Oda Nobunaga
Also known as Oda Nobunaga 織田信長
- Dates
- 1534–1582
- Era
- Sengoku Japan; Owari, then Kyoto
- Role
- Sengoku daimyo who broke the Ashikaga order and died short of unification
Nobunaga broke a larger army at Okehazama, massed arquebuses at Nagashino, and died at Honnō-ji before Japan was unified.
Who was Oda Nobunaga?
Oda Nobunaga was the daimyo of Owari who began the military unification of Japan and did not live to finish it. He was born in 1534. His seal carried four characters, 天下布武 (tenka fubu): spread military rule across the realm. In 1560, at Okehazama, he attacked Imagawa Yoshimoto's marching camp in a rainstorm and Yoshimoto was killed. Nobunaga entered Kyoto, drove the last Ashikaga shogun out in 1573, and made war on armed Buddhist leagues as readily as on rival houses. The destruction of the Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei in 1571 is the brutal instance. He was not a mindless arsonist, and he was not a unifier who completed the map.
Takeda Shingen, the rival in this set, pushed against Nobunaga's ally Tokugawa Ieyasu and beat Ieyasu at Mikatagahara in 1572. Shingen died of illness in 1573, still on campaign. Nobunaga never defeated Shingen in person. In 1575, at Nagashino, Nobunaga and Ieyasu defeated Shingen's son Katsuyori. A large body of arquebusiers fired from behind palisades into a Takeda cavalry charge. The popular 'three-rank rotating volley' is a later picture, and historians argue about the drill. The guns, the field defences, and the outcome are secure. In 1582 Akechi Mitsuhide turned on him. Nobunaga died in the burning Honnō-ji in Kyoto. His body was not recovered. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, then Tokugawa Ieyasu, finished the political settlement he had opened.
Key ideas
天下布武
The realm under arms
天下布武 on his seal is a programme in four characters: military power is how the realm will be brought to one authority. It is not a claim that he had already done it.
Guns behind a barrier
Nagashino matters because arquebuses were used in mass, from cover, against a famous cavalry. Whether they fired in three neat rotating ranks is the part to leave open, and a diagram should not replace the battle.
A campaign stopped at the temple
Honnō-ji is the strategic fact of 1582. A hegemony that depends on one life ends when that life ends in a coup, and Hideyoshi's speed afterwards is part of Nobunaga's story, because the work was unfinished.
Famous episodes
Okehazama
History1560
In 1560 Imagawa Yoshimoto marched towards Kyoto through Owari with a much larger force and camped at Dengakuhazama in heavy weather. Nobunaga struck the camp, and Yoshimoto was killed. Ōta Gyūichi's Shinchō kōki records the upset. Later story multiplies the odds, so the death is the fact and the round numbers are decoration.
Nagashino
History1575
In 1575 Takeda Katsuyori besieged Nagashino castle, and Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu fought the Takeda cavalry from behind fieldworks with a large force of arquebusiers. The charge failed. Shingen had been dead for two years. The three-rank volley is debated, and the massed guns and the palisades are the part to teach.
Honnō-ji
History1582
In 1582 Akechi Mitsuhide turned his column on Kyoto, where Nobunaga was at the Honnō-ji with a small guard. The temple burned, Nobunaga died inside, and his body was not identified. His heir Nobutada died the same day. Hideyoshi destroyed Mitsuhide at Yamazaki within two weeks, and the unification story has to start again with someone else.
Myths vs facts
At Nagashino he invented the three-rank rotating volley and, with it, modern war.
He and Ieyasu deployed a large number of arquebuses from behind palisades against the Takeda horse in 1575. The neat three-rank drill is a popular reconstruction and is disputed. The guns and the barrier are solid, and the choreography stays hedged.
He defeated Takeda Shingen.
Shingen defeated Nobunaga's ally Ieyasu at Mikatagahara in 1572 and died of illness in 1573, before a decisive battle with Nobunaga. Nagashino, in 1575, was fought against Shingen's son Katsuyori.
He unified Japan.
He destroyed the Ashikaga shogunate's remaining power and held the centre, and when he died in 1582 powerful lords remained. Hideyoshi completed the military unification, and Ieyasu founded the lasting bakufu after Sekigahara. Nobunaga opened the sequence.
Takeaways
- Strike the camp when the larger army is stretched and sure.
- Put the new weapon behind a barrier, then check the legend of the drill.
- Stop the unification story at Honnō-ji, and name the men who finished it.
Rivals and connections
Sources
- Ōta Gyūichi, Shinchō kōki 信長公記