User:Soranin/Sandbox4

Individuals

Gaspar Coelho

And they also had a problem that after a while you have [Francisco] Cabral, you have [Gaspar] Coelho, so two Jesuits who became the head of the Japan sector. And they weren't very keen to adopt Japanese customs. They wanted to be as strictly Jesuits as in Europe. So they already have a problem from the Jesuit side and many like Vilela or Fróis were more inclined to adopt Japanese customs. But the heads of the provincials, as they call them, were against that.

And you had Otomo, which was a very powerful clan in the east of Kyushu. And then you had in the southwest, you had the Shimazu. And Otomo was losing against the Shimazu. So he asked Hideyoshi to intervene. And sometime before Hideyoshi marched towards Kyushu, he met with Coelho, which was then the head of the Christian mission in Japan, together with Fróis. And he treated Coelho very well, just like Oda Nobunaga had done with Fróis. So Coelho was really pleased with that. And then Hideyoshi asked him, I want to invade Korea. Then you provide two Portuguese ships to help me in this invasion. And if I conquer Korea, I will make it that there are a lot of churches being built. So Koelyo said, yes, I will do that for you. And I will make sure that we have two Portuguese ships, the Karak ships, as they were called by the English, gigantic ships. So Hideyoshi could very well use them for his invasion in Korea. And then he went a step further and he said, I will make sure that the Christian warlords in Kyushu will also support you. And I think at that moment that Hideyoshi, that there was a ring bell in his head, that the Christians, the Jesuits had too much influence in Japan.

And when he had conquered Kyushu, he again met with Coelho on a Portuguese ship. And Coelho again said that we will support you in whatever endeavor you will take. But the night suddenly he sent a questionary to Coelho, asking him why they came to Japan, why they are making so much converts. And why are they destroying the Buddhist temples? Of course Coelho was really shocked with that. He was so well treated and suddenly everything changed overnight. So he gave his answer that, well, they came to Japan just to propagate their faith, in good faith. And that it was not them who destroyed the Buddhist temples, but the Japanese converts. So the answer of Hideyoshi was that he made a decree that the Jesuits had to leave Japan in 20 days.

Oda Nobukatsu/Kitabatake Tomotoyo

He gained control of neighboring Issei province by first having his second son Nobukatsu adopted into the Kitabatake family, which ruled that province. And then later on, having the members of the Kitapatake clan assassinated so that his son rose up the hierarchy and essentially took over the clan from within.

Oda Nobukatsu, was in charge of the province next to it and was looking to kind of establish his own reputation, spread his wings a little bit. And so here we have Iga province next to him, a place where he can launch an invasion, take it over. It's small. How hard could it be, right? Be an easy victory. And it turns out not to be.

Nobukatsu, Nobunaga's second son, takes that [Iga's expulsion of their military governor] as an excuse of, oh, see, they're not observing the proper order of things. They're not part of the structure. So he decides of his own accord that he's going to expand his domain into Iga without permission from his father. Part of this is ego driven. He wants to prove to his father that he can operate on his own and so forth. So in 1578, he dispatches one of his generals, men by the name of Takigawa Kazumasu, to build a castle just across the Iga border that they're going to use as a staging point for a future invasion.

So the following year in October, he decides he's going to launch a much larger invasion. So he gathers around a little over 10,000 men and invades Iga Province through three of those passes that I mentioned. In his main body, he has 8,000 men going through the northernmost pass at Nagano. And then he has a group of 1,500 men through one pass and 1,300 through another pass, these two passes to the south. But again, the Iga forces, speaking to their ability to collect intelligence and know what the enemy is doing, are ready and waiting at these narrow sites to ambush Nobukatsu's forces, which they do. They use their skill in guerrilla tactics and their local knowledge of the terrain. They inflict heavy losses against Nobukatsu's forces, again forcing him to retreat in a humiliating defeat.

Nobunaga is furious. He couldn't believe that his son had put himself in position to be defeated and humiliated like this. So he supposedly threatens to disown Nobukatsu. He doesn't end up following through on it, but he's not pleased.

Nobunaga himself visits Iga in early November to take a tour of his new province, and then withdraws it and gives it to his son Nobukatsu as part of his domain to administer.

Ashikaga Yoshiaki

The previous shogun, Ashikaga Yoshitero, had been assassinated in 1565 and replaced by a puppet. So Yoshitero's younger brother, a man by the name of Ashikaga Yoshiaki, had been traveling around the provinces trying to seek a benefactor who would back his claim and help him march on the capital. So shortly after Nobunaga establishes himself in Gifu, Yoshiaki arrives on his doorstep in 1568, thus giving him a pretext to make his move on the capital.

The fact that he can take a legitimate claimant to the Ashikaga shogunate and march on Kyoto with utter the pretext of putting him into power gives him the legitimate of his siege to do so. So November of 1568, he enters Kyoto with his army and installs Yoshiaki as the 15th Ashikaga shogun. However, here's where things start to differ from what you might have expected at the time, because rather than accept Yoshiaki's offer to be his deputy shogun, Nobunaga declines that in any other position that Yoshiaki offers.

In 1570, Nobunaga sends an invitation, sensibly on Yoshiaki's behalf, to local warlords for a reception in Kyoto. And this is almost a way to test who was going to accept his authority and who wasn't.

Early assessments of their relationship by historians assume that Nobunaga's plan all along was to use him as a puppet and then throw him away and take power for himself. I agree with more recent biographers, you see it as a little bit more complicated than that. Ashikaga Yoshiaki, obviously, as the Shogun, felt that he should be in charge. So after being installed in 1568, he attempts to rule, but he quickly sees that he cannot do anything without Nobunaga's help. And by 1572, there's some real tension between the two of who's in charge. Nobunaga issued several admonishments, which have been published and are famous, going so far as to note how the people call Yoshiaki the evil Shogun, in scare quotes there, and laying out rules for the Shogun's house to follow. Of course, Yoshiaki takes offense at this and who are you to tell me the Shogun how to run things? And so, like I said, early on, historians looked at this as Nobunaga's overstipping his bow, just trying to push Yoshiaki out.

I see a different reading of it that is more compelling to me is that, no, he really saw that this was like the structure that should be in place and was trying to guide Yoshiaki back onto an actual correct path of governance, at least as Nobunaga saw it. And his efforts to maintain relations with Yoshiaki, at least initially, were very sincere. But Yoshiaki is the one who kind of pushes the relationship to the breaking point. And the early 1570s, he's orchestrating coalitions of enemies to move against Nobunaga. In addition to the Iko Iki, he's kind of another lynchpin of the different coalitions against Nobunaga, trying to convince different daimyo to turn against Nobunaga, invade, come rescue me in Kyoto and be my savior and I'll grant you XYZ, so forth.

This continues until 1573, when it's very obvious that Nobunaga has run out of patience. In 1573, he does march on Kyoto and expel Yoshiaki, which more or less ends the Ashikaga shogunate for good. And then Ashikaga would escape to Western Japan, where he would take up residence in the lands of one of Nobunaga's enemies, the Mori family. And from there, he would continue to write different daimyo, constantly trying to create a coalition that could overthrow Nobunaga and reinstall him in power. How effective that was? Well, we see that it didn't happen, but he certainly was doing his best the entire time to undermine Nobunaga.

So one of their descendants, Yoshiyaki, was around and he was a pretty hopeless guy. But he was officially the Shogun. So Nobunaga's excuse for entering Kyoto was to reinstate him as Shogun. But actually, he, like a lot of these guys, is this Yoshiyaki. The Shogun was very treacherous. We wanted to get rid of Nobunaga, and he instigated a plot against him. So Nobunaga had him arrested and taken off to a castle in the middle of nowhere and left there forever. So that was the end of him.

Imagawa Yoshimoto

the Oda family, as I said, they were the deputy governors underneath the Shiba family in Owari, and he's born as the first legitimate son of a man named Oda Nobuhide, who is the defacto leader of the Oda family. Like I mentioned, his line was not the senior line, but Nobuhide was particularly capable and competent and brought his relatives under his control and for the most part dominated the governance of Owari province. But he was in constant conflict with his neighbors, particularly the powerful Imagawa Yoshimoto to his east and a daimyo named Saitō Dōsan to his north in Mino province.

So his first fight is to simply gain control of his own family, you know, largely inside of Owati province. There's some pressure from external enemies that Imagawa to the east.

In 1560, the powerful daimyo Imagawa Yoshimoto to his east, enrolled [????] Toutomi, Suroga, and the Kawa provinces, and came from the illustrious Imagawa line, which was one of the pillars of the former Ashikaga shogunate. He decides, or it's usually assumed at least that he decides that he's going to make a run at marching on the capital of Kyoto to take charge of the central government. So he gathers together an army of 25,000 troops and begins his march east. And the first stop is, of course, his neighbor in Owari province, Nobunaga. So he has to go through Nobunaga's domain. On paper, this is going to be very easy. He's got 25,000 troops, which at the time was a very large army. And Nobunaga only has a few thousand men, maybe 2,500. So we're looking at roughly around a 10 to 1 disadvantage. But Nobunaga, despite the fact that his advisors all counsel him to withdraw into his castle at Kyosu and withstand a siege, he decides that that's a losing strategy. Because what's he going to do against an attack by an army that size? He decides that his best course of action is to try to seek an opening and attack.

But the Imagawa forces by midday had made significant progress against the Odo forces invading. So the Imagawa army was much larger. It was rather spread out and divided. The vanguard had taken several of these forts that Nobunaga had. Yoshimori himself was with only a few thousand troops. And at his command post, they took a bit of a siesta, almost, if you will, in this small narrow gorge called Dengaku Hazama. And they were celebrating some of the Imagawa troops had already broken into the celebration sake in anticipation of their great victory that they saw coming because, you know, how could you see anything else? A little bit after this, there's a rainstorm. This was in the summer. So the rainy season in Japan. This thunderstorm breaks out and it really helps Nobunaga maneuver his forces through the mountains, through these narrow passes into position to attack Imagawa Yoshimoto's headquarters camp. They broke out of the tree line to attack the camp. And at first Yoshimoto assumes that it's a drunken brawl taking place amongst his men. Too late, he realizes that it's not that he's actually under attack. And shortly after that, two of the Otis samurai relieve him up his head. In the aftermath, the Imagawa forces deprived of their commander melt away in confusion. And we have this almost legendary victory by other Nobunaga outmanned ten to one, destroying the forces of this great daimyo.

Timeline

Battle of Okehazama [1560]

In 1560, the powerful daimyo Imagawa Yoshimoto to his east, enrolled [????] Toutomi, Suroga, and the Kawa provinces, and came from the illustrious Imagawa line, which was one of the pillars of the former Ashikaga shogunate. He decides, or it's usually assumed at least that he decides that he's going to make a run at marching on the capital of Kyoto to take charge of the central government. So he gathers together an army of 25,000 troops and begins his march east. And the first stop is, of course, his neighbor in Owari province, Nobunaga. So he has to go through Nobunaga's domain. On paper, this is going to be very easy. He's got 25,000 troops, which at the time was a very large army. And Nobunaga only has a few thousand men, maybe 2,500. So we're looking at roughly around a 10 to 1 disadvantage. But Nobunaga, despite the fact that his advisors all counsel him to withdraw into his castle at Kyosu and withstand a siege, he decides that that's a losing strategy. Because what's he going to do against an attack by an army that size? He decides that his best course of action is to try to seek an opening and attack.

But the Imagawa forces by midday had made significant progress against the Odo forces invading. So the Imagawa army was much larger. It was rather spread out and divided. The vanguard had taken several of these forts that Nobunaga had. Yoshimori himself was with only a few thousand troops. And at his command post, they took a bit of a siesta, almost, if you will, in this small narrow gorge called Dengaku Hazama. And they were celebrating some of the Imagawa troops had already broken into the celebration sake in anticipation of their great victory that they saw coming because, you know, how could you see anything else? A little bit after this, there's a rainstorm. This was in the summer. So the rainy season in Japan. This thunderstorm breaks out and it really helps Nobunaga maneuver his forces through the mountains, through these narrow passes into position to attack Imagawa Yoshimoto's headquarters camp. They broke out of the tree line to attack the camp. And at first Yoshimoto assumes that it's a drunken brawl taking place amongst his men. Too late, he realizes that it's not that he's actually under attack. And shortly after that, two of the Otis samurai relieve him up his head. In the aftermath, the Imagawa forces deprived of their commander melt away in confusion. And we have this almost legendary victory by other Nobunaga outmanned ten to one, destroying the forces of this great daimyo.

So it kind of makes a name for Nobunaga. Another key thing about this battle, though, and the aftermath is that in the confusion of the Imagawa family with the loss of their head, several of their more talented and younger retainers, one of which we know today as Tokugawa Ieyasu, are able to claim independence. And Ieyasu establishes himself in his home territory of Mikawa, which is just to the east of Owari, and establishes an alliance with Nobunaga, thus providing a secure flank to Nobunaga's east, allowing Nobunaga to then look in other directions as he begins to expand.

Done

Redlinks in pages

• Timeline
  • Siege of Mount Hiei
  • Ōnin War
  • Battle of Okehazama
• Individuals
  • Ashikaga Yoshiaki
  • Oda Nobukatsu
  • Gaspar Coelho
  • Imagawa Yoshimoto
• Other
  • Ikkō-ikki