Season 9, Episode 15: The Fool of Owari

When we last left Owari Province, things had turned into a bit of a mess. While the Shiba Clan had the official reins as the shugo of the province, the Oda Clan served as the shugodai, and they were in the midst of a family power struggle. Oda Nobuhide, nicknamed “The Tiger of Owari” for his ferocity in battle, held the majority of influence throughout the province but was not actually, himself, the shugodai. The Imagawa Clan, who were building a small empire with the southern provinces of Kanto and Chubu, had made repeated incursions into Owari Province and had taken relatively firm control over neighboring Mikawa Province. Then in 1551, at the age of 42, Oda Nobuhide died, leaving the clan in the hands of his eldest legitimate son, Oda Nobunaga.

The scion of the Oda Clan did not have what we would call a stellar reputation. Born in 1534, he was just sixteen years old when his father died. More than just inexperienced, though, he was said to have exhibited odd behavior in his youth, often eschewing cultural politeness and samurai etiquette well into the years when he should have known better. He was exceedingly fond of guns and would often go out shooting with his friends. His rudeness and love of firearms have earned him the official nickname of “The Redneck Samurai” from exactly one source: this podcast. Truth be told, the original title of this episode was “The Redneck Samurai” but using Nobunaga’s official nickname made far more sense. Whereas his father had been “Owari no Tora,” the Tiger of Owari, he was called “Owari no Outsuke,” the Fool of Owari.

Before his father’s passing, he had arranged for Nobunaga to be married to the daughter of the Daimyo of Mino, a lady whose actual name was Kicho but who is better remembered by her title, Nohime, which means the princess of Mino. While Nobunaga would later go on to have many concubines, Nohime remained his official wife throughout his life and while she never gave birth to any of his children, she was tasked with being the primary caretaker of the children his concubines bore. Their marriage was a political arrangement meant to secure peace between the Oda and Saito clans.

While Nobunaga’s reputation was already fairly dim before his father’s untimely demise, his behavior at Nobuhide’s funeral was, for many retainers, beyond the pale. In the midst of the ceremony, the emotional Nobunaga grabbed some ceremonial incense and threw it at the altar. It seems likely that some kind of challenge was inevitable already, but this reckless action certainly didn’t help.

One of the first challenges came from outside the Oda Clan. Imagawa Yoshimoto dispatched his uncle, Imagawa Sessai, along with a large army to besiege Anjo Castle. Nobunaga’s older brother Nobuhiro, an illegitimate son, was serving as castellan and was trapped in the fortress with his garrison. In order to save his older brother, as well as encourage the Imagawa to cease hostilities for the moment, Nobunaga offered to hand over the now nine-year-old hostage child Matsudaira Takechiyo and give up the Oda Clan’s claim to Anjo Castle. The Imagawa agreed, Nobuhiro was saved, and the young scion of the Matsudaira Clan was sent to Sunpu Castle in Suruga Province.

If this story sounds familiar, it is because we discussed this event in the second Sengoku “States” episode, but I made an unfortunate error and attributed the diplomatic rescue of Nobuhiro to his father Nobuhide when it was actually Nobunaga who pulled it off. I apologize for the error.

With Anjo castle now in Imagawa hands, the Oda Clan had been essentially frozen out of Mikawa Province. Things became much worse for Nobunaga in May of 1552 when one of his retainers, Yamaguchi Noritsugu, abandoned him and swore allegiance to Imagawa Yoshimoto, handing over Narumi Castle in eastern Owari as part of their defection. Nobunaga raised a force of around 800 warriors to try and retake the fortress before the Imagawa could reinforce it, but his former retainer guessed his intention and intercepted his small army on the way. The ensuing Battle of Akatsuka lasted about two hours and Nobunaga lost at least thirty of his warriors before withdrawing back to his headquarters at Nagoya Castle. An inauspicious beginning by any standard.

Oda Nobutomo, the cousin of the late Nobuhide who was actually the rightful shugodai of Owari Province, believed that the time was ripe for a unification of the Oda Clan under his leadership. Thinking that the rude, inexperienced son of Nobuhide would be easily defeated, he seized two outlying forts controlled by Nobunaga in the summer of 1552. With the help of his uncle Nobumitsu, the enemy garrisons holding those forts were driven away and, for good measure, the area around Kiyosu Castle, which was Nobutomo’s headquarters, were put to the torch to discourage further incursions.

The Imagawa were not slow in taking advantage of Oda Clan infighting. While Nobunaga was contending with his problematic cousin, Imagawa Yoshimoto ordered the building of a new castle in eastern Owari to help with his intended conquest thereof. This new edifice was called Muraki Castle, and it was built in close proximity to Ogawa Castle, where one of Nobunaga’s vassals named Mizuno Nobumoto was castellan. Muraki Castle was an offensive fortification, meant to stage soldiers preparing to lay siege to Ogawa Castle.

In 1553, Oda Nobutomo made a critical error. The shugo of Owari Province, Shiba Yoshimune, maintained secret correspondence with Oda Nobunaga, giving him valuable intelligence which he could use against his cousin. Nobutomo, outraged at this betrayal, had the shugo killed for treason. While the official shogunate representative had little actual power and even less actual support from the Bakufu, this hasty execution led other influential regional leaders to abandon Nobutomo’s cause, which left him isolated. Nobunaga raised an army and struck quickly, defeating his cousin in battle allegedly because his ashigaru carried a longer variety of spear which had been designed by Nobunaga himself. In spite of this victory, Nobunaga departed soon after and left only a minimal contingent to maintain the siege of Kiyosu Castle. This was a strong, well-supplied fortress and with the looming threat of Imagawa conquest over Ogawa Castle in the southeast, he decided to leave the matter for now.

Nobunaga’s rude behavior and eccentric mannerisms continued to be a problem and the loyal retainers who remained in his service were nearly at their wits’ end trying to convince him to behave more like a proper daimyo. In 1553, one of these retainers named Hirate Masahide, whom Nobunaga looked up to as a mentor, actually committed seppuku over the matter, which gave Nobunaga a much-needed wake-up call. Nobunaga would later order the building of Seishu-ji Temple in honor of his former mentor and made efforts to reform his behavior and rein in his eccentricities.

In early 1554, the threat to Ogawa Castle could no longer be put off. Fearing a potential resurgence from his cousin in Kiyosu, Nobunaga decided to utilize a little networking and called upon his father-in-law, Saito Dosan, for help. The Saito Clan dispatched a thousand warriors to keep watch over Nagoya Castle while Oda Nobunaga embarked with his own army consisting of eight hundred ashigaru wielding the special Nobunaga-variety of long spears, and three hundred ashigaru carrying one of Nobunaga’s absolute favorite weapons: matchlock tanegashima arquebuses.

After arriving at Ogawa Castle by boat, Nobunaga split his force up into three divisions and assaulted Muraki Castle from three sides. Sources claim that he had trained his gunners to fire in volleys, which allowed them to pummel the enemy with a continual barrage of bullets. If true, this is certainly the first time volley fire was employed in Japan. The fighting at Muraki Castle was fierce and costly for both sides, but the garrison surrendered and the castle was seized. The next day, Nobunaga employed roughly the same tactics against Terumoto Castle, whose castellan was an Oda Clan vassal who switched his allegiance to the Imagawa. Nobunaga made a point of killing all of its defenders and burning the castle to the ground once they had surrendered to punish them for their disloyalty. He returned to Nagoya Castle thereafter, having retaken a considerable chunk of Owari Province from the Imagawa and thus started making a name for himself in battle.

The Siege of Muraki Castle was his first truly impressive victory, though as I mentioned it was costly. Many Oda retainers died in the fighting, some of them good friends of Nobunaga. He was said to have wept when he observed the destruction at the battle’s end, especially when he saw the lifeless bodies of his companions.

The Saito warriors returned to Mino Province shortly thereafter and three months after the Siege of Muraki Castle, Nobunaga set his sights back on Kiyosu Castle and his troublesome cousin Nobutomo. The carnage he witnessed at Muraki Castle probably still fresh in his mind, he opted to take the well-fortified Kiyosu Castle through trickery rather than open assault. Luckily for Nobunaga, Nobutomo had already planted the seeds of his own destruction.

Nobutomo had been corresponding with Nobunaga’s uncle, Nobumitsu, offering to back him as the rightful shugo of Owari if he would betray Nobunaga and support Nobutomo. Nobumitsu responded positively, and was allowed entry into the besieged castle with an entourage of warriors. They celebrated with Nobutomo that night, but after the residents of Kiyosu Castle fell asleep, Nobumitsu and his warriors opened the castle gates and Nobunaga’s army came charging in. The castle was taken easily with its defenses down, and Oda Nobutomo was forced to commit seppuku.

In spring of 1556, there was trouble in Mino Province when Saito Dosan faced a rebellion by his oldest son. Dosan was considering naming one of his younger brothers as his heir, and in response his son Yoshitatsu killed his two younger brothers and rallied the retainers to his cause. Over 17,000 warriors answered Yoshitatsu’s call to arms while less than 3,000 rallied to Dosan. Nobunaga certainly felt a debt to Dosan as both his son-in-law and in recognition of his sending warriors to guard Nagoya Castle while he fended off the Imagawa. He sent a contingent to bolster Dosan’s numbers but by the time they arrived at Nagaragawa, the battle had been fought and Dosan had been killed. Nobunaga’s warriors returned to Nagoya, and he cemented a permanent enmity with Saito Yoshitatsu, who would not forget that Nobunaga sided against him.

Unfortunately for Nobunaga, Nobutomo was not the only family member plotting against him. His younger brother Nobuyuki was supported by two very influential retainers named Hayashi Hidesada and Shibata Katsuiie and in the fall of 1556, just a few months after Nobunaga’s misstep with the Saito Clan, they attempted to raise a rebellion. At the Battle of Ino, the conspirators lost, but their lives were spared thanks to the intervention of someone who carried a lot of influence over Nobunaga’s decisions: his mother, Tsuchida Gozen.

Both Hidesada and Katsuiie were talented strategists, their recent defeat notwithstanding, and Nobunaga was eager to put those talents to use for his future ambitions. He wanted very much to kill his younger brother Nobuyuki but spared his life for the moment. In 1558, a castellan serving the Imagawa Clan defected to Oda Nobunaga, which sparked a reaction from the Imagawa. Furious at this betrayal, the Imagawa dispatched a young warrior who had been a hostage but, now that he had been released, was the chieftain of his clan and eager to make a name for himself as a mighty and clever warrior.

Matsudaira Motoyasu, the child who lived for a time under the Oda Clan’s supervision but was given up to save the life of Nobuhiro, was now fully grown and had affirmed his position as a vassal of the Imagawa Clan. He struck at Terabe Castle, home to the recently-defected castellan, but Nobunaga sent reinforcements to protect the fortress and Motoyasu was driven away. This withdrawal was strategic, however, and he would soon follow-up the attempt with more successful maneuvers.

Sometime between 1554 and 1558, we aren’t completely certain when, a young man from the Imagawa domain decided to fight on behalf of the Oda Clan. A commoner, he possessed no impressive samurai lineage and, though his father had served as an ashigaru, he didn’t even have an official family name, as common families generally did not use surnames. He had served the Imagawa Clan as an ashigaru, and eventually became a trusted subordinate of Matsushita Yukitsuna, a vassal of the Imagawa. The story goes that Yukitsuna entrusted him with money and that he abandoned his position and fled for the Oda domain, cash in hand. It is said that Nobunaga’s favorite concubine, a lady from local nobility named Ikuma Kitsuno, recommended that he make this young man his official sandal-bearer, a colorful title which was actually a trusted advisor.

This young man, at the time, went by the name Kinoshita Tokichiro, but Nobunaga more frequently referred to him by the incredibly unflattering nickname of Saru, which means monkey.

In spite of surviving his previous failed attempt at consolidating the Oda Clan under his authority, Nobunaga’s younger brother Nobuyuki began making overtures to clan retainers to support his bid for a takeover. He reached out, in particular, to his previous supporter Shibata Katsuiie, who had also been pardoned after the failed coup. However, now that he had served Nobunaga directly for a few years, Shibata Katsuiie was no longer convinced that he would bring the clan to absolute ruin and desolation. He reported the conversation to Nobunaga, who was no doubt enraged at this development.

Nobuyuki died some time in 1558, but the manner of his death is not known for certain. The story goes that Shibata Katsuiie wrote to Nobuyuki to inform him that his older brother Nobunaga had fallen deathly ill. If Nobuyuki asked Nobunaga to hand control of the clan over to him in the hour of his imminent death, then surely the retainers would fall in line whether or not Nobunaga died of the sickness. Nobuyuki allegedly thought this was a fantastic idea and visited his ailing brother at Kiyosu Castle only to discover, far too late, that this was a ruse. Supposedly Nobunaga bid him to come closer and, when he was in range, plunged a dagger into his heart. I can only imagine that Nobunaga further whispered in his ear, “I know it was you, Yuki. You broke my heart. You broke my heart.”

That was a Godfather II reference for anyone who hasn’t seen the films. Watch them, they’re awesome.

Much of 1558 was consumed with mop-up operations against the final competitor for chieftain of the Oda Clan, Oda Nobukata. It is clear that other segments of the Oda family had accepted Nobunaga’s leadership by this point, especially including his cousin Oda Nobukiyo who governed Inuyama Castle. Sidenote, if you get a chance to visit Inuyama Castle, you should absolutely do so because it is one of the few really old Japanese structures outside of Kyoto that wasn’t destroyed during World War II.

Oda Nobukata was being supported, in his bid for Oda Clan leadership, by Saito Yoshitatsu, the Saito Clan daimyo whom Nobunaga had sided against. Nobukata was headquartered in northern Owari Province, and that was where a decisive battle between the claimants would be fought. The two sides were relatively equal with about 3,000 warriors apiece, but it was Nobunaga’s guns that would carry the day, inflicting massive casualties on Nobukata’s army and forcing him to retreat from the Battle of Ukino to his headquarters at Iwakura Castle.

A siege of Iwakura Castle ensued but no help was forthcoming from the Saito Clan, who may have been prevented from helping because Oda Nobukiyo’s Inuyama Castle was between Iwakura Castle and Mino Province. In 1559, Iwakura Castle fell, Nobukata committed seppuku, and Nobunaga ordered the fortress to be razed to the ground. By the end of the 1550s, there was no longer any question over who was the legitimate chieftain of the Oda Clan.

It was at this point that the Oda Clan received a startling piece of news. The Imagawa Clan, their hated enemy to the east, was gathering a massive army. The stated purpose, according to Daimyo Imagawa Yoshimoto, was to assist the shogun in Kyoto and restore order to Kansai and, by extension, the entire nation. Lofty goals, to be certain, but really little more than a thin justification for settling scores. Owari Province, after all, lay between the Imagawa domain and Kyoto, and who would stop the Imagawa from settling old scores on their great journey to restore order to a nation gripped by chaos?

To prepare Owari Province for its conquest by the Imagawa, daimyo Yoshimoto ordered Matsudaira Motoyasu to seize an outlying castle in eastern Owari called Marune Castle. Both the Imagawa and Matsudaira Clans had already adopted firearms into their armies, and Motoyasu was said to have made good use of his teppo matchlocks in the siege of Marune Castle. While the fortress was under siege, the Imagawa began marching toward Nagoya and Kiyosu Castles in central Owari.

The impending invasion by the Imagawa Clan set the Oda Clan into full panic mode. Nobunaga met with his retainers to try and find some consensus for a proper response to this incursion. According to clan chronicles, most of the retainers recommended holing up in Kiyosu Castle until the Imagawa departed the Oda domain, hoping that they would satisfy themselves by looting the countryside and sacking Nagoya Castle. Nobunaga is credited with a much bolder response: take the fight to the Imagawa.

Unfortunately Nobunaga’s actions and the subsequent battle are somewhat legendary in scope so it is difficult to be certain about many aspects of the coming battle. It was written that said battle was the first occasion in which Nobunaga recognized the talents of Kinoshita Tokichiro, the sandal-bearer we mentioned earlier who would enjoy great favor under Nobunaga’s patronage. It’s possible that the battle with the Imagawa Clan was the result of Tokichiro’s planning, though Nobunaga received credit for saying that only confident, aggressive action could overcome the discrepancy in numbers between the two factions and then leading his troops into battle himself.

The army which Nobunaga managed to raise is believed to have numbered between 1,500 and 3,000 in total. Compared with the Imagawa’s 25,000, this is less than impressive but is roughly in keeping with the size of armies which contended against one another during the decade of Oda Clan succession disputes. A meager force contending against a foe with such a massive numerical advantage has, broadly, only one path toward victory: surprise attack.

There is little agreement among the historical records regarding exactly how much of what occurred was within Nobunaga’s control and was indeed dictated by the daimyo of Owari. A roughly agreed-upon sequence of events is as follows: the Imagawa Army halted on its march to take a break, possibly because of impending rain but also possibly because Yoshimoto himself preferred to travel via a carried sedan and his posterior needed a break from sitting against the firm wood floor. While the Imagawa Army was halted in Okehazama gorge, local villagers came bringing gifts of sake and other such victuals which led to drunkenness among their ranks. There was a downpour of rain, not at all unseasonal for that part of Japan in late-spring-slash-early-summer, which caused the Imagawa to erect bivouacs, which are small tents suitable for keeping a person dry in the midst of rain. They are alleged to have left their arquebuses and hand cannons outside of their tents.

It is believed by subsequent historians that the Imagawa army was in a state of low morale, but I have yet to find an adequate cause. It could be that a significant portion of their numbers were mercenary troops, which could have meant resentment from the loyal rank-and-file. It could be that they were dissatisfied with traveling so far from their homes to fight in a war they didn’t care about. Whether this demoralized state is real or an invention of later historians to justify what happened next is, frankly, unclear.

Nobunaga and his smaller force tracked the Imagawa army in spite of the downpour, keeping their own arquebuses dry and ready to fire. When the rain finally lifted, the Imagawa warriors emerged from their tents and saw what looked like a massive enemy army assembled on the ridge above the gorge where they were encamped. Then that army charged upon them, screaming and shooting their guns.

The Battle of Okehazama was, by all accounts, a complete disaster for the Imagawa Clan. Because their firearms were now soaked with water, they could not shoot, and the sudden attack of the Oda army spread panic through their ranks. Imagawa Yoshimoto himself was in his command tent at the time, reviewing information with his ranking retainers when Oda Clan samurai burst into his tent. He allegedly thought the screams and cries from his soldiers outside the tent was merely the usual revelry and disorder and didn’t even realize they were under attack. When he questioned the samurai who burst into the command tent, one of them immediately charged and cut off his head.

The remainder of the Imagawa army, which still must have been considerably larger than their foes, broke and ran from the scene as slaughter broke out against their more unfortunate comrades left behind in the gorge. With their leader dead, there was no one to recall them or to rally a renewed defense against the much smaller band of attackers who had either gotten incredibly lucky or had been fortunate enough to follow a canny daimyo like Nobunaga, depending on which source you read.

Yoshimoto’s death was an especially stunning and destabilizing event. The Imagawa Clan now passed to Yoshimoto’s son Ujizane, who appeared to be in no way prepared to take the reins of power. It seems that Yoshimoto’s retainers and vassals had been deeply unhappy with his leadership and they took his death largely as an opportunity to establish their own independence. While Ujizane’s grandmother Jukei-ni did her best to keep the Imagawa domain intact and resist the splintering of the retainers and vassals, her every success only served to undermine Ujizane and make apparent the fact that she was an Onna-daimyo, a woman-daimyo, of the Imagawa Clan.

Matsudaira Motoyasu successfully concluded the siege of Marune Castle by taking the fortress, but now that Imagawa Yoshimoto was gone, he pursued independence for the Matsudaira Clan of Mikawa as well. As he had grown up a hostage of the Imagawa, I imagine he took some satisfaction in this reversal.

His triumph at Okehazama bolstered Oda Nobunaga’s reputation as a clever commander who knew how to find victory in spite of long odds. Perhaps the Fool of Owari was a tiger after all. While the chaos among the Imagawa Clan meant that Owari Province’s eastern flank was largely secure for the moment, he had other enemies to contend with, including the daimyo of the Saito Clan with whom he still had unfinished business. Next time, we will discuss his campaign in Mino Province and see how he would follow up his impressive victory at Okehazama, and also explore the budding career of Kinoshita Tokichiro.