Was Nobunaga considered evil?

Onyx

Banned
Alot of people say that Nobunaga was like the Oriental version of Vlad Tepes (Nah, thats Genghis Khan right there). He burned the Ikko Sect (A Buddhist sect am I right) to the ground and murdered woman and children with it, he also destroyed an entire town of Mt. Hiei in which did the same thing.

He's also interpreted as an Infamous Warlord who selled his soul to the Demon and is considered brutal, as he is depicted in games like Ominusha.

So was he really that bad? Or was one of the good guys?

He nearly unified Japan, and pulled an upset victory at Okehazama in which only 3000 of his men defeated an army 25,000 through his tactics.

So, is Good, Bad, or the middle?
 

maverick

Banned
He was really into "the end justifies the means"

Waaaaay more ruthless than Toyotomi Hideyoshi, while remaining sane.

He also allowed christian missionaries to wander freely through Japan, since that was his best source of Western guns and war material.

To be honest, he was living in the Sengoku Period, and that's what we need to remember, so A. he wasn't all that brutal in comparison, and B. Being the most brutal man was the way to be top dog.

Compare to Date Masamune, who had his brother and father killed, the same goes to Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin, all ruthless men who had their families killed, exiled and torn apart, who killed thousands, engaged in religious persecution, etc.

Ruthlessness is a basic requirement for being a successful warlord, especially in Sengoku Japan, a place where failure doesn't mean that you lose your job or are imprisoned in a fancy castle, it means disembowelment and beheading.
 

maverick

Banned
Warlord poetry...

1. If the birds won't sing, I'll try to make them sing.
2. If the birds won't sing, I'll wait for them to sing.
3. If the birds won't sing, I'll kill them.


At the end of the sixteenth century, three dynamic leaders came to
power in Japan. It is said that the three men were gathered in a
garden, when a bird landed on a limb. A zen master asked them what
they would do if the bird did not sing. Oda Nobunaga said 'kill it'.
Tokugawa said 'wait'. Toyotomi Hideyoshi said 'make the bird want to
sing'.
 
I generally agree with what maverick said: ruthlessness was more or less a prerequisite for any Sengoku-era aspiring warlord/conqueror. I don't think that Oda was any more cruel or nasty than most other daimyo of the time; he was just more successful, and thus ran up a higher body count.

He burned the Ikko Sect (A Buddhist sect am I right) to the ground and murdered woman and children with it, he also destroyed an entire town of Mt. Hiei in which did the same thing.

Here it's important to remember that both the Ikko-shu and the Mt. Hiei Tendai sect were not exactly what we think of when we think of Buddhist monks today. They weren't lovable old people spouting Zen koans and chanting prayers all day. The Ikko-shu were militant radical types who started an anti-Oda revolt (the Ikko-Ikki rebellions), while Mt. Hiei was famed for its warrior monks.

1. If the birds won't sing, I'll try to make them sing.
2. If the birds won't sing, I'll wait for them to sing.
3. If the birds won't sing, I'll kill them.

Here's another Oda-Toyotomi-Tokugawa saying:

織田がつき 羽柴がこねし 天下餅 座りしままに 食うは徳川

"Oda pounds the national rice cake; Toyotomi kneads it; Tokugawa comes along and eats it."
 
This thread makes me so much more pissed that my nice little Japanese history book has seemingly disappeared in the move :mad:

As for Nobunaga... he did what he felt was necessary to achieve his goals, and did so ruthlessly. As others have said, not out of the ordinary in Sengoku-era Japan.
 
What would a Nobunaga led Japan be like I wonder? Always been a fan of that guy despite that he is depicted as evil in every single anime I have ever seen. The monks btw, were pretty good arquebus wielders so it's not like he stomped defenseless guys meditating. They were shooting at him the entire time.

Meh, I prefer the "modernized" version of the saying: Nobunaga made it, Hideyoshi baked it, but Tokuwaga ate it!
 
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