Japanese Daimyo and Unifier
His skills at organization, his tactical flair and above all his visionary use of military technology placed him in the front rank of generals. His other outstanding characteristic was his great ruthlessness.
—Stephen Turnbull, Samurai Commanders
THE PROMINENT JAPANESE ODA CLAN moved from Echizen Province to Owari Province around the turn of the fifteenth century. Oda Ise Nyudo Josho was appointed deputy military governor of the province by Shiba Yoshishige, the de jure ruler of the province as military governor. Shiba, like most provincial military governors, lived in Kyoto rather than Owari and had little input into the day-to-day operations of the province; that was Oda’s job. All was well until the outbreak of the Onin War (1467–77), a struggle between the military ruler of Japan, the shogun, and a number of the provincial leaders, the daimyo (“great name”). Japan had an emperor but the daimyo exercised local power with little if any attention paid to either emperor or shogun. Neither the shogun nor the emperor had enough power to restrict or control the feudal houses, which numbered some 260 by 1467. Thus, for all practical purposes, Japan by 1467 was in fact 260 separate countries. Each daimyo was independent and maintained personal armies.1 Thus, even when the Onin War officially ended, inter-daimyo conflict continued in what was called the Sengoku (Warring States) Period. Only when Tokugawa Ieyasu established hegemony in the early 1600s did that era come to an end.
THE SHIBA CLAN FOUGHT among themselves during the Onin War, and the Oda took advantage of the rift to take over control of Owari Province. This, however, resulted in a split in the Oda clan. Two factions controlled half the province each: the Ise no Kami occupied the “upper” districts nearer the capital city of Kyoto, and the Yamato no Kami controlled four counties farther away in the “lower” districts. Through most of the first half of the 1500s the Ise no Kami branch was under the leadership of Oda Nobuhide, who seems to have held true power despite his subordinate position to Oda Michikatsu, the deputy military governor. In the 1540s Nobuhide organized attempts to expand his domains at the expense of neighboring provinces, a project in which he was only partially successful. In 1547 he lost a major battle to Saito Dosan, but the campaign had an interesting outcome. In 1549, Nobuhide married his second son and heir, Nobunaga, to one of Saito Dosan’s daughters. This marriage cannot be seen as a sign of Nobuhide’s deference, as it was Saito’s daughter who moved to Owari Province. Rather, it seems to have been a formal acknowledgment by Saito Dosan of Oda Nobuhide’s military strength.2
The second son mentioned above, Nobunaga, was born on 9 July 1534. Nothing is mentioned of his upbringing and youth other than that in his teen years he adopted a very eccentric behavior pattern that made many think he was mentally deficient. Whether this was youthful ego or a carefully designed facade is impossible to tell. Neither is it clear why he, as second son, would be heir. He did, however, inherit both a strong domain and influential in-laws when he took over leadership in April 1551 when his father died of disease. When constant prayers by local Buddhist priests did not bring about his father’s recovery, Nobunaga took revenge. In the only full-length biography of Oda Nobunaga in English, Jeroen Lamers writes, “Nobunaga then had the bonzes [priests] thrown into a temple with the doors locked from the outside; he told the bonzes that, as they had lied to him about the health of his father, they had better pray to their idols with greater devotion for their own lives. After surrounding them on the outside, he shot some of them to death with harquebuses.”3 Some historians assume that this was a motive for Nobunaga’s campaign to annihilate area monks later in his career.
Nobuhide had not been able to completely assimilate all of Owari, and the Ise no Kami faction was further split between Nobunaga and his brothers. It took four years for Nobunaga to begin his move to exercise preeminence. In 1555 he conspired with an uncle against a local official who was plotting against Nobunaga. This resulted in the acquisition of Kiyosu Castle and the end of the Yamato no Kami branch of the family. The following year he beat back attacks from two brothers; one, Nobuhiru, decided afterward to join Nobunaga, but the younger brother, Nobuyuki, remained hostile. In response, Nobunaga tricked Nobuyuki out of his castle in 1557 and had him murdered. It took two more years to capture the final resisting stronghold, but the successful siege of Iwakura, home of the original military governor, gave Nobunaga control of all of Owari Province.
MEDIEVAL JAPANESE WARFARE prior to the Sengoku period meant samurai warfare. Although battles occurred with large numbers of conscript infantry, they carried no historical significance. In traditional samurai warfare, battles were large collections of individual combats. Warriors would announce themselves, pair off with opponents of similar rank, and fight with the high-quality swords for which the era is so famous. That formality began to disappear during the Mongol invasions of the 1100s, when a samurai who singled himself out before the steppe warriors immediately found himself pincushioned by arrows. The samurai thereafter became expert horse archers, with retainers and conscripts in support as infantry. The bow of the time (yumi) was some seven to nine feet tall, with the grip offset below center. It was a laminate of wood and bamboo. Like the Mongols, the Japanese designed their arrowheads in multiple shapes for differing functions and fired them from a finger-and-thumb release. The role of samurai as archer, however, was changing by the time of the Sengoku period, when firearms were introduced into Japan.
The samurai warrior wore rawhide or iron lamellar armor. Like the samurai sword, the iron plates would be manufactured with the iron being repeatedly beaten and folded over, to a final thickness of 2 mm. A complete suit of armor could weigh as much as thirty pounds. In the sixteenth century the breastplate became solid rather than layered, more like the European armor of the time. The samurai resembled the European knight, in fact, with the addition of the sashimono, an identifying device such as a flag, worn on the back. Samurais carried a te-yari (hand spear) or mochi-yari (held spear), which could vary in shaft length between 3.2 and 4 meters. Blade lengths varied enormously, from about 10 centimeters to 1.5 meters.4 With or without armor, the samurai always wore one or two swords, even though by the Sengoku period the samurai was primarily a lancer, with the archery being taken over by lesser infantrymen. The yari spear gave its wielder an advantage, being a weapon as useful on foot as on horseback. The range of options for the samurai was thereby extended from their being elite archers to a role of greater versatility. The yari permitted the samurai to defend himself or take the fight to his enemy, in a way that the exclusive use of the bow had never allowed.5 By the Sengoku period the samurai in battle was a swordsman almost as a last resort.
The bulk of the Japanese armies consisted of ashigaru, foot soldiers without sociopolitical rank. Traditionally these were peasant conscripts, which limited warfare to the off period between planting and harvest. They wore what was called a folding cuirass: folding armor consisting of dozens of small, card-sized plates of metal connected by metal rings. The cheapest armor had the plates sewn directly to a quilted lining.6 The ashigaru may have worn sleeve armor, but almost certainly did not wear any leg armor. By the mid-1500s all armor was lacquered in the daimyo’s personal color, usually with his crest painted on the ashigaru’s cuirass. The greatest difference in appearance and protection came with the headgear. In place of the samurai’s helmet and face mask, the ashigaru wore a simple iron jingasa, or war hat, which was usually shaped like a lamp shade, with a cloth neck guard hanging from the rear.7
As seasonal conscripts the ashigaru could use little more than farm tools or spears for weapons. By the Sengoku period, these peasant soldiers had become more valuable, both because damiyo preferred to limit casualties among their samurai and because missile weapons were more widely used. The bow and arrow take time and practice to master, so it became necessary to have full-time infantry to learn the weapons. When firearms were introduced, their shallow learning curve meant farmers could easily learn their use, but the need for more year-round campaigning again meant a reliable soldiery that the farmers could not provide. Nobunaga was the first commander who separated his soldiers from the agricultural laborers, and by doing so obtained a free hand to begin operations at any time of the year he chose.8 This also gave them a greatly increased status and the ability to progress through the ranks. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of Nobunaga’s primary generals (and his successor), advanced in this manner. The primary weapon for the ashigaru was the spear, used for both offense and defense. Nobunaga equipped his men with the longest possible spear at six and a half meters, more than three times the height of the man wielding it.9 The spearmen formed the bulk of the front battle line, with archers and gunmen arrayed among them.
It is the firearms that make this period of Japanese military history significant. Accounts of the introduction of matchlock weapons to Japan are contradictory, although the generally accepted story is that Portuguese merchants shipwrecked on the island of Tanegashima sometime between 1542 and 1545 gave a demonstration of the weapon that so impressed the local daimyo that he ordered his metal workers to immediately begin copying it. Some historians question this version, pointing out that the “contemporary” account was actually written sixty years after the fact and that the possible introduction by the Mongols would significantly predate the Portuguese. Paul Varley notes that “there are other scattered accounts in the records of firearms—perhaps Chinese or Southeast Asian—in Japan before 1543, although none gives a clear idea of what these weapons may have looked like.”10
The arquebus, or teppo, used in Japan was not as heavy as the original matchlocks of Europe, for it was not necessary to shoot from a rest. As leading Western expert on samurai warfare Stephen Turnbull describes the weapon, “The arquebus was a simple muzzle-loading musket fired by a lighted match that was dropped on to the pan when the trigger was pulled. It was already revolutionising European warfare, and similar models had helped bring about the victory of the Spanish general Gonzalo de Cordoba at Cerignola in 1503.”11 Although with a maximum range of 500 meters it outdistanced the bow, its maximum effective range against samurai armor was 50–100 meters or roughly twice that of the bow. Whatever the original source, Japanese ironworkers by the middle 1500s were making firearms in large numbers, as well as improving them. The danger of having a burning match three-quarters of an inch from the pan struck the Japanese as foolishly unsafe, so they made a modification by adding a pivoting pan cover that was kept shut, covering the priming powder, until the arquebusier was ready to fire. Flintlocks in Europe would later have the same pan cover.12 Among other improvements were a larger bore to increase the bullet’s effectiveness as well as standardizing the number of calibers so bullets could be mass produced. Japanese gun makers refined the comparatively crude Portuguese firing mechanism, developing a helical main spring and an adjustable trigger pull.13
By the time Oda Nobunaga came to power firearms had been in use long enough to make them a fairly normal part of the battlefield, even if not yet the dominant arm. Archers were never superseded by musket-firing infantry, but fought side by side with the gun companies; their rate of fire was much greater and their effective range was comparable. It is false to assume that the introduction of the firearm completely altered Japanese fighting methods; the arquebus was just one factor that contributed to a process that was already under way.14 Nobunaga, however, was one of the first to appreciate the potential of the weapon, ordering 500 from the ironworks at Kunitomo in 1549. He heard about the power of the teppo, that supposedly nothing could stand against it, and he was very impressed. Nobunaga hired the best teppo marksman in Japan to be his teacher, and the troops learned to handle the weapon with fervor and a great amount of drill.15
On the other hand, Nobunaga did not immediately embrace firearms as a revolutionary weapon. According to Noel Perrin in his work on the history of firearms, Nobunaga is supposed to have told his followers, “Weapons of war have changed from age to age. In very ancient times, bows and arrows were the fashion, then swords and spears came into use, and recently guns have become all the rage. These weapons all have their advantages, but I intend to make the spear the weapon on which to rely in battle.”16 That attitude began to change over time, however, for by the 1570s he was depending on the firearms. Oda Nobunaga understood the importance of the new weapon quicker than any other daimyo, and he moved swiftly to gain control of all the gun-producing locations in central Japan. In the end he had five major and a number of minor arms foundries under his partial or full control and would develop a new fighting style based on the new weapon.17
The armies of Japan were organized along a standard format. In what could be seen as a Japanese version of the gleve system of the Holy Roman Empire, a daimyo like Oda Nobunaga could call on subservient nobles to provide manpower based on their income. Turnbull describes the system: The wealth of a landowner, or a fief holder, was expressed in koku, one koku being the amount of rice thought necessary to feed one man for one year. Feudal obligation required the supply of troops according to wealth. As a rule of thumb two mounted men and 20 foot per 1,000 koku would be supplied, although the proportion varied enormously from year to year and from daimyô to daimyô.”18 The army that resulted was a conglomeration of family, vassals, and ashigaru. “It could be computed, and was visibly identifiable, being made up from a hierarchy of units, each of whom had a vertically supportive role, and involved distinguishable weapon troops. … Each of these contingents was assigned its place on the battlefield, and fought independently under the overall command of one supreme general.”19 The commanding general, protected by his personal guard (hatamoto), would usually place himself on high ground in the central part of the battlefield in order to oversee the battle and send messengers to order unit movements. The messengers, or aides-de-camp, were called tsukai-ban. During a battle these elite mounted warriors, chosen from men who were already elite, would be in constant motion between the commander and the generals of the individual clan armies, taking messages and reporting back, surveying the situation, warning of new developments, and generally providing a battlefield communications system.20
The armies by the Sengoku period were primarily spear-carrying infantry. Analysis of paintings concerning battles of this period show that archers and gunners were arrayed on the front line amid spear units, acting primarily as skirmishers who did not engage in close combat. Nearly all the fighting was done by infantry armed with spears and swords, with spears by far the more prevalent.21 Cavalry were outnumbered perhaps twenty to one, mainly seen as infantry unit commanders or tsukai-ban. Although Takeda Shingen’s army, one of Nobunaga’s main rivals, was well known for the discipline and aggressiveness of its cavalry, the decline of its importance was already well under way.
WITH HIS HOME PROVINCE and his own family finally under his control, Oda Nobunaga began to expand his horizons. Whether he intended from this early stage to actually try to unify Japan is debatable, but he knew that any sort of personal advancement had to have the blessing of the shogun in Kyoto. The position of shogun had long been contested by descendants of the Muromachi bakufu (ruling family), a contest that had been a major factor in bringing on the Onin War in 1467, but by 1477 they had become irrelevant, with the shogun rendered almost powerless.22 Ashikaga Yoshiteru, shogun in the mid-1500s, had been unable to occupy his own palace owing to the fact that Miyoshi Nagayoshi, the daimyo of Omi Province (where Kyoto was located) had not allowed it. This was one of the overriding contradictions of Japan at the time: the shogun was virtually powerless though the supposed military leader under the auspices of the emperor, but at the same time, as a figurehead he commanded “A strange respect” from the daimyo.23 Gaining the support of the shogun was therefore the way to gain friends and destroy enemies, something of a royal road. In spite of the lack of respect paid to the sovereign in those days, a blessing from the throne was essential to an aspiring leader.24
While Nobunaga needed the shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru likewise needed him. Yoshiteru wanted to play a more active role than he was able to, so he appointed Nobunaga as military governor, or shugo, in Owari Province.25 The shogun had to walk a fine line between appointing an overly aggressive daimyo who would try to seize control and one he could control but who might be insufficiently powerful to protect him. For a daimyo to aim for dominance he had to be able to safeguard the shogun, which meant controlling Kyoto. Any attempt to do so, however, would provoke moves by the other daimyo either to stop such a move directly or to attack the home province of the first daimyo. During the first half of the sixteenth century, these daimyo were so busy fighting each other there was no real chance of national progress.26
Given the constant threat of aggressive neighbors, dependable allies were as vital as dependable troops. Often alliances were negotiated and sealed by marriages, as was indicated earlier by Nobunaga’s marriage to the daughter of Saito Dosan. Later, Nobunaga would actively arrange alliances by this method, betrothing sons and daughters to allies as necessary. Other times these were voluntary, including the most important of Nobunaga’s alliances, that with Tokugawa Ieyasu. Once a hostage to a rival daimyo to secure his father’s cooperation in a campaign, Tokugawa, upon taking over his own clan, tied his fortunes to that of the Odas. It proved a mutually beneficial arrangement: Tokugawa proved to be a trusted and at times vitally important subordinate in battle, but he also used the military power that he accumulated to make himself shogun in the early 1600s.
Another factor in the Sengoku period was a religious movement established in the early 1200s that became a factor by the later fifteenth century, led by the monks of the Buddhist Jodo Shinshu or “True Pure Land” sect. They began to assert political power by uniting farmers, monks, and priests in armed bands known as ikki. Through acts of resistance and rebellion they came to challenge the rule of the daimyo in several provinces.27 The most powerful Pure Land group was the Ikko-ikki, or Single-minded League, established by Rennyo. Although not interested in political power as such, the Ikko-ikki rejected control by outside authorities. Their claim on the souls of peasants and samurai meant potentially divided loyalties when the daimyo needed taxes and military service.
Nobunaga would be obliged to deal with the Ikko-ikki in the future, but his initial concern was with rival daimyo. He had the shogun’s favor, but was he strong enough to be the protector, much less a national unifier?
BY 1559, ODA NOBUNAGA had secured control over his home province of Owari, and he had a favorable visit with the shogun that same year. However, he was still a minor player and was soon targeted by a more powerful daimyo with designs on Kyoto and the shogun: Imagawa Yoshimoto of Suruga Province, some one hundred miles to the east of Nobunaga. Although Imagawa had only on-again, off-again alliances with his eastern neighbors (primarily Takeda Singen of Kai), the other daimyo to his north and east were so involved in their own fighting that he thought it safe to make a move toward Kyoto in 1560. Over the previous two decades he had risen from the position of third son and monk-in-training to become ally (through marriage) to the powerful Takeda clan and master of not only his own province but also of Totomi and Mikawa. So with large land holdings and the powerful Takedas to cover his rear, Imagawa prepared to brush aside the upstart Oda Nobunaga and march on the shogun’s domain.
Imagawa reached the border of Owari in mid-June, immediately launching attacks on Nobunaga’s two forts along the coastal Tokaido road: Washizu and Marune. The attack against Marune was led by nineteen-year-old Tokugawa Ieyasu, daimyo of Mikawa Province and at this time a vassal to Imagawa. After capturing the castle, Tokugawa was given permission to stay behind and garrison the frontier fort at Otaka while the rest of the Imagawa army pressed forward.
When Oda, in his headquarters at Kiyusu, was informed of the invasion and attack on the two forts, he sent orders for the commanders to hold as long as possible. Two versions exist of the council meeting he held that evening. One is that he listened to recommendations from his senior advisors to stand fast and defend Kiyusu. The other version is that when news came of the loss of the two forts he brushed it off. In his book on samurai legends, Hiroaki Sato describes the scene: “His conversations that night contained nothing remotely related to military matters, as they consisted of social gossip. When he found it was very late, he gave his men leave to go home. His house administrators derided him among themselves, saying, ‘Well, the adage, “When luck runs out, the mirror of one’s wisdom clouds up, too,” is certainly meant for this kind of behavior.’”28 When news came the following morning, 22 June, of the advance of Imagawa’s army, his response was much different. He had been up since dawn, and now supposedly he chanted a line from a Noh play: “Man’s life is fifty years. In the Universe what is it but dream and illusion? Is there any who is born and does not die?” He then ate breakfast as he donned his armor.29 He rode out of Kiyusu with only half a dozen retainers, but the rest of his officers gathered their men and caught up.
Oda’s first stop was Zensho Temple, very near where Imagawa had established his camp at Dengaku-hazama, near the village of Okehazama. This was an area with which he had been familiar since childhood. Hazama means gorge or defile; thus Imagawa had picked a camp in a seemingly good defensive position, but without room to maneuver.30 Oda set up his camp with banners flying within sight of Imagawa’s position. Leaving a number of men to give the look of busy preparation, Oda led his men around the flank by way of Nakajima, overruling protests from his subordinates that the route went through rice paddies, which would force them to advance in single file. At this point his force numbered somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000. During Oda’s maneuver a small force of 300 cavalry struck Imagawa’s camp from Zensho and was easily driven off with a loss of 50 men. The unsuccessful assault further contributed to Imagawa’s conviction that the Oda force could do him little harm. Imagawa saw this as a sign of divine protection, assuring him that nothing could withstand his power. He had songs sung in leisurely fashion as he continued to lay out his camp.31 Local peasants and priests brought him and his men food and drink. Imagawa himself was enjoying a head-viewing ceremony, the objects of his appraisal sent to him by Tokugawa from the victory at Marune.
Oda at this point prepared to attack, again provoking protests from his officers. He silenced them by arguing that the Imagawa forces were tired after their march and battles and that they would be resting before continuing their march. Thus, they would be unready for an attack. (Unbeknownst to Nobunaga, the forces that had taken the castles were those of Tokugawa, who was far to the east; the army before him was rested and ready.) Oda told his men that speed was of the essence, instructing them to hit hard and fast, create panic, and not stop the pursuit for prisoners. As if to belie Imagawa’s assumption of divine favor, a furious hailstorm struck just as Oda’s men were positioning themselves for the attack. The storm abated at about 2 p.m. and Oda immediately ordered the charge. Nobunaga’s orders had been to advance if the enemy retreated, but to fall back if the enemy rallied and attacked. There was no rally; Imagawa’s first line of defense was immediately shattered.32
Nobunaga’s men were on the enemy before they had even emerged from whatever shelter they had taken from the storm. This was no time for muskets, but hand-to-hand fighting with spears and swords. As the two armies began the engagement, Imagawa was still wrapped in his sense of security. Indeed, he thought the noise of the attack, at first, was merely a quarrel among his own men. He shouted to a passing soldier for silence, but the soldier proved to be one of Nobunaga’s men, who killed him.33 Nobunaga dismounted and fought alongside his men on foot. He hoped to fight Imagawa himself, but such was not to be. It mattered little, for the battle was over in minutes and the pursuit resulted in 2,500–3,000 enemy dead. Oda’s casualties are not recorded but must have been negligible.
The battle at Okehazama was a meeting engagement dependent on surprise. It began with a feint and demonstration when Oda fixed Imaga-wa’s attention by establishing his camp and launching a small cavalry attack from it. That, coupled with Imagawa’s false sense of security, concentrated the enemy in their own camp located in a gorge. This was a poor decision on Imagawa’s part, but he seems to have assumed that the steep hills on either side would offer protection, rather than bottle him up. Oda controlled the tempo of the battle, launching his attack rapidly in the wake of the hailstorm before the enemy could collect themselves. Carrying out an attack on an enemy force some ten times one’s own size certainly indicates Oda’s audacity. The pursuit was planned from the beginning and carried out to the utmost. The surprise, along with the death of their commander, immediately dispirited the Imagawa force, and they fled after putting up minimal resistance. Although the bulk of the force escaped death or capture, their complete dispersal was sufficient to make this an overwhelming victory.
Jeremy Black argues that the victory was more the seizure of an opportunity than a deliberate attack: “Nobunaga, who received good intelligence reports and was always aware of the enemy’s position and actions, was feeling his way toward [Imagawa] Yoshimoto, brushing aside the Imagawa advance forces and presumably hoping to pressurize the main Imagawa army into withdrawing from Owari.”34 Oda did not maneuver them into the gorge nor could he have anticipated the storm, but the ability to read and react is one of the characteristics of the great battlefield general. Black’s argument that this was not a strategically planned attack is valid, but from the sources it cannot be doubted that Oda marched out of Kiyusu looking for a battle, not merely to “pressure” Imagawa away.
The battle at Okehazama also had great political ramifications. The vassal Tokugawa Ieyasu had done nothing to aid or avenge Imagawa and carefully made no move to antagonize Oda. He would soon join his forces and the resources of his province of Mikawa to Oda’s cause and prove to be not only an invaluable ally and battlefield subordinate, but an able heir to Oda Nobunaga’s goal of unifying Japan. With Tokugawa on his side and the Imagawa clan in rapid decline, his eastern flank was secure; Oda could continue his drive to pacify territory to the north.
Although allied to the daimyo of Mino by marriage, Nobunaga’s father-in-law Saito Dosan was murdered in 1566 by the daimyo’s son. This motivated Nobunaga into action. With the able assistance of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a foot soldier turned general who had risen through the ranks under Nobunaga’s tutelage, Nobunaga built a castle-fort at Sunomata at a river junction on the Owari-Mino border. This dominated the plain of Mino and gave Oda a strong position from which to launch an assault that quickly carried his enemy’s castle at Inabayama.
With Mino Province in his control in 1567, Oda established himself at Gifu (formerly Inabayama). Here he received word from the heir to the shogunate, Yoshiaki, who was exiled from the palace. The shogun praised his achievements and asked for aid in recovering territory his family had lost to rebellious vassals and in restoring the vacant throne. These two requests formed the authority for Nobunaga’s further action. His motto, engraved on his seal, became “Rule the Empire by Force.”35 Rival daimyo in Ise and Omi tried to interfere, but by late 1568 Nobunaga had defeated their armies and, with Yoshiaki in hand, entered the capital city of Kyoto, where Yoshiaki was restored to his position on 28 December. Despite their initial alliance, the relations between the two deteriorated as time went by, with Nobunaga respecting the office of the shogun but not the person. He built a massive new palace for Yoshiaki while demanding he submit to terms that would reduce him to ceremonial status. Yohsiaki instead courted support from other daimyo while carefully not offending Nobunaga too greatly.
At the end of July 1570 Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu fought the daimyo of the provinces of Echizen and Omi, Asakura Yoshikage and Asai Nagamasa. Asai was Nobunaga’s brother-in-law, but had long-standing ties to Asakura. The battle took place at Anegawa and was a traditional hand-to-hand battle, much of it fought in a shallow river. Although he outnumbered his opponents, Nobunaga needed Ieyasu to deliver a well-timed flank attack in order to save the day. Asakura and Asai were badly hurt but not eliminated as a threat.
WITH HIS FRONTIERS RELATIVELY SECURE, Oda Nobunaga prepared for a threat much closer to home: the Ikko-ikki. These religious communities comprised new-style warrior monks of the Shinshu sect. Turnbull explains, “The second term in the name, ikki, strictly means league. … The other word, Ikko, provides a clue to their religious affiliation. It means ‘single-minded’ or ‘devoted,’ and the monto (disciples or adherents of the Shinshu sect) were completely single-minded in their devotion and determination.”36 The Ikko-ikki grew out of the Onin War and out of the tradition of earlier warrior-monk sects. Whereas earlier sects had some trained fighters, they depended mainly on mercenaries; the Ikko-ikki recruited from the peasantry and depended on fanaticism. The Shinshu sect grew out of a breakaway movement from Pure Land Buddhism and was organized in the first half of the fourteenth century by Kakunyo, grandson of the Pure Land sect’s founder, Shinran. He established the movement’s headquarters at the temple holding his grandfather’s ashes, Honganji.
The Shinshu sect turned away from traditional monasticism taught by other forms of Buddhism in order to preach that enlightenment came merely from uttering the name of Amida Buddha, for it grew from an inner urge placed there by Amida. This simpler form of enlightenment was attractive to the peasantry, who had neither the time nor spiritual drive to become monks. The Ikko-ikki communities were started by Rennyo, the eighth leader of the Honganji, at the end of the fifteenth century. Turnbull writes, “Their faith promising that paradise was the immediate reward for death in battle, the Ikko-ikki monto (believers) welcomed fighting; nothing daunted them. When the Ikko-ikki were about to go into battle, the sound of their massed nembutsu chanting chilled the blood of their enemies.”37 By Oda Nobunaga’s time the Ikko-ikki were established in an area virtually equivalent in size to his own, and they were an opposing economic force as well as a military one. Further, when relations between Nobunaga and the shogun went sour, Yoshiaki began courting the Ikko-ikki as well as some of the daimyo. Clearly, the warrior monks and the new militant church, the Honganji, would have to be dealt with if Nobunaga was going to establish his dominion.38
The Ikko-ikki were based in temples throughout the region from Kyoto westward, but their three primary centers were at Enryakuji just to the north of Kyoto, Ishiyama Hongonji further to the south (the site of Osaka Castle today), and Nagashima some fifty miles east in the province of Ise, next to its border with Oda’s Owari Province. All were built in easily defensible areas, Ishiyama Hongonji and Nagashima in marshy river deltas and Enryakuji atop Mt. Hiei overlooking the southwestern shore of Lake Biwa.
The Ikko-ikki traditionally fought with a halberd-type spear, the naginata, which sported a long, wide, curved blade. By the Sengoku period, however, they had not only adopted firearms but were engaged in manufacturing them as well, using the organized and cohesive nature of the Shinshu communities.39 That same cohesiveness, coupled with discipline and motivation, allowed them to develop into masters of both offense and defense.
Oda Nobunaga began his struggles with the warrior monks in 1570. After his victory at Anegawa in midsummer, he launched an offensive into Shettsu Province, south of Kyoto, against the daimyo Miyoshi Yoshitsugu, leader of one of the clans threatening Kyoto. Miyoshi was able to draw on 3,000 arquebusiers from the nearby Ikko-ikki temple at Ishiyama Honganji, a reinforcement that obliged the Oda forces to withdraw. Turnbull asserts that “Nobunaga’s army was stunned both by the ferocity of the surprise attack against it and also by the use of controlled volley firing from 3,000 arquebusiers.”40 This is the first mention of volley musket fire in history.
When Nobunaga marched to Mt. Hiei against a reconstituted army under Asai and Asakura in the winter of 1570–71, Ikko-ikki forces surrounded and forced the surrender of Ogie Castle, commanded by one of Nobunaga’s younger brothers, who committed suicide in shame. That loss, coupled with the blame he placed on Buddhist priests for his father’s death, must have renewed Nobunaga’s personal hatred and coupled it with his political and military needs. Additionally, monks had again aided his enemies during the battle against Asai and Asakura, when 3,000 gunmen from the temple at Enryakuji struck the Oda flank.
Starting on 29 September 1571, Nobunaga moved to eradicate the league in a most brutal way. Starting with the town of Sakamoto at the foot of Mt. Hiei, Nobunaga’s army of 30,000 moved toward Enryakuji at the summit in a scorched earth advance, destroying everything in its path. The Ikko-ikki could do little against Nobunaga’s large and highly trained samurai army, which destroyed the temple at Enryakuji.41 All the sources describe it as more slaughter than battle, with every structure burned and every person—man, woman, or child—killed in battle or taken captive and beheaded.42 Nobunaga’s reputation for cruelty grew primarily from this occasion, but the action was effective. Although the temple was later rebuilt, the army of monks based there was never revived.
Nobunaga next moved to focus on Nagashima. An earlier assault in May 1571 had been led by two of Nobunaga’s subordinates. They tried to send their cavalry through the marshes but were bogged down in the mire, at which point they were slaughtered by Ikko-ikki gunners and archers. Most of the attacking force was killed. Nobunaga led the next assault in the summer of 1573, using his own arquebusiers to lay down a covering fire while another force struck the flank. Unfortunately for him, a sudden downpour doused the matches on his teppo. As soon as the rain stopped, the monks, who had covered their fuses during the storm, launched a counterattack. The volleys of fire decimated Nobunaga’s force, with one bullet narrowly missing him.43
Oda Nobunaga finally defeated the Nagashima defenders in 1574 by allying himself with a force of pirate ships with cannon that destroyed the forts’ watchtowers and stopped any reinforcement by sea. After capturing two outer forts, Oda was able to surround the fort and fortified monastery and starve the monks out. He refused to accept their surrender and burned 20,000 starving defenders as well as locals who had fled to Nagashima before the attack. His final victory over the Ikko-ikki came in 1580, when he was able to capture and destroy the Honganji temple in Osaka.
Little in the campaigns against the warrior monks shows original tactical brilliance, but by facing the monks’ use of volley fire, Oda Nobunaga learned from it. Ironically, then, Nobunaga owed the Ikko-ikki armies a debt of gratitude, for it was they who taught him to be flexible in his fighting techniques and to adopt the volley fire as the most effective technique with the weapons.44
IF ANY DAIMYO POSED A SERIOUS CHALLENGE to Oda Nobunaga as a potential unifier, it was Takeda Shingen of Kai Province. An able general, he had conquered all or part of the provinces surrounding his own and certainly had his sights on Kyoto. To his southwest lay Mikawa, Tokugawa Ieyasu’s province. With the fall of the Imagawa clan after the Battle of Okehazama, Takeda acquired the province of Suruga while he and Tokugawa divided the province of Totomi. In 1570, Tokugawa moved his headquarters to Hamamatsu in Totomi Province, which Takeda viewed as a provocative act. What ensued was a Takeda victory over a Tokugawa force (with some Oda allies) at the battle of Mikata ga hara in 1572. In a follow-up offensive the following year Takeda Shingen died; some sources say of disease, others of a wound inflicted by a sniper at the siege of Noda Castle in Mikawa.
Takeda Shingen was succeeded by his favorite son, Takeda Katsuyori. He was a talented soldier but alienated the twenty-four generals and advisors he inherited from his father. His rejection of their advice, coupled with the belief that he was born of an enchanted mother, made his followers less than enthusiastic. Nevertheless, they followed him into Mikawa Province in 1575 even though they argued against it—there was another threat from the north, that of the Takedas’ long-time adversary Uesugi Kenshin. Without their right flank, securing an invasion of Mikawa was very dangerous, even if it was a continuation of the strategy his father, Shingen, had been pursuing. However, Katsuyori had a traitor inside Tokugawa’s headquarters at the castle of Okazaki, who was to open the gates to him.
Entering Mikawa from the mountains to the north, Katsuyori was marching his men toward Okazaki when he learned that his plan had been discovered and the turncoat had been executed. This turn of events convinced him not to try for the stronghold but to turn southeastward toward Tsukude, a castle he had once controlled before its commander turned his allegiance to Tokugawa. However, he then bypassed Tsukude and marched to Noda Castle on the Toyokawa River, and marched downstream toward the coast to raid three of Tokugawa’s castles in the region. Katsuyori attacked and burned two minor outposts of Yoshida Castle (Nirengi and Ushikubo), but failed to take the castle itself. He then pointed his army back upriver toward the final frontier castle, Nagashino. Turnbull observes, “Possession of Nagashino was an asset worth having. It had passed from Tokugawa to Takeda and back again, and covered one of the mountain passes to Shinano … Little Nagashino would be a good consolation prize with which to conclude his Mikawa campaign.”45
On 14 June 1575 Takeda Katsuyori’s troops placed themselves before Nagashino’s western and northern faces, the only directions from which it was approachable. It was situated on a small cliff overlooking the junction of two rivers, the Onagawa and Takigawa, joining to form the southwestward-flowing Toyokawa. The fort was wooden, roughly 250 by 330 meters, surrounded by a stone wall and a dry moat. Outer defensive works covered the northern and western approaches. Okudaira Sadamasa commanded the 500-man garrison, who were armed with 200 arquebuses and a cannon.46 Outnumbered thirty to one, the defenders mounted a gallant defense, repulsing each of Katsuyori’s attacks. Katsuyori and his men tried to mine the castle walls, but the defenders foiled that attempt by countermining; samurai sent across the rivers on rafts likewise failed to make any headway, and Katsuyori’s siege towers were shot to pieces. After a general assault on the castle was also beaten back, Katsuyori finally decided to starve the castle’s defenders into submission.47
After four days of fighting, the fort’s commander called for a volunteer to alert Oda Nobunaga to their plight. Torii Sune-emon stepped forward. He left in the night, swam past the Takeda guards, and made his way to Okazaki Castle, where Oda and Tokugawa were in residence. They had been alerted to the siege and were on the way with a force of 38,000, but Torii’s message motivated them to move more quickly. Rather than travel with the army, Torii returned to Nagashino to report. Unfortunately, he was captured. Promising Takeda that he would approach the garrison and call out to them that they had been abandoned, he instead alerted them to the imminent relief. For this action he was crucified in front of the fort. Turnbull describes the result: “[T]he example of Torii Sune-emon is one of the classic stories of samurai heroism. Many in the Takeda army were moved by his example. … Whatever effect Torii-Sune’emon’s bravery had on the enemy, its effect on the garrison was inspiring.”48
As the Oda-Tokugawa force approached Nagashino, Oda decided against marching to the castle to relieve it but instead to deploy on the Shitaragahara Plain about three miles to the west behind the Rengogawa River. Oda was banking on young Takeda’s impulsiveness; he was sure Katsuyori would abandon the siege to face him in battle. Arriving on the evening of 27 June, Oda deployed his men in a north-south line about a hundred yards west of the Rengogawa. The northern flank was covered by high ground (Mt. Gambo), while the southern flank was anchored on the Toyokawa River. The Renogogawa was neither wide nor deep, but the ground rose sharply on the western side. Using the naturally strong position, Nobunaga and his men made it stronger by building a palisade halfway between the river and their front lines. This fence, built in sections with openings every fifty yards, would provide cover for the gunners, break any cavalry charge, and provide paths for counterattacking infantry.49 Behind the palisades he placed his arquebusiers, backed up by the remainder of the army.
The gunners are the primary source of controversy in this battle. Most secondary sources say this battle marks the introduction of musket volley fire, but as pointed out earlier, this had already been introduced by the Ikko-ikki. Almost all sources number Oda’s gunners at 3,000. This is challenged, however, by Lamers, who points out: “The number of 3000 har-quebusiers [sic] first appears in Oze Hoan’s Shinchoki, but the far more reliable and earlier Shincho-Ko ki speaks of only 1000 harquebusiers. Furthermore, many of the harquebusiers in action at Nagashino were not Nobunaga’s own troops but had been temporarily dispatched by his captains. They joined Nobunaga only a few days before the battle, and it is questionable whether Nobunaga had much opportunity to train them in such a complicated action as rotating volley fire.”50
The gunners deployed in groups of 30–50; given that the front was perhaps 1.25 miles, that means roughly one gunner per seven feet if they numbered 1,000 and did not fire in volleys. The deployment would be the same if they numbered 3,000 and fired in three ranks, as is often proposed. Turnbull supports the traditional view: “Behind the 2,000m palisade Nobunaga placed his remaining 3,000 matchlockmen. The gunners, arranged three ranks deep, were under the command of members of Nobunaga’s horō-shû, his finest samurai. Their normal duties were to act as his personal bodyguard, and for Nobunaga to use them to command lower class missile troops shows the immense importance Nobunaga attached to the role of the ashigaru gunners.”51
Takeda did indeed react as Oda had predicted, though his generals all advised against it. Leaving 3,000 men in the lines at Nagashino Castle, he led his remaining 12,000 through the night toward the enemy lines, moving in four groups of 3,000 through pouring rain. Takeda seems to have appreciated the weather, assuming it would make the matchlocks unusable. Again, Oda had learned that lesson from his first attack against Nagashima; this time his gunners were ordered to make sure their powder and fuses remained dry. Instead, the rain caused the low ground along the Rengogawa to become extremely muddy. The Takeda forces deployed along a stream along the edge of a wood some 200–400 yards opposite the palisades. Once Takeda’s forces left the wood line, there was no cover or concealment available except possibly the river’s banks.52 Takeda distributed his men in three commands, line abreast, parallel to Oda’s army. Each command had roughly 1,000 cavalry with the remainder being infantry and support troops. The force under Takeda’s direct command took position in the rear behind the central force.
As the Takeda army marched, Oda Nobunaga held a council of war. He secretly decided to send 3,000 men (including 500 arquebusiers) on a surprise attack against the Takeda force left behind at Nagashino. To launch a rear attack simultaneously, with the Takeda advance away from the security of their siege lines, would be a tremendous psychological advantage.53 Their target was a force of 1,000 on Mt. Tobigasuyama, across the Omagawa River from the castle.
By 5 a.m. the Takeda forces were deployed on the edge of the woods. Takeda reasoned that the relatively short distance from the palisades would favor his cavalry, as they could cover it quickly and not take too many casualties from the gunners, who would be busy reloading by the time the horsemen struck. Further, his best unit, stationed on his far left, would sweep around the end of the fence and roll up the Oda flank.
At 6:00 the war drums began beating and the attack started. The charge from the woods to the river was unopposed, as Oda had ordered his teppo commanders to hold their fire until the enemy horse had come within fifty meters. However, on reaching the steep river banks the attack began to lose momentum, as the cavalry struggled. The Oda gunnery commanders exploited the fatal delay and ordered their men to begin laying down volley fire, each rank of gunners firing in rotation,54 and the guns opened up. The range was such that an arquebus ball would penetrate the armor the samurai wore; it certainly would do damage to an unarmored horse. Thus, the first line of cavalry were hit while virtually standing still at the river bank. The survivors began to regain speed, but the terrain leading up to the palisades was uphill, and as the horsemen got closer to the line of gunners the damage was greater. Tunbull says that “modern experiments have shown that an experienced gunner could hit a man-sized target with five shots out of five at the shorter distance [30 meters], compared with one in five at 50m. The first volley was therefore fired at slow moving targets, while the second was delivered at a potentially greater accuracy but at a moving target. The third volley must have been fired at almost point blank range.”55 No one knows how many were killed in the initial charge. Some certainly survived, but any sort of unit cohesion was lost. Any horseman shooting a gap in the palisades would have found himself massively outnumbered and quickly dispatched. There was enough damage created in the cavalry units that the bulk of the survivors would have retreated.
Several more charges occurred throughout the morning. The battle devolved into hand-to-hand combat as the Oda forces charged out from the palisade. This continued until 1 p.m., when Nobunaga signaled his men to withdraw to the palisade. Temporarily disengaged, the Takeda forces began to retreat. Nobunaga ordered a pursuit, and despite the valiant attempts of Katsuyori’s generals to fight a rearguard action, many Takeda samurai were run down and killed by the Oda cavalry.56
In addition to the question of the numbers of gunners, one source challenges the whole story of a full-scale cavalry charge. In his history of the samurai, Mitsuo Kure argues, “In the late Heian and Kamakura periods mounted samurai with bows indeed formed the main body of armies; but the introduction of new fighting techniques had changed the way in which mounted soldiers deployed, precisely to avoid the guns. At the time of Shitaragahara [Nagashino] the Japanese samurai dismounted to fight, supported by their retainers. … At the very least we may be confident that after the first wave of the Takeda assault had failed, they would know that the muddy ground was unsuited for cavalry charges.”57 Kure further asserts that the Takeda army was defeated primarily by the terrain, which not only slowed an assault by either cavalry or infantry, but had been enhanced defensively not just by the palisades but also by ditches and earthworks. He says that the second wave of the assault pulled down the palisades but immediately faced a ditch. “Attacks were made sporadically, probing forward piecemeal, perhaps using their own dead as fascines to bridge the ditch. … Neither Oda Nobunaga, Toyo-tomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu or Takeda Katsuyori ever mentioned any particularly effective use of arquebuses, because the deployment of concentrated firepower was nothing new in Japanese tactics.”58 Lamers, however, whose definitive biography of Oda Nobunaga was the first to challenge both number of teppo and their use in volley firing, still supports the traditional view of cavalry’s role in the battle: “Katsuyori gave away his advantage of speed by charging headlong into Nobunaga’s line of defence, sacrificing his men to Nobunaga’s superior firepower.”59
Given the impetuosity Takeda displayed and the well-established reputation of his cavalry, it seems logical that the generally accepted version of the battle is correct. Firepower was a key factor, but the strength of the defense and the lay of the land were both overwhelming advantages for the defense. Even had the ground not been muddy, the river and the steeply rising western bank made a frontal assault virtual suicide against even 1,000 teppo. Casualty counts range from several thousand to 10,000 for Takeda Katsuyori and roughly 6,000 for the Oda-Tokugawa army. As a finishing touch, the diversionary raid against the covering force at the castle was also a huge success. The surprise attack quickly overwhelmed the isolated force on Mt. Tobigasu, and the garrison within Nagashino sallied to defeat the troops just outside the walls.
The Battle of Nagashino was the result of an approach march followed by a meeting engagement. Usually such a move results in an attack by the army on the move, but this time Oda’s army took up the defensive, choosing terrific ground for provoking an attack by an impulsive commander. The river fronting the Oda lines provided the initial disruption of the attack, with the constructed defenses providing a second one. There were no spoiling attacks; Oda’s orders were to stay behind the palisades until the attackers wore themselves out, after which the pursuit was launched. Having destroyed the bulk of the Takeda army, Oda and Tokugawa sent their men immediately out from their positions to pursue the retreating remnants, exploiting the effect of the defensive victory.
IN THE WAKE OF THE BATTLE OF NAGASHINO, Oda Nobunaga went on to conquer much of central Japan before he was ambushed by a traitorous subordinate, Akechi Mitsuhide, in 1582. Mitsuhide’s men surrounded the temple at Honno-ji and fought their way into the courtyard, where one of them shot Nobunaga in the side with an arrow. Supposedly he pulled out the arrow, then took up his own bow and killed many of the attackers. He finally received a musket ball in his arm, which ended his resistance. It is said he turned and walked into a burning temple to end his own life.60
Modern judgments of Oda Nobunaga’s character are not kind. Unlike many of the generals discussed thus far, he had few redeeming characteristics. One thinks of modern views of Alexander, best summed up in the title of one of his recent biographies, “killer of men.” But as George Sansom notes in his history of Japan, Oda’s methods “were utterly ruthless in a ruthless age.”61 A successful general, he was not an inspirational leader, though he received the loyalty of two talented men, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu, who would lead his armies and succeed him as unifiers of Japan.
Perhaps his primary military importance in Japan was his ability to innovate. He was among the first to recognize the potential of match-locks, learning how to shoot and acquiring as many manufacturing centers as possible. Here he also encouraged the production of cannon. These had been used, as had the teppo, by pirates, but Nobunaga was the first to use them on a large scale on land, for both offense and defense. It is the arquebus, however, that is most important. Most accounts of the Battle of Nagashino credit Nobunaga with ordering firing according to rank, one group firing while the others reloaded. If indeed he fought in this manner, he was decades ahead of armies in Europe. As we will see in the next chapter, it was Gustavus Adolphus who introduced massed matchlock fire into European warfare during the Thirty Years War a half-century after Nagashino.62 Oda Nobunaga promoted the manufacture of gunpowder as well, in order to be less dependent on foreign supply. He promoted the use of ashigaru as regular troops rather than militia, and by making them full-time soldiers gave them discipline and status that heretofore had only been in the hands of the samurai. He also began his own navy and experimented with the concept of ironclad ships.63
In the principles of war employed in this work, Nobunaga’s strengths were objective, the offensive, security, and exploitation. From the beginning of his career, Oda Nobunaga set as his political objective the leadership of Japan: “Rule the Empire by Force.” Strategically, he used his central location as a power base to which he would gradually gain land and men until he attracted the attention of the shogun and gained the necessary legitimacy to wage war on other enemies. In battle, the center of gravity for him was always the enemy army, whether in the open as at Okehazama and Nagashino, or in forts as at Mt. Hiei, Osaka, or Nagashima. Nobunaga benefited from the practice of the age of having daimyo lead their own armies, so “cutting off the head of the snake” was always a goal since surrender was not an option for such leaders. Subordinate commanders could become vassals, and he built his army in such a fashion, but rival daimyo (or religious leaders) ultimately would not survive defeat.
With the exception of taking up the tactical defensive at Shitaragahara, Oda favored the offensive. Although facing an invasion in his opening campaign, he refused to follow the advice of his older subordinates to defend his home castle. Instead, he took the initiative with a smaller force to ambush the Imagawa army at Okehazama. The speed of his reaction to the invasion, the analysis of the Imagawa position, and the fortuitous hailstorm amazed friend and foe alike. It was not, however, a tactic Nobunaga used often. He usually would not attack without a superior force and consistently did so after careful planning.
Although the battle at Nagashino is famous for Nobunaga’s use of firearms for defense, he introduced the widespread use of both hand-held matchlocks and cannon primarily on the offensive. He defeated the warrior monks in their castles with gunpowder weapons, including seaborne cannon aboard the ships of mercenaries hired for the assaults on Nagashima. Nobunaga’s early victories at Okehazama and Anegawa seem to have had no firearms employed, but the bulk of his campaigns after 1570 have them as an integral part of his army. His campaigns after Okehazama were strategic offensives, and he used this characteristic to his advantage tactically by choosing his battlegrounds when having meeting engagements. This is most apparent at Nagashino.
Nobunaga’s attention to the principle of security is best seen in two well-recorded instances. When alerted to the Imagawa invasion of his province, he met with his advisors in Kiyosu Castle. As mentioned earlier, his conversations that night consisted of social gossip. Even though this was his first battle and he was but twenty-six years old, Nobunaga knew enough to keep his plans to himself. If any of his less-than-enthusiastic subordinates decided to transfer his loyalty to the stronger invader, he could have taken Imagawa some men but no information.
At Nagashino, Oda was again holding a council on the night before the battle. One of his younger officers, Sakai Tadatsugu, suggested a sneak attack on the small force besieging the castle. He spoke out of turn and was quickly reprimanded. Turnbull comments, “However, Nobunaga interviewed him in private later, and assured him that he supported the plan. His anger had merely been a camouflage to throw any spies off the scent.”64 Kure also comments on security precautions within the Oda forces that night, asserting that one of the reasons for Katsuyori launching the foolish attack was because Takeda’s ninja scouts had all been killed by the Oda-Tokugawa troops before they could report the layout of the defensive position.65
Surely the principle of exploitation is the one at which Oda Nobunaga excelled. As noted above, the center of gravity was always the enemy army. Nowhere was this more true than in his battles against the warrior monks. In his battles against rival daimyo, his forces killed large numbers of defeated troops in pursuit, but with the monks it became a matter of massacres. Whether he held a grudge against the Buddhists for their broken promises to keep his father alive or he crushed them with a view to keeping the newly arrived European Christians happy so he could maintain a steady supply of gunpowder, he was intent on wiping them out. In his initial victory at Mt. Hiei, he left few survivors. Turnbull says, “Mount Hiei was virtually undefended except by its warrior monks. The attack had the prospect of being a pushover, but the ruthlessness with which it was pursued sent shock waves through Japan. … The next day Nobunaga sent his gunners out on a hunt for any who had escaped, and the final casualty list probably topped 20,000.”66 At Nagashima in 1574, Oda had another 20,000 monks and local inhabitants surrounded in a temple and fort compound. He refused to negotiate with them as they starved, and finally set fire to the complex and burned them all.
Following his victory at Nagashino, Nobunaga invaded the province of Echizen, north of Lake Biwa, the home of a large population of Ikkoikki. As in the assault on Mt. Hiei, Nobunaga ordered a sweep through the province, killing anyone his soldiers encountered. They killed untold thousands; while his troops took countless men and women with them as slaves to their respective home provinces, they took no monks prisoner.67 Only at his victory at Osaka Castle, the headquarters of the warrior monks, did Nobunaga show mercy. A long siege finally ended with an appeal for clemency by the emperor. Oda had arranged for the imperial letter to be sent in order to bring the battle to an end, but he honored the surrender agreement. He burned the buildings, but killed no more monks.
It is as an innovator that Oda Nobunaga stands out in Japanese military history. Like other commanders discussed in this work, he saw the technological wave of the future, and he rode that wave to both military and political victory. By creating larger standing armies of peasant warriors to supplement the traditional samurai, and by using that increased manpower to implement massed firepower, he was key to the decline of cavalry in Japan. A similar decline had been taking place in Europe for a century thanks to archers, pikes, and guns, but it came about much more rapidly in Japan because of the tactics Nobunaga implemented. Though remembered as ruthless and dispassionate, Nobunaga remains a critical figure in the formation of the Japanese military and the ultimate unification of Japan.