fleet obliterated the few ships the Takeda had at their disposal and put Osaka under occupation, with the help of the Ikko-Ikki of Ishiyama Hongan-Ji, old allies of the Mori during the times of Oda Nobunaga.
The swift action was followed by the arrival of the Takeda army under Kosaka Masanobu and Hara Matasane at the outskirts of Osaka on June of 1582. 20,000 men spearheaded the Takeda offensive, while other 15,000 troops under Baba Nobufusa were marching from Kyoto towards the lands of the Mori, in order to gather the combined forces on the eastern borders of the Mori domain and launch an attack against Hiroshima itself.
This could be called the first act of the wars of unification, taking place from June of 1582 to February of 1583. The campaign against Osaka was short-lived, as the Ikko-Ikki broke their league with the Mori, as Takeda Katsusori himself demanded that they honored the alliance established by his father. With only 5,000 men at his disposal, Kuki Yoshitaka, the Mori admiral in charge of the defense of Osaka, retreated and left the city after a few skirmishes, returning to his ships with the decision of continuing the war from the sea. [1]
The successive campaigns against the Mori would nevertheless be far from being as easy as Osaka was.
The march on Hiroshima began on August of 1582, when 40,000 men, including the Ashigaru infantry of 20,000, Samurai troops numbering the 5,000 and the force of Arquebusiers and recruited ronin composing the rest of the grand army, met at the lands of the Ukita, where they were greeted by the Ukita lord and his loyal forces.
The Mori had in the meantime been less than prepared to face the imminent invasion. Forces were gathering in the western provinces of the domain, leaving only 10,000 available for the defense of Hiroshima castle. Reinforcements could not be expected from the west for about another month; the Mori allies in Kyushu were in the meantime preoccupied with their war against Otomo Sorin. Thus, the Siege of Hiroshima began on September of 1583, when 30,000 Takeda soldiers surrounded the city and the castle, only defended by 10,000 men under the able and beloved Kikkawa Motoharu.
As many sieges of the Sengoku period, the operations against Hiroshima during the fall and winter of 1583 were undertaken with extreme care and determination, and like in many cases, such as the ones of Odawara and Nagashima, both the defenders and the attackers proved to be especially determined to emerge victorious. The numerical advantage yielded by the Takeda was to a degree mitigated by the complete naval superiority of the Mori, which assured that the fortress would be well supplied and impossible to attack from the sea. Furthermore, the march from Kyoto had left the Takeda forces exhausted and in need to make preparations for a winter camp around Hiroshima.
Of the 30,000 troops stationed around the main Mori stronghold, only 12,000 of them under Obata Masamori and Tsuchiya Masatugu undertook offensive actions against the fortress, trying to cut the city’s water supply in October of 1583 and to break the city’s weaker defenses later that month, as the rest of the army simply limited itself to wait until the main Mori army under Terumoto and Kobayakawa Takakage arrived. [2]
The arrival did not take place until late October of 1583, shortly after the failed attacks against the castle. Terumoto and Takakage had spent great part of the time that had passed gathering forces from the domains of the Mori, recruiting peasants, Samurai and Ronin into a force of 25,000 men that arrived to the west of the Takeda camp at Hiroshima on October of 1583.
The result was the only important battle of the Hiroshima campaign, which is the battle of Hiroshima that took place on November 2nd of 1582, according to most sources.
Notes:
1. This is a matter of survival for the Ikko-Ikki, of course, so switching sides is not beneath them;
2. While Mori Terumoto is nominally the Daimyo, his uncles Kikkawa Motoharu and Kobayakawa Takakage are in charge of the wars and yield a great deal of influence, being the sons of the great Mori Motonari;
***
Vicissitudes
Vicissitudes
The battle of Hiroshima, as it was later known, was in reality a series of engagements and skirmishes that took place between November 2nd of 1582 and January 3rd of 1583, in the proximities of the port of Hiroshima and the Mori stronghold at Hiroshima castle.
As many sieges of the Sengoku period, a relief force had arrived in rescue of the defenders and thus the fate of the castle would have to be decided on the open battlefield rather than by a bloody assault against the walls of the fortress or by an inner treachery on the behalf of the defendants, as it also usually happened in cases like this.
The first series of skirmishes between Obata Masamori’s right flank and Kobayakawa Takakage’s Samurai relief force took place as an attempt by the Mori army to break the siege evolved into a chain of light attacks and counterattacks. A battle of positioning and maneuver; little casualties and considerable time were wasted, and by the end of the month both sides had achieved very little.
What followed was the arrival of the winter and the entrenchment of the defendants, as Takeda Katsuyori was advised to leave the siege and return once the conditions were more favorable. Feeling the weight of his father’s legacy on his shoulders, Katsuyori, backed by his younger and most reckless generals, refused to leave the Mori domain without a single victory, without a castle taken. With time running out and the winter becoming harsher and colder, Katsuyori pressed for an attack and thus on December of 1582 the bulk of his army center attacked the Mori camps west of the Otagawa river, defended only by 10,000 men of the Mori right wing.
The battle nonetheless turned into a bloodbath as the Takeda ashigaru infantry was unable to break the Mori lines of defenses. Mori Terumoto’s next move was to force a war of attrition upon the Takeda by sending heavy ashigaru reinforcements to the center of his line, adding more cannon to the bloody massacre.
Three days later the Takeda retreated from the Otagawa River with 8,000 dead, including his general Hara Matasane. Momentum was now on the Mori side and Terumoto was very able when the advantage was on his side. Having depleted the left flank of the Takeda army at the Otagawa River, he rallied 14,000 men between Samurai warriors and ashigaru infantry and pressed upon the retreating Takeda forces on their left flank, while the Kobayakawa force provided a distraction by attacking the center of the Takeda line for a third time in less than two weeks.
The result of the fourth battle was the near annihilation of the Takeda left flank and the near end of the siege operations right there and then on December of 1582, but the Takeda forces were able to resist the offensive long enough to organize an effective retreat and consolidate the center of the army into a cohesive force once more.
By mid-December the Takeda were ready to strike at the Mori army once more when disturbing news arrived from the east: a rebellion had begun at the Kanto province and the allied Uesugi Kagetora had been deposed by his half-brother.
After an entire season of battling, the Takeda forces were exhausted and depleted, yet Katsuyori saw victory as imminent, even upon losing over 10,000 men. Practical matters were nevertheless not on Katsuyori’s favor. His armies needed more time to complete the war against the Mori and Hiroshima castle was not about to fall that winter. Besides, the necessity to eliminate any threat to the Takeda hegemony in the west came first.
Thus, in late January of 1583 the Takeda army began to leave, not without having to suffer further attacks by the Mori army as they left the enemy province, but nonetheless reaching the safety of Osaka in February and beginning the march towards the Uesugi domain once the army was rested and reorganized at Kyoto.
***
Otate no Ran
Such was the name given to the civil war that took place at the Uesugi domain of Kanto between December of 1582 and October of 1583.
Uesugi Kagekatsu, second son of Nagao Masakage, Echizen no Kami and husband of Uesugi Kenshin's elder sister Ayahime, was an adopted son of Kenshin along Uesugi Kagetora, who had been Hojo Ujijasu’s seventh son. [1]
While following the Takeda-Uesugi war in the 1570s the Uesugi clan had been left under Kagetora’s guidance in the quality of a virtual Takeda vassal, a strong faction within the clan and the Kanto domain aligned itself with the alternate heir, Kagekatsu for a variety of reasons, from the greed of power to the desire for a return of the past glories of the great house of Uesugi.
Kagekatsu’s rebellion overthrew Kagetora on late December of 1582, taking over Edo castle and several other important Uesugi strongholds and towns, forcing Kagetora to take refuge at Odawara under the protection of the Takeda retainer, Yamagata Masakage. While he only had barely 20,000 men under his service, including the ronin from neighboring provinces that had joined him but without mentioning the drafted Ashigaru infantry of peasants; the war would nonetheless drag for several months for a number of reasons.
Firstly it was the matter of distance, as the Takeda were forced to march from Kyoto to Edo in order to engage the rebel forces. Secondly, it was the war in the west, still raging, that forced the Takeda to leave considerable forces defending Kyoto, Osaka and other western strongholds. Finally, the Takeda that arrived were only 25,000 exhausted and overstretched soldiers that considered the rebellion to be a simple walk in the park, a show of strength.
The first reverse came when Kagekatsu launched a surprise night raid upon the Takeda camp near Odawara, which forced Katsuyori’s army to retreat to the castle and delay the invasion of the Kanto for three weeks as Kagekatsu returned to prepare his forces at Edo.
Ergo, once the invasion began on late July of 1583, the enemy forces left vast areas of territory undefended. The castles between Edo and Odawara were only defended by small garrisons, most of which surrendered by defecting to the Takeda side or after being cut off from supplies and water. Edo castle, the Uesugi capital, was another story whatsoever. While Kagekatsu was not the ablest of commanders, he was a brave and determined leader, and when the tired Takeda army arrived at the walls of Edo to meet the fresh and prepared Uesugi force, the massacre was inevitable.
The first defense saw the Uesugi easily push the Takeda force northwards before falling back to their defensive positions.
What ensued was a bloody onslaught that lasted for another month.
By mid-August, the Takeda force was fully rested and a new offensive began against Edo. This time fate was not on the Uesugi side, as the experienced and battle hardened Takeda commanders smashed at the center of the enemy line with overwhelming force in a swift maneuver. The Takeda superiority in the matter of fire weapons, with the possession of 1,280 Arquebusiers in comparison to Kagekatsu’s 230 was decisive in the outcome of the battle, although also it was the capabilities of the army commanders.
Following the second battle, Kagekatsu headed north with the remains of his army, some 5,000 men, while 8,000 remained defending the castle. The rest, some 7,000 men, had been either killed or had committed suicide in the face of defeat. This included most of Kagekatsu’s ablest and most loyal retainers. Edo would fall a week later, once the supplies had been denied to the castle and the option to either sustain a bloody assault or surrender the fortress was given to the defendants.
Uesugi Kagekatsu was subsequently caught near the northern borders of the Kanto, about to enter the northern provinces of Dewa and Woshu, where he had hoped to live in exile and prepare for further war with the help of the northern daimyo. The rebel daimyo’s end was nonetheless quite different. One final skirmish decimated his army, and as the mercenaries left him, he gathered with the loyal retainers he had left and committed suicide on September 14th of 1583.[2]
Thus was the end of Uesugi Kagekatsu, heir to Uesugi Kenshin, Kanto Kanrei.
Notes:
1. This is IOTL; Echizen no Kami is a title meaning Governor/Lord of Echizen; both adopted sons existed IOTL and so did the Succession struggle in 1579;
2. IOTL Kagekatsu won the succession struggle and Kagetora died; the situation is reversed ITTL due to the divergent circumstances;
***
Asuras
The Takeda army that returned to Kyoto in late 1583, upon clearing the last remnants of Uesugi Kagekatsu’s loyalists at the Kanto, spent much of the winter of 1583 and 1584 reorganizing and expanding its base.
Of the original 24 generals that Takeda Shingen had at its service during his life, from his rise at Kofu to his death at Kasugayama, only 10 remained. And of them, only 6 would take part in the final invasion of the Mori holdings in the west, many having retired to their own domains in the east and replaced by younger and more impetuous successors, who shared Katsuyori’s ambitions and plans for Japan. The army that was built at Kyoto from the ashes of the old one reached an impressive number of 58,000 men by the time the invasion of the west was launched, counting Samurai warriors, Ronin mercenaries, Ashigaru conscripts, cavalry, infantry and Arquebusiers.
The Takeda Grand Army began its march westwards in the spring of 1584, just as the Mori continued their own preparations for the continuation of the war. Just like in the previous year’s campaign, the Takeda army began by launching a swift invasion of the eastern Mori holdings, taking over the smaller castles and annihilating the small forces under the Mori vassals in their eastern border. Thus the path towards Hiroshima Castle, the Mori capital, was cleared. It was in this early part of the campaign that the castles of Takamatsu and Gassan-Toda were taken in the eastern limits of the Mori domain.
Takamatsu was more of a challenge that Hiroshima was in the first campaign, lasting for about 60 days of a prolonged siege in which only a small relief force arrived to provide assistance for the castle. Terumoto had miscalculated the size and force of the new Takeda army and the relief force was crushed after two days, after which the castle was forced to surrender after the ploys employed by Katsuyori to force his victory, from the cutting of the supply lines to the flooding of the castle grounds to turn it into a moss, a tactic which he employed by diverting a nearby river.
What followed were the sieges of Tottori castle, in the northern provinces of the Mori Domain, and the siege of Miki Castle. While Miki’s small garrison proved to be an easy nut to crack, Tottori presented a more difficult target, resisting for 200 days the besieging forces of the Takeda thanks to the reinforcements of the Kikkawa and Kobayakawa clans, as well as the resourcefulness of Kobakayawa.
There were nonetheless two main problems the Mori were forced to face: the issue of the numerical superiority of the Grand Takeda army, which allowed them to overwhelm the fortress and cut its supply lines while a secondary force advanced on Hiroshima and threatened the fortress in a series of skirmishes. Secondly there was the inability to receive further reinforcements since the capital was directly menaced. Starvation was what brought Tottori castle down. With the defending forces decimated and demoralized and the commanders committing seppuku as the possibility of surrender became inevitable, the main Mori stronghold in the north surrendered after 200 days.
Believing in the use of overwhelming force to route the enemy and isolate the castle more than in the need to instantly obliterate the enemy army, Katsuyori’s attack upon the fortress-town of Hiroshima began with a division of his force and by a surrounding move around the Mori armies around the town, this time numbering about 35,000 men, against the nearly 60,000 of Takeda Katsuyori.
***
The lonesome death of Kobayakawa Takakage
Ever since the death of the great Mori Motonari, the reign of Daimyo Mori Terumoto depended upon the two great rivers, his uncles Kikkawa Motoharu and Kobayakawa Takakage, sons of Motonari who had been adopted into allied clans under their rule [1]. The two rivers, both extremely intelligent and able commanders, had for the duration of the war led the Mori domain, but by 1585 the realm was exhausted, the nine provinces bled white and morale had vanished into thin air.
In charge of the defense of Hiroshima was Kobayakawa Takakage, the most intelligent of the two rivers and the most experienced. With the aim of holding the enemy at bay in the hope of receiving reinforcements and winning more time for the preparation of the defenses, the Mori army was prepared to face the Takeda on the open field in the bloody battles of the five villages.
The result was the routing of the enemy army after two days of bloody engagements around the town, after which they were forced to retreat to the west of the Otagawa and leave only 11,000 defenders behind the castle’s walls. The new camp was placed west of the river, leaving Takakage with a divided and beaten force. It took nearly six weeks for Hiroshima castle, the main and newest stronghold of the great Mori domain to surrender to the great national army that Takeda Katsuyori had assembled throughout his vast domains. The water supplies had been cut off and while the fleet could provide some relief, the commanders of the garrison were confronted with the choice of either surrender or sustain a prolonged siege and then a brutal assault.
Attempts to break the Takeda lines and lift the siege took place throughout the spring of 1585, each as fruitless as the one before, the most important one taking place in late May of that year, with 10,000 men of the Mori clan charging across the river and driving the Takeda several miles eastwards before being stopped by the Takeda line of Arquebusiers, over 2,000 at the point of the charge, and then repulsed by a counteroffensive led by Katsuyori and Nobufusa themselves. With over 3,000 left on the fields dead or wounded, the war was over.
Kobayakawa himself returned to the camp wounded and shocked, pale and with his spirit gone, according to the several accounts of the battle that survived the period. The night of the battle, back at the Mori camp, the Mori general took his sword and committed suicide in the presence of his most loyal retainers. Thus was the end of Kobayakawa Takakage, Great River of the Mori clan.
His brother Kikkawa Motoharu would die two days later on the field, during a Takeda attempt to take the Mori camp. [2]
The official surrender took place on June 20th of 1585 according to various sources, being followed by ceremonies of ritual suicide on the behalf of 15 Mori retainers in charge of the defense of the fortress, only three choosing to change sides and join the Takeda.
While Mori Terumoto found himself with a decimated domain on the losing end of a war with the Great Takeda army, the Mori would not be the last to suffer the strength of the National army, and even the Mori could find a chance to redeem themselves in the years that remained of the Sengoku period.
Notes:
1. An usual practice in Medieval Japan, to adopt an allied Clan’s sons and to give one’s owns on adoption;
2. IOTL they lived enough to take part in the Invasion of Korea in 1592 under Toyotomi Hideyoshi;
***
The War in the West: Tosa, Bungo and Satsuma
Chosokabe Motochika had been the daimyo of Tosa for only a few years when the second anti-Takeda coalition was created and the last major war of the Sengoku period started. Having been born to the Chosokabe clan, vassals of the Ichijo clan of Tosa, he led the rebellion that ousted the last of the Ichijo and unified the province of Tosa from his base at the Koichi plain by 1574, and by 1582 he had unified the entire island of Shikoku. [1]
1582 was also the year in which the coalition of Buzen, Satsuma and Tosa under the Mori, the Shimazu and Chosokabe Motochika himself declared war upon the Takeda of Kai and their eastern allies. But while the war was quick to reach and fall upon the Mori as a rain of fire from above, resulting in the destruction of its armies, the invasion of its domains and the death of its most loyal and capable retainers, for Chosokabe Motochika the war had been simply limited to his small island of Shikoku, where he was able to quickly dispose of his enemies and unify the island in a series of undemanding campaigns against the forces of Kono Michinao of Iyo province, who later fled to a safe haven in Otomo Sorin’s domains.
The fall of the Mori in 1585 nevertheless meant an end to the second anti-Takeda coalition, as the most powerful partner in the alliance had been defeated, and an end to Chosokabe Motochika’s comfortable way of life. In late 1585 preparations for the invasion of Shikoku were being made, mainly at the ports of Hiroshima and Osaka, where the reassembled Mori armies were forming as part of the treaty between Terumoto and Katsuyori. The daimyo of Buzen would lead the invasion of Shikoku and Tosa himself, as part of the spearhead offensive made by his own 20,000 men contingent.
The actual invasion came on February of 1586, when the new Mori army invaded the island, only finding token resistance. The state of the Chosokabe army was deplorable; 10,000 poorly armed men with low morale. The state of the outdated equipment and the lack of cohesion found in the enemy army surprised the Mori invaders, to the point in which further reinforcements were later cancelled due to the need to save men from the upcoming campaign in Kyushu.
Motochika was found to be incredibly eager to negotiate with Terumoto and Katsuyori when they approached his castle, and the conditions were found to be most generous and acceptable; the defeated daimyo would be allowed to keep his province of Tosa as well as his head, an offer Motochika was not inclined to refuse.
Six weeks after the invasion, the provinces of Shikoku had been pacified and a fleet was being readied for the reinforcement of Otomo Sorin’s positions in northern Kyushu, where the Christian daimyo of Bungo had held for nearly three years with incredible tenacity.
In the island of Kyushu, the second in the Empire of the Sun in importance, size and population, existed two rival realms in the final years of the Sengoku period.
To the south laid the province of Satsuma, a domain governed by the Shimazu under warlord Yoshihisa from his capital of Kagoshima; and in the north there was the realm of Bungo, under the rule of daimyo Otomo Sorin, who by 1582 By this point, Sôrin could claim control of Bungo, most of Buzen, Chikuzen, Chikugo, and considerable influence over Higo and Hizen. Shimazu Yoshihisa on the other hand only controlled his rich province of Satsuma, but by alliance the southern clans, enemies and rivals of the Otomo, fought under the banner of Yoshihisa. [2]
Otomo Sorin, known in western sources as Francisco Otomo, following the expansion of his realm in the 1550s and 1560s, took interest in religious affairs when in the decade of the 1570s he became involved in the activity of the Jesuit missionaries within his realm despite the resistance of several retainers and his own wife [3]. The issue of Christianity as well as the rivalry with the Shimazu, which had become a force to be reckoned with in those years, plunged the Christian daimyo and his realm into a crisis and an eventual war against the Shimazu as part of the second Anti-Takeda coalition.
Even before the Mori, the Shimazu and the Chosokabe had allied against the Takeda of Kai, Otomo Sorin had been approached, first by Shingen and then by Katsuyori, with the prospect of an alliance to keep the Mori in check, a proposition that the lord of Bungo was quick to accept.
Limited operations had been undertaken in the island of Kyushu in the late 1570s, the Shimazu invasion of Hyuga and occupation of Sadowara had let to the fleeing of the Ito lord of Hyuga, who sought refuge in the Otomo lands; Then followed a limited war that was interrupted when news of a gathering of Mori troops near Buzen and the Otomo took defensive positions. A general war was averted by the second entrance of the Takeda army in Kyoto, this time under Katsuyori, a threat too great for the Mori at the time.
War would nonetheless come three years later, and this time Kyushu was not spared.
The Satsuma had consolidated their gains in Hyuga province, which prompted the impetuous Otomo Yoshimune (Constantinho) and his retainers to launch a general invasion of southern Kyushu in 1581, with as many as 40,000 men under his command. The father followed the son, upon whom the nominal rule of the realm had been delegated, and the clan marched as a family.
The invasion, followed by a vicious campaign of destruction of Buddhist and Shinto Shrines and Icons through Hyuga, caused discontent amongst the Otomo ranks and the local population, a fact that did not stop the father and son team from crossing the Omura river and besieging the castle of Taka-Jo, under the command of Shimazu Yoshihise’s brother, Iehisa. The siege was short as the numerically superior Otomo army allowed them to overwhelm the fortress after thirteen days, a period short enough to be considered a victory but too slow for the Otomo, who wished to crush the Shimazu and create their Christian realm of Kyushu as rapidly as possible. [4]
This rush and the overconfidence of the Otomo retainers and lords would nonetheless result in the disaster of Mimigawa. [5]
On September of 1582 50,000 men of the Otomo clans stood near the Mimigawa river after their success at Taka-Jo castle and a series of maneuvers by which the Shimazu had driven north and eluded the Otomo until that day. Yoshihisa only had 30,000 men under his command. Tawara Chikataka, relative and retainer of the Otomo, was as impetuous and impatient as his masters, and had the Otomo army under his command at Mimigawa, while the Shimazu army was led by Yoshihisa and his brother Yoshihiro, both very capable and accomplished tacticians.
Adopting a defensive posture, the outnumbered Shimazu army was inviting an attack. Tawara saw this as a sign of weakness and considering the battle to have been won already, led a charge with the entire Otomo army upon the Shimazu troops at the Taka area. The sheer force of the attack tore apart the center of the Shimazu line and several generals fell along with thousands of men; it seemed to spell the ruin of the Shimazu clan. But the catastrophe did not fall upon Yoshihisa.
The Shimazu daimyo was not the kind of man to flinch or panic and refused to take his banner one inch back and stood firm, rallying his faltering men and proving the kind of general he was. Yoshihisa ordered the troops at his flanks to charge at the Otomo flanks in a pincer movement. The Ôtomo levies panicked and suddenly the battle had developed into a rout, with the Shimazu mercilessly riding won their defeated enemy as they fled north. Hundreds if not thousands were drowned attempting to cross the Mimigawa.
Over 20,000 men of the Otomo camp lay dead at the battlefield, most along the Mimigawa, after the battle, including Tawara Chikataka and several other retainers. As the Otomo flee northwards, back to the safety of their domain, Shimazu Yoshihisa marches through Hyuga and central Kyushu rallying support for his campaign against the Otomo as his popularity and reputation soars.
By 1583, he is able to launch an invasion of the Otomo domain proper.
Notes:
1. Motochika unified the island under his rule by 1575 IOTL but was later forced to give back some of the new lands by Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasion in 1585;
2. This is as IOTL;
3. Ditto;
4. Similar events took place IOTL in the 1570s as well;
5. The ITTL battle of Mimigawa is based on the IOTL battle of Mimigawa, but ITTL is 1582 rather than 1578.
***
This Town is Not Big Enough for the Both of Us
In the weeks that followed the disaster otherwise known as the Battle of Mimigawa, the island of Kyushu became a scenario to a convulsion of events and a comedy of errors better known as the Shimazu-Otomo war.
As what remained of the Otomo Armies began a hurried and desperate retreat to the safety of the Otomo castles, the marauding armies of Shimazu Yoshihisa wasted no time before regrouping and restarting their campaign by reinvading Higo and Hyuga, occupying the castles and towns of Obi and Minamata and engaging in a series of diplomatic and military operations in central Kyushu with the intent of supplanting the Otomo sphere of influence in the island.
Hyuga offered little resistance after the destructive march of the Otomo army back and forwards. Several warriors and local lords joined the Shimazu were wise enough to see which way the wind was blowing and offered their fealty. Higo nevertheless proved to be a tougher nut to crack, and offered at least some resistance in the form of Sagara Yoshiaki of Minamata, the main daimyo of the region, which refused to allow the passage of the Shimazu armies through his land.
The stand at Minamata led to a five day siege which the Shimazu armies won by force of arms and speed against the smaller and unprepared force of Yoshiaki. The Lightning Campaign of late 1582 and early 1583 led to the near complete conquest of Higo and Hyuga by the Shimazu, thus giving Yoshihisa control of the southern half of the island.
These campaigns, occurring in the aftermath of Mimigawa, were at the same time joined by the entrance of yet another Kyushu daimyo into the scene: Ryuzoji Takanobu of Hizen, who took the opportunity given to him by the Shimazu to expand his own domains at the expense of the Otomo, the traditional regional power. [1]
Now the scene was dominated by two rising powers, the Ryuzoji and the Shimazu, taking advantage of the downfall of the Otomo yet finding themselves at opposing ends of a fight; had they joined forces or even ignored each other, the Otomo would have been vanquished in the spring and the summer of 1583 before the Takeda could come in their aid, but blind ambition proved to be a greater foe for Shimazu Yoshihisa’s and Ryuzoji Takanobu’s dreams of a Kyushu unified under their Banners. The peninsula of Shimabara, in western Kyushu, had been under the rule of the daimyo Arima Haronobu since the death of the previous lord, Arima Yoshisada.
Haronobu’s northern neighbor, Ryuzoji Takanobu, had first made his expansionists intensions clear in the late 1570s, when Shimabara was first threatened and the daimyo was forced to follow the same policy as his uncle Omura Sumitada, and ask for the help of the Jesuits. Portuguese weapons and ships in 1579 following Haronobu’s baptism as Protasio gave him time. The intervention and mediation of Otomo Sorin finally put an end to the conflict. Then the battle of Mimigawa took place. [2]
Takanobu’s invasion of the Shimabara domain came in earnest in late 1582 following the defeat of the Otomo at the hands of the Shimuza; as two vultures preying on a carcass, the Shimazu and the Ryuzoji launched their hordes upon the Otomo domains. The Shimazu began expanding their areas of influence over Hyuga and Higo as the Ryuzoji did the same attacking the Arima and the Omura at Hizen while also trying to expand their domains east of Hizen, invading the province of Chikugo, defeating the undermanned Otomo garrisons there and entering northern Higo, just in time to meet with the invading armies of Shimazu Iehisa.
Thus what had initially begun as a two way war in the contest of a national civil war, had now turned into a regional three-way war for regional supremacy.
The spring of 1583 saw what was left of the Otomo armies and establishment barricading themselves at Funai castle, gathering men and supplies, while the Shimazu were forced to engage the more assertive Ryuzoji before dealing a coup de grace to the Otomo. Ryuzoji Takanobu, in the meantime, had made the tactical mistake of splitting his forces, sending only a token force of 6,000 men to Shimabara castle while 12,000 soldiers stood at Higo.
Even when Nabeshima Naoshige’s army of 12,000 men outnumbered anything that Shimazu Iehisa could bring to northern Higo, the fact that Shimabara refused to fall meant that a significant amount of men and resources were being diverted to the Shimabara peninsula when they were needed in the east. Both Nabeshima Naoshige and Shimazu Iehisa were first engaged in a series of meaningless skirmishes until the battle of Yanagawa, near Yanagawa castle.
The Ryuzoji had conquered that castle upon their invasion of the Chikugo province in early 1583, but Shimazu Iehisa was aggressive enough to push the numerical superior Ryuzoji northwards from Higo towards Chigoku through a series of flanking maneuvers and feigned attacks through late July of 1583.
The ultimate defeat of the Ryuzoji army, 4 times bigger than their opponent force, came in early August of 1583 as the two forces were approaching Yanagawa castle; Shimazu Iehisa launched a bold attack with his 2,500 men through the unprepared enemy lines. The swordsmen reached the enemy command post where Takanobu and his generals were discussing the battle strategy and the rest was history.
Only two men were nowhere to be found in the ensuing carnage: General Nabeshima Naoshige, whom had been supposedly sidelined and overruled by Takanobu earlier that day as the daimyo took supreme command of his armies; and Ryuzoji Masaie, Takanobu’s son, who was camping with a minor force north of the Castle and did not take part of the battle or the rout that took place following the massacre at the command post. [3]
Peace was brokered between the Ryuzoji and the Shimazu. Masaie and Naoshige agreed to evacuate Higo and Shimabara, therefore ending the siege of Shimabara Castle, whereas their occupation of the Chigoku province would be accepted as a fait acommpli. September of 1583 was the zenith of Shimazu Yoshihisa’s power; the Otomo could not move from their castle at Funai until the Takeda were done with the Mori, and the Ryuzoji had been eliminated as a threat to his dreams of domination. Now, the only true menace stood to the other side of the island, at the castle of Funai.
Funai Castle was built in 1562 by order of the lord of Funai, Otomo Sorin, and had since then served as a stronghold and capital of the vast Otomo domains that stretched through northern Kyushu. 20 years later, what had once been the most powerful clan of the island found itself on the run, preparing to make a desperate stand at their own fortress against an invading army that had once only been a backwater and a minor threat.
The once mighty Ôtomo shichikakoku no zei, The Seven Province Host of the Otomo, was now mostly in ruins; the domains predated by its neighbors, the clan’s allies deserting their master along with several disloyal retainers that have chosen either to be neutral or ally with the invading Shimazu. [4]
While Otomo Sorin had been the most powerful daimyo of Kyushu and his domains the most vast, with the north and east of the island under his banner, the lord had never achieved the same control over his retainers and vassals as other daimyos of the same period had, in many cases these retainers being more like allies than vassals and operated with such a degree of independence that some were like daimyo themselves. This was the case of minor clans such as Tachinaba and the Tamura. Embracing Christianity and the Portuguese missionaries that brought it with them did not do much to endear him with his vassals either.
Winter was rapidly approaching in late 1583, yet the Shimazu wanted to move fast after their lightning victory over the Ryuzoji, and thus their armies gathered once more at Hyuga with the intention of rallying a big enough army to march upon Funai, on the northeastern corner of Kyushu.
The invasion was swift, as 30,000 men carrying the Shimazu banners marched into Bungo and facing no resistance, reached Funai by late January of 1584, laying siege to the Otomo fortress as they arrived.
The third stage of the Kyushu campaign began in the winter of 1584, when Shimazu Yoshihisa led an invasion of Bungo in northern Kyushu. Between September of 1582 and January of 1584, that is nearly 15 months, the Otomo waited and observed as their rivals, the Ryuzoji and the Shimazu, launched themselves at each other’s throats for the opportunity of devouring the carcass of the Otomo domains. The time was nevertheless well spent by the Otomo, who did their best to rally their allies and troops, prepare and improve their defenses and gather supplies as emissaries sent to the east returned with nothing with bad news; the Takeda and the Mori were still battling and no reinforcements could arrive.
Of the mighty 50,000 men strong army that marched on Satsuma over a year ago, the Otomo have only been able to save a force with figures just above the 20,000 men. No immediate help or reinforcements are expected. The Portuguese are allegedly helping the Christian daimyo of Shimabara in the west, but they are unable to reach Funai castle. The Takeda are otherwise engaged, and several former vassals are either deserting, making deals with the Shimazu or preoccupied with defending their own domains, as is the case of the Tachinaba at Buzen.
The siege itself, in its length and rather colorful development have given the siege of Funai a rather distinguished place in the history of the Otomo Clan, Bungo province and the island of Kyushu as a whole. The campaign started when an impatient Shimazu Yoshihisa offered the Otomo the chance to surrender, to which the aging lord of Bungo replied with a long and rather messy letter that most sources call a “long list of thinly veiled insults, overtly dramatic dares and even a reference to having Kagoshima burnt”
Having lost his temper, Shimazu hurled 10,000 tired and poorly organized men at Funai trying to force an entrance. The results were rather miserable. A second and a third attempt to enter Funai by force brought similar results, with the added complication of having lost a week in the attacks, taken several casualties and needing nearly two weeks to recover.
While Yoshihisa still fell outraged, he was persuaded to continue the campaign with a more conventional tactic of simply starving the defenders.
The Otomo were nevertheless prepared and had enough supplies to resist the Shimazu for considerable time. Sorin was nevertheless determined not to sit down and wait for help until the Takeda were able to ‘rescue’ him. An even more bizarre episode than the one involving the letter took place on May of 1584, when a retainer of the Otomo whose name has been long forgotten by history, led his men under the cover of a rainstorm into the Shimazu camp and set a number of fires and generally created chaos.
The ensuing anarchy at the Shimazu clan claimed the life of over 500 men. The similarity of this tale with a similar move made during the Fourth siege of Odani 12 years earlier, in which an Asakura retainer under similar circumstances achieved the same at the Oda camp, has led some to doubt the veracity of either tell, even when most tellings of the story include said tale as historical.
Nevertheless, just as happened at Odani, the Otomo were unable to take advantage of the fiasco at the enemy camps, as the attack that followed was bogged down and ultimately unsuccessful due to its lack of organization, hasty execution and the poor terrain and weather conditions that the storm had left, making the battlefield hardly suitable for an operation such as the Otomo launched after the camp fires. The next months, the siege would continue more or less as a chaotic and fluctuating maelstrom of attacks and counterattacks as the results proved more and more indecisive. [5]
Notes:
1. This happened after the IOTL Battle of Mimigawa as well;
2. This is more or less IOTL;
3. Nabeshima Naoghige IOTL took the chance presented by Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasion and the weakness of Takanobu’s heir Masaie to switch sides and join with Toyotomi’s army; ITTL, he throws his lot with the Shimazu;
4. Due to age and the controversy over the conversion to Christianity, Otomo’s domain suffered a lot of decay around this time, just as IOTL;
5. The Shimazu had indeed conquered most of Kyushu and only the Otomo remained by the time Toyotomi invaded in 1587; the Otomo avoided conquest by allying with Toyotomi, but ITTL the Takeda are taking too long and thus the Otomo are directly threatened by the Shimazu Armies;
***
The Cavalry Arrives
Siege operations continued during June of 1584 at an alarmingly slow pace. Following the disaster suffered in their camps on may, the Shimazu army was forced to move and fortify their positions around Funai, changing their tactic to a plan of out-waiting the Otomo until they ran out of supplies and dissent spread through their ranks.
Morale and strength within the walls of Funai castle began to wane by the third week of June, and with a lack of truly loyal allies and retainers, support for the Otomo began to dissipate and desertion began to be a common practice amongst the defending forces.
Nevertheless, Shimazu Yoshihisa refused to accept deserters, with the intention of reducing Funai’s foodstuffs as quickly as possible. The desperate situation was of course worsened by the absence of Sorin’s son, Yoshimune, who had gone to Kyoto to plead for assistance and relief from the Takeda clan. The disappearance of the daimyo’s son along with several retainers, along with renewed attempts by the Shimazu to encircle and break through the fortress caused panic to spread like wild fire within the walls of the castle.
Emboldened by the growing calamities falling upon Funai and angered after weeks of waiting, the Shimazu generals finally convince Yoshihisa to lead an attack against the fortress, not with the intention of overwhelming the defenses but of destroying the will of the defenders.
The attack that came on June 22nd of 1584, began with a double thrust against the Otomo camps north of the Castle, and was only interrupted on June 23rd, when disturbing news arrived from the eastern shore of Bungo: Otomo Yoshimune had returned, with a relief force sent by Takeda had landed and was ready to march to the defense of Funai.
The rumors that arrived on the Shimazu camp on June 23rd paralyzed operations against the Otomo for three days until they were confirmed. Yet the panic had been to a degree senseless; the Takeda auxiliary force under Urano Shigenari numbered only 3,000 men, all that could spared from the main campaign against the Mori.
The rumors, mostly spread by agents of the Otomo clan, nevertheless proved quite useful for the defenders of Funai: first, it stopped the Shimazu attack for a moment, forcing them to regroup in panic; and secondly, it temporarily restored the morale of the Otomo clan, while buying some time to allow for the Takeda force to arrive and the Otomo forces to regroup. The 3,000 warriors that arrived carrying the Takeda banners boosted the Otomo numbers just north of 18,000 men. Their presence was nonetheless enough by itself to convince the defenders to resist until a proper relief force could arrive. Yet even this boost was not enough to keep the number of deserters from rising, and retainers of the peace party to meet and whisper in the darkness.
Two more skirmishes in mid-July of 1584 cleared the path for a major battle on a date that most experts agree to be July 19th of that year. In the main island of Honshu, the Takeda had begun their grand invasion of the Mori domains and were besieging Hiroshima and Tottori castle, whereas in Shikoku, Chosokabe Motochika calmly waited, sitting on the throne of a unified island of Shikoku.
Across the Oita River, the two armies set camps in anticipation for the battle. As the war in the east was seemingly approaching its climax, the two most powerful clans of Kyushu decide to end the stalemate in a single move, with the intention of presenting their victory as a fait acomplii to whoever stands victorious in the Honshu showdown.
The battle begins in the early hours of the day, when Urano Shigenari spearheads the Otomo offensive with his 3,000 men, with the support of 2,000 Otomo infantry soldiers, and despite the numerical superiority of the enemy, great progress is made on the battlefield in the first moments of the attack. The tide does not turn until midday, until after the Otomo commit up to 7,000 troops on the attack, when Yoshihisa finally reacts by flanking Shigenari with his reserves while the main troops keep the Otomo, father and son, occupied at the center of the formation.
Seven hours after the beginning of the table, both sides of the Oita River are covered by the remains of both camps, lost banners, armors, spears and bodies. Urano Shigenari and 2,000 of his men lay dead on the battlefield along with 1,200 soldiers of the Otomo clan and 1,350 of the Shimazu army.
Beaten and hopeless, what remains of the once great Otomo host retreats to the other side of the Oita River leaving a trail of blood and despair behind them.
***
Truce
Following the massacre that took place on late July, the siege of Funai reaches its final stages. The fate of the entire campaign and even of the Otomo clan had been risked in one last gamble and Sorin had lost. After the disaster on the battlefield and the obliteration of the Otomo forces, Shimazu Yoshihisa sees his chance and reverses his policy on deserters: by accepting them now, the defending forces are now even more depleted and weakened. A week after the battle along the Oita River, only the most loyal of retainers remain behind their master, whereas a majority of allies and former vassals have fled to save their lives.
The ceasefire that took place on the first week of August of 1584 signaled not only the fall of Funai and the end of the campaign, but an effective end of the Otomo dominance over Kyushu and their direct control over the northern half of the island. With the Ryuzoji controlling the west and the Shimazu the south and the center, the domains of Otomo Sorin and his son were torn asunder; several vassals and allies such as Akizuke Takezane had rebelled during the course of the war, dissent was running high, and with the loss of their capital, the fate of the once great clan was sealed.
Shimazu Yoshihisa’s greatest victory would nevertheless prove to be only temporary. Even as a definitive military triumph had been achieved, there were more pressing matters at hand: firstly, news had arrived from Honshu: Tottori castle was about to fall and Hiroshima, the Mori capital, was directly threatened by the Takeda. While this meant that it would take the Takeda army months if not years to directly threaten his domains in Kyushu, if the Mori were defeated, then nothing else in the entire empire could stop Takeda Katsuyori. The only choice left was to present the unification of Kyushu as a done deal and negotiate with the Takeda daimyo upon his arrival. [1]
The second main problem was the general situation with Kyushu itself: the Otomo domains in Bungo had disintegrated, but where order once reigned now chaos prevailed. Several if not most of the former vassals and allies were in open rebellion and seeking their independence from the Otomo, and in many cases, entering into alliances with the other two clans, the Shimazu and the Ryuzoji.
Even worse, matters in the west with the Ryuzoji clan had not been properly dealt with or even concluded, to the point in which the situation at Hizen and Chikugo were even worse than when the Shimazu had left a year before. Upon the Ryuzoji defeat at the hands of Yoshihisa and the death of his son Ryuzoji Takanobu, a power struggle erupted, mere weeks after stability had returned to the region.
The eldest son Masaie, a weak and indecisive man, lost the allegiance of the most powerful retainer of the clan, Nabeshima Naoshige, who formed an alliance with Masaie’s brother Ryuzoji Ietane. What at first seemed a common war of succession over the lands and titles of the Ryuzoji clan became a regional conflict that engulfed three provinces in western Kyushu (Hizen, Chikugo and Chikuzen) as minor daimyos and retainers began to take and exchange allegiances in the midst of the Ryuzoji war. [2]
By August of 1584, Nabeshima Naoshige was in alliance with two of the Ryuzoji brothers, the strong willed Ietane and the Christian sympathizer Ienobu, as well as the Christian daimyo Arima Harunobu of Shimabara, and Akizuki Tanezane of Chizuken.
Ryuzoji Masaie, the weakest brother was assisted by his uncle Ryuzoji Nobuchika and a coalition of local daimyos that remained loyal to him, but he nonetheless had several military and political disadvantages that forced him to ask for the help of Shimazu Yoshihisa on September of 1584.
Shimazu Yoshihisa intervened in earnest a month later, but after years of war, his strategy revolved around diplomacy at first, hoping that his recent victory over the Otomo would compel the rebel factions to accept his authority and submit to him.
The lord of Kagoshima was nevertheless sadly mistaken. His token force of 5,000 men arrived at Saga castle was barely enough to deter Nabeshima and his allies, but it showed that the de facto ruler of the island had chosen a side.
Notes:
1. It’s certainly taking a lot of effort to subdue the Otomo: partly due to me wanting to make it more dramatic, partly because of poor luck and overconfidence;
2. This is the one part of the TL in which I’m complicating something rather than simplifying it: IOTL Toyotomi invaded, Nabeshima Naoshige switched sides and he was rewarded with the old Ryuzoji domain, whereas ITTL, there’s a bloody succession struggle;
Evasion
The war in western Kyushu, representing more than an inner power struggle but a great battle for the domination of the island, while starting as a minor nuisance to the Shimazu designs for regional domination, had become by late 1584 into a bloody labyrinth without exit.
The bulk of the Shimazu forces were elsewhere, pacifying the island, overseeing the recently conquered or occupied territories and preparing the clan’s armies and fortresses for the eventuality of a Takeda invasion. Thus, when Nabeshima Naoshige began his final drive towards Saga on October of 1584, a much delayed move thanks to months of preparation, diplomatic battles between daimyos and minor skirmishes throughout the province, the Shimazu-Ryuzoji forces were barely able to take the blunt force of the attack.
Furthermore, thanks to his alliance with the Christian daimyos of Shimabara and Nagasaki, Arima Harunobu and Omura Sumitada, Nabeshima and the two rebel Ryuzoji brothers were in alliance with the Jesuits and were able to exploit their support to obtain weapons and even the help of Portuguese ships, thanks to the ambition and greed of some of the European captains. The three sieges of Saga are of course only a minor conflict within a regional conflict for the domination of Kyushu, whereas the main battle for the domination of Japan takes place elsewhere.
The distraction that keeps Shimazu Yoshihisa occupied in a minor dispute to the other side of the island is nonetheless the perfect opportunity for the fallen Otomo clan. News of the siege operations in the western provinces arrived to Bungo in only a matter of days, and thus Otomo Sorin hatched his plan. Abandoning his place of mandatory retirement, Sorin left Usuki on November of 1584 in the company of the few loyal servants that had been allowed to stay by Yoshihisa, and upon eluding the Shimazu guards and soldiers at the town and throughout the province, Sorin finally reached Osaka in early December, with the intention of meeting with Katsuyori himself at Hiroshima.
***
Invasion
Otomo Sorin accompanies Takeda Katsuyori in his conquest of the Mori Domains throughout 1585, serving as an involuntary witness as he waited for his chance to talk to the rising super-daimyo on his path to unification, and convince him to intervene in the tribulations of Kyushu on his behalf.
The last days of Tottori and the entirety of the Hiroshima campaign passed, as did the surrender and near destruction of the Mori clan, with Sorin as an unwilling and impatient spectator yet he waited. It wasn’t until the summer of 1585 that the war against the Mori was concluded and the Takeda Armies were free to eliminate the last remnants of resistance to Katsuyori’s rule: the Chosokabe and the Shimazu.
Chosokabe Motochika was the first to suffer the consequences of his disobedience, and following a six weeks campaign he saw his domains occupied and reduced to his province of Tosa, denying him the dream of unifying Shikoku once more. [1] The rush campaign through Buzen and Shikoku was followed by the invasion of Kyushu on September or 1586, with over 30,000 men under the personal command of Takeda Katsuyori while his ally Mori Terumoto joined him with a host of 60,000 troops.
In the time between Otomo Sorin’s escape to Kyoto and the arrival of the Great Takeda army, Shimazu Yoshihisa spent his resources consolidating his position in the island and pacifying the provinces that refused to acknowledge his rule. The rebellious daimyo of the north had been crushed just in time for the Shimazu to barely be prepared to meet the Takeda, and even then, the Ryuzoji succession war still raged in the western provinces when Yoshihisa was forced to leave his allies to his own devices. Having to leave his allies to prepare his own forces would cost them the war, as Nabeshima Naoshige captures Saga two months later, on August of 1585.
Following the landings at Northern Kyushu, the Takeda and Mori forces advanced southwardly at fast pace, facing little to no resistance from the Shimazu armies. With his numbers just barely north of 40,000 men, Yoshihisa decides to abandon his conquest in Bungo and Katsuyori raises his banners over Funai Castle by mid-September, being followed by Mori Terumoto and Otomo Sorin.
The conquering armies march through Hyuga effortlessly as the Shimazu prepare for the inevitable, fortifying their positions at home, at their capital of Kagoshima.
The only resistance before Satsuma proper is invaded is seen at the Sendai River on October of 1586, when Shimazu loyalists under Niiro Tadamoto led a fanatical charge against the vastly superior Takeda army, delaying their advance by a day but losing nearly 500 men and his own life before his forces were forced to retreat.
Kagoshima became the main target on November of 1586, and as winter approached, it was feared that a prolonged siege would take place as had happened during the wars against the Mori and the Uesugi. Nevertheless, the final conflict is anticlimactic. Even though over 30,000 men were ready to fight the Takeda Juggernaut, Yoshihisa saw his fate sealed and took the most reasonable road: surrendering to Takeda Katsuyori as his armies surrounded Kagoshima from land and sea. [1]
Notes:
1. This was not particularly more complicated for the Takeda Army than for the Toyotomi Army of IOTL, but there’s a lot more drama in the prologue to the invasion;
World Peace
Shimazu Yoshihisa, who had for nearly two years come closest of any daimyo to achieve the unification of Kyushu, presented himself with his head shaved and with a submissive attitude at the Takeda Clan, presenting his respects to the son of Shingen.
The Shimazu domain was reduced to Satsuma, Osumi and southern Hyuga and most lives spared, while Yoshihisa would be forced to abdicate and his younger brother Yoshihiro would take the reign of the Clan.
The Otomo domains were restored, but the clan lost most of their power and influence, remaining as an empty shell, becoming puppets of the Takeda Clan in Kyushu with little power by themselves, as had happened to the Uesugi relocated in Kanto.
Peace was elsewhere forced down upon the people of Kyushu: the minor lords that refused to obey were punished and their land redistributed amongst the loyal generals and the local daimyos that became part of the Takeda camp. The last include men like Nabeshima Naoshige, virtual lord of Hizen and Chikugo, joined by his vassals, the Ryuzoji brothers.
An unexpected effect of the new system of allegiances was the growth of the Christian influence in Kyushu, especially in the west and in the north, as the catholic daimyos of Nagasaki, Bungo and Shimabara saw their influence grow and the Catholic faith brought mainly by the Portuguese and the Jesuits soon expanded through the island, especially in ports such as Nagasaki, Hakata (later Fukuoka) and Kagoshima. The path to Unification had been cleared and the only group not directly under the rule of the Takeda banners was those daimyo of the west and the north in Honshu, whom Katsuyori would visit soon enough. [1]
Notes:
1. This is a rather similar result to what happened IOTL except for the stronger Christian presence and a stronger puppet Otomo domain;
***
Unification
By the winter of 1586, peace had returned to the empire of Japan, as all the lords of the Great Clans, the Uesugi, the Shimazu, the Mori, the Otomo and so many others fall under the banners of the Takeda Clan and the marching armies of Takeda Katsuyori.
But even as the daimyo of Kai returns to Kyoto in the spring of 1587 at the head of an ever victorious conquering army, a small quarter of the nation remains independent from the central government at the Imperial Capital: the North. Beyond the western borders of the Takeda and Uesugi domains at Echigo and Kanto, beyond the control of the great lords of central and western Honshu, the local clans acted with great autonomy and in many times with indifference to events in the central provinces, even as Takeda Shingen and Katsuyori began their quest to bring the nation under one banner. The destruction of the Hojo and the Uesugi, the return of the Uesugi to the Kanto, all served as signs to show them the shape of things to come. The northern provinces of Dewa and Mutsu were ruled by several warring clans including the Ashina, the Date, the Nambu, the Hatakeyama, the Mogani and several others.
Two reasons explain why Takeda Katsuyori didn’t bother to subdue the region and its daimyos, or even care about Dewa and Mutsu until the summer of 1588.
Firstly, the Takeda were always preoccupied with more immediate concerns and threats. Following the war against the Uesugi and the Hojo in the 1570s, the Takeda faced the new administrative and military challenges of controlling such a large domain, and then a war against the Mori and the Shimazu. And once this new menace was dealt with, Katsuyori was forced to spend considerable time in Kyoto dealing with the administration of a unified Japan.
Secondly, the region lacked any significant political or economic importance that could have warranted the attention of the Takeda Daimyo. It was the personal ambition of Katsuyori, the goal of having the entire nation under his control, what drove him to the northern confines of Honshu in 1588. Now, as opposed to the bloody wars against the Oda, the Uesugi and the Mori, or the shorter military campaigns against the Shimazu and the Chosokabe, marching from Kyoto to Sendai was more of a political show of will than a military show of strength.
Having destroyed the greatest armies that the rivaling clans could yield on the field, there were no battles left to fight, no one to resist. By July of 1588, the hegemonic power in Mutsu was a Daimyo by the name of Date Masamune, a resourceful and intelligent tactician known as the “One-Eyed Dragon.”
In the years spent between 1573 and 1588, the fight for supremacy in northern Japan had devolved in a two-way war between the Date led by Masamune and whatever coalition was formed to stop him, generally led by the rival Ashina clan. Upon taking the reins of power in 1582, Masamune soon found himself entangled in conflicts with the Ashina, over the defection of several Date retainers, and the traditional rivals of the Date, the Hatakeyama. The wars against these two clans would come to show the great ability and the ruthlessness of the man Masamune. [1]
Having marched south and defeated the Ashina of Aizu in a surprising victory at Hibara, he inflicted a terrible vengeance on the traitors to the clan, putting nearly 800 men of all ages to the sword. News of the massacre soon reached the Ouchi at Obama Castle, causing them to panic and flee. [2]
But his reputation as a warrior without pity came when fighting the forces of Hatakeyama Yoshitsugu, who after failing to negotiate with the young and hot-blooded daimyo, asked his father Terumune to mediate between the two. Yoshitsugu nevertheless kidnapped Date Masamune’s father in a trap. Masamune and his men caught up with them near the Abukuma River. In the ensuing confrontation, Terumune ordered his son and his men to open fire regardless of his own safety. Without hesitating [3], the men fired at the Hatakeyama party, killing everybody including the Hatakeyama lord and Date Masamune’s own father.
Following the incident, Masamune marched upon Nihonmatsu castle. A few months later, a general war erupted as the Hatakeyama rallied the Ashina, the Satake, the Soma and other clans to fight the Date. The coalition would nevertheless prove to be short-lived, as the Satake would be forced to leave the war in order to defend their own lands from the Satomi, upsetting the balance of power and giving the Date the chance to broke new deals and clear his path to regional hegemony. When Katsuyori met Masamune on August of 1588, he had subdued the Soma and was in the process of besieging the Ashina headquarters at Kurokawa. By the end of the operation, the Takeda recognized the Date as the main clan of Mutsu, whereas Masamune presented Kurokawa and an over 2,000 enemy heads on pikes as a sign of respect and vassalage.
The conquest of Aizu and the lands of the Hatakeyama, authorized by Katsuyori in the fall of 1588, would put the Date domain at the height of its power; coincidently just as the Takeda themselves were at the pinnacle of their own.
Notes:
1. IOTL, Masamune took over in 1584;
2. IOTL, Masamune was stopped at the Hibara by Iwashiro Morinuki, not present ITTL;
3. IOTL, two versions exist: a. Masamune hesitated before shooting, and the Hatakeyama lord escaped; b. Masamune did not hesitate, and killed them all...I'm going with version B for ITTL;
***
Kofu-Fukuchiyama
The year is 1589, and for the first time since 1467, the beginning of the Onin war and the Warring states period, there is a centralized government at Kyoto under the near absolute authority of Takeda Katsuyori, son of Takeda Shingen, lord of Kai, Shinano and most of central Japan.
This first period of peace and centralized government before the establishment of the official shogunate would be known as the Kofu-Fukuchiyama period, in reference to the two capitals of the Takeda domain: the fortified palace of Tsutsuijigasaki at Kofu (Shingen had never needed a proper castle for his domain) and Fukuchiyama Castle, at which Katsuyori set his residence at Kyoto.
When Takeda Shingen first entered Kyoto in 1573, he settled in the old and strategic Shoryuji castle, which guarded the western gates of Kyoto. It was Katsuyori the one to choose Fukuchiyama castle, originally property of the Yokoyama clan, as his residence in the capital. In his absence, Katsuyori’s uncles Nobukado and Nobuzane served as administrator of the Takeda domains in Kai and Shinano while Katsuyori remained the military leader of the nation.
It is important to notice though, that while Takeda Katsuyori had a nigh absolute power as military governor of Japan, and as son of Shingen, he was a descendant from the Minamoto Clan, Katsuyori was never given the title of Shogun, as his son Nobukatsu was the true heir to the Takeda clan. Thus, even as Katsuyori wielded all the power, he was merely a regent for his son.
Katsuyori’s government, assisted by several veteran retainers and advisors, would last many years after his son Nobukatsu had reached the age of majority, continuing and expanding the intricate and efficient war machine and system of governance that it had taken the great Takeda Shingen 30 years to build.
Amongst the measures initiated in Kai and expanded on a national level by Katsuyori in the late 1580s and early 1590s, there was doing away with the corporal punishment for minor offences, instituting in its place a system of fines - an act that earned him considerable praise from the peasants and townspeople of Kai and all of the country.
Furthermore, the tax system instituted by the Takeda in this early years was the first to tax most of the people evenly (most exempted powerful samurai families and/or religious establishments at the beginning), and with the option of payment in either gold or rice (a forerunner, in some ways, to the later Kandaka system, which assessed the value of the land in terms of a cash unit and determined the size of the land and military obligations each vassal and daimyo owed).
Further measures extrapolated from the rules of the Takeda code of Kai included limitation of the activities of the Ikko-Ikki and the Nichiren Buddhist sects in land directly administered by the Takeda (although not in other domains), and limitations and prohibitions to the abilities of subjects to move freely and communicate with other provinces, restrictions that had existed well before Katsuyori due to the permanent state of war.
As Established by the Takeda House Code:
“The Pure Land Sect and Nichiren Band (tô) are not permitted to engage in religious controversy within our domain (bunkoku). If there are people who encourage such controversies, both the priests and their parishioners will be punished”
Pay proper reverence to the gods and the Buddha. When your thoughts are in accord with the Buddha's, you will gain more power. If your domination over others issues from your evil thoughts, you will be exposed, you are doomed. Next, devote yourselves to the study of Zen. Zen has no secrets other than seriously thinking about birth-and-death.
These policies nevertheless did not affect the activities of Christian missionaries in western and even central Japan, although their activities were frowned upon in Tokyo. This can be attributed to Katsuyori never having displayed the same levels of Buddhist fanaticism that his father had. Christianity thus spread like wildfire in Kyushu and other provinces, in contrast to the monolithic Buddhist hegemony in Shikoku and the growing confrontation between the Zen Buddhism of the Takeda Domain and the more fanatical Ikko-Ikki and Nichiren sects.
Public works that imitated the damming of the Fuji River in the 1560s also took place in the 1590s, the 1600s and again in the 1650s, all with various degrees of success but only a few matching to the feat that was the Fuji damming project as built by Shingen.
***
Ah! Kami-sama!
The Third Shogun, Takeda Nobukatsu, was, as his father before him and the great Takeda Shingen before him, a follower of Buddhism. Thus he devoted himself to the study of Zen, one of the main schools of Buddhism in Japan. And as those of his lineage before him, the third Takeda Shogun was well aware of the dangers of religious sects and their pervasive influence in society.
Buddhism can be divided into two main branches: Theravada (Ancient Teaching), which is widespread in south-east Asia; and Mahayana (Great Vehicle) which is prevalent in eastern Asia.
Mahayana Buddhism, the dominant religion in Japan, can be divided into several sects, which interact in different manners with Shintoism, which has lost popularity since the arrival of Buddhism, and the central government.
Zen Buddhism, seen by the Takeda as an unofficial state religion to be encouraged, is amongst the biggest ones, followed in the early 17th century by Nichiren Buddhism and by the Pure Land Buddhism, which itself contains the more radical True Pure Land School. Tendai and Shingon Schools of Buddhism are also important, but are not seen by the Takeda as a direct threat. (2)
The Nichiren School was founded by the 12th century monk Nichiren, a revolutionary and progressive thinker. The Controversy around the Nichiren sect, besides the fanaticism of some of its members, was caused by Michener’s ideas: that every other Buddhist sect was wrong in its dogma and did not teach the truth path to enlightenment, and that woman could too achieve enlightenment. Nichiren Buddhism is generally noted for its focus on the Lotus Sutra [3] and an attendant belief that all people have an innate Buddha nature and are therefore inherently capable of attaining enlightenment in their current form and present lifetime.
The Pure Land Sects on the other hand, based on the teachings of the Pure Land Sutras. Adherents believe that Amitabha Buddha provided an alternative path towards attaining enlightenment: the Pure Land Path. In Pure Land Buddhist thought, Enlightenment is difficult to obtain without the assistance of Amitabha Buddha, since people are now living in a degenerate era, known as the Age of Dharma Decline. Instead of solitary meditative work toward enlightenment, Pure Land Buddhism teaches that devotion to Amitabha leads one to the Pure Land, where enlightenment can be more easily attained.
The practices of Pure Land Buddhism are particularly popular amongst those considered “impure” such as hunters, fishermen, those who tan hides, prostitutes and so on. Pure Land Buddhism provided a way to practice Buddhism for those who were not capable of practicing other form.
This leads us to the Jodo Shinsu (True Pure Land Sect) and the Ikko-Ikki, its militant wing. Unlike the other Buddhist sects, the True Pure Land rejects Shintoism and any meshing of the Pantheons. At the same time, it discouraged all of the traditional Buddhist practices of the other sects and discouraged Kami (deity) veneration. Relations were extremely bad with the Nichiren sect in particular. Mobs, peasants and farmers along with Shinto priests and local nobles began to rise against Samurai Rule in the 15th century following the teachings of the Jodo Shinsu priest Rennyo [4]. Thus the Ikko-Ikki, the “Single-Minded Leagues” were thus born in the 1480s, and by the decade of the 1570s, as a result of the fanatical extermination campaigns of Oda Nobunaga, would become a highly organized and feared force in Japan.
The provinces of Kaga and Noto were taken in the last decades of the Sengoku period, the first time Japanese provinces were ruled by commoners, and the revolutionary ideas of the Ikko-Ikki spread, thanks to their success and their hold of Ishiyama Hongan-Ji, just outside of Osaka. Warrior monks, peasants, former prostitutes, farmers, ronin that found themselves without purpose given the new peace, local nobles, all were attracted by the militant sect and their growth in the early decades of the 17th century was only equaled by the only other sect that was as dangerous to the central government: Christianity.
Notes:
-Ah! Kamisama!=Oh! my God!
2. Tendai and Shingon are along with Zen and Pure Land, the biggest sects in Japan, part of Mahayana Buddhism;
3. Sutra: rope or thread; a type of literal composition, in Buddhism, refers to the canonical scriptures that are the teachings of Buddha; so, for practical purpose Sutra=Gospel
4. Rennyo (1415-1499), a Buddhism missionary and thinker, was ambivalent and rather neutral to the Ikko-Ikki.
***
The Six Great Gateways
During the years of the Takeda Shogunate, six ports were opened for trade with foreign nations: Hakata (later Fukuoka) and Nagasaki in Kyushu, along with Kagoshima under the Shimazu; Osaka; Sendai in the domains of Date Masamune in the North and Hiroshima under the rule of the Mori Clan.
Hakata was a city of merchants which is believed to be the oldest city in Japan, had benefited from commerce with the Chinese, Korean and other foreign merchants, before decaying as a result of several wars including the Mongol invasions. It was under the rule of Kuroda Nagamasa that the city would become prosperous again, as Takeda Nobukatsu gave the city its role as gateway to the continent. Fukuoka castle was built in the early 1600s on the southern shores of the Naka River. [1]
Nagasaki, the only port under the control of a Kirishitan (Christian) daimyo, was not only ruled by the convert Omura Sumitada, one of the first daimyos to convert and open his domains to the richness of western culture and products, but surrounded as well by catholic domains, as the port served as a gateway for the entrance of European (chiefly Portuguese and Spanish) merchants and missionaries. [2]
The neighboring daimyos, including the Arima of Shimabara and the Ryuzoji, soon became influenced by the preaching and the economic advantages of dealing with the Portuguese, and soon enough Catholicism spread like wildfire through western Kyushu as Nagasaki became a permanent foothold of the Society of Jesus and other minor orders, including the Augustinians and the Benedictines, which arrived in the 1600s and 1610s, decades after the Jesuits.
The policies of Otomo Sorin in the northeast and the Kirishitan daimyos of the west assured that Christianity would become a mayor influence through Kyushu, and it was even rumored that the Nabeshima had converted in order to benefit from the trade and avoid isolation.
In the south, on the other hand, the Shimazu through the port of Kagoshima had learned to deal with the always willing Dutch and the English, and thus now religious links were attached, even if deals with the Portuguese were also made. Despite their debilitation after the Takeda campaign of the 1580s, the Shimazu Clan of Satsuma was able to recover thanks to the seas. Expansion through the seas was encouraged by the daimyo at Kagoshima, and while European merchants were welcomed, military adventures against pirates and the independent kingdom of Ryukyu were undertaken with the tacit consent of the Shogunate. [3]
In 1612, the Shimazu under the daimyo Tadatsune led the invasion of the Chinese vassal Kingdom of Ryukyu. The trade benefits thus acquired, and the political prestige of being the only daimyo family to control an entire foreign country secured the family's position as one of the most powerful daimyo families in Japan at the time.
Hiroshima, under the rule of Mori Terumoto, the man that had built it out of nothing just years before, was somewhat more isolated that the other ports, but was nevertheless given the status of Open Port due to the importance of the Mori Clan within the Shogunate. Inviting a mixture of European merchants, it didn’t gain the importance of some of the other ports, although it did bring considerable profit for its daimyo. [4]
Osaka was one of the reasons Hiroshima never prospered as much as Nagasaki or Kagoshima, as it had been for a considerable part of Japan’s history one of its most important economic and cultural centers. Most interestingly, it also became the center of Japan’s most violent religious controversy in the 1630s and 1640s, as the Ikko-Ikki, who had their base at Ishiyama Hongan-Ji, became involved in several disputes with the Jesuit missionaries that arrived at Osaka. [6]
Finally Sendai, the last of the ports to be opened and the most isolated, was nevertheless the one to grow the faster, thanks to its exclusive trade with the Spanish in Mexico and the Philippines. Date Masamune had through a diplomatic mission sent by him and led by his retainer Hasekura Tsunenaga, made contact with the governments of France, Spain and the Papal States, and assured a constant economic link with the Spanish Empire, as well as the establishment of a Jesuit Dioceses in Sendai. [6]
The building of the Dioceses under Padre Sotelo, an emulation of the policies of the rich daimyos of Kyushu, assured that Christianity would have two entrances to Japan and a lasting influence over its society, economy and culture.
Notes:
1. The Fukuoka area is believed to have been the oldest city of Japan, being the closest port to China and Korea, and is among the oldest non-Jomon settlements in Japan;
2. Omura Sumitada profited greatly from his conversion to Christianity as he gained access to European weapons and products, and under his reign a port was built to accommodate the Portuguese Ships in 1571; IOTL, Nagasaki was briefly under the administration of the Society of Jesus, but that doesn’t happen ITTL;
3.Having seen how the Omura have profited from their alliance with the Europeans, it stands to reason to see the Shimazu try to do the same, and only the Dutch have enough presence in the area, the Spaniards being confined to The Philippines and otherwise stuck in a Monarchic Union with Portugal between 1580 and 1640;
4. This is basically a ploy by the Mori to not fall behind the times and a bribe that the Takeda give them as a “reward”, although there is not as much European traffic for the time being;
5. Osaka is technically the Takeda Port, but the city works as a de-facto city state run by Merchants, Catholic missionaries and Ikko-Ikki Priests;
6. Meaning Sendai profits mainly from trade with the Philippines and Mexico, and later Peru, obtaining Spanish products and gold while receiving copious amounts of bibles, Jesuit and Dominican Missionaries, Coca plants, Coffee, etc;
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