Database: The Invasions of Iga

In 1579, Oda Nobunaga's son, Nobukatsu, launched a major attack against the league of independent people of the province of Iga. To the warlord's dismay, he was repulsed by the people of Iga who made up a much smaller force of peasant fighters and local warriors. Nobukatsu had greatly underestimated the efficacy of the Iga people's military tactics, the strategic advantage their local knowledge afforded them, and their capacity for organization and mobilization. His father, occupied with Araki Murashige's rebellion, saw Iga's failed attack as an attempt by Nobukatsu to avoid sending his troops to the province of Settsu. Nobunaga sent his son an angry letter threatening to sever ties between them. It was only after Araki was defeated and peace was made with the Hongan-ji of Osaka that Nobunaga accepted his son's attack on Iga as legitimate.

Oda Nobunaga was not prepared to abandon the conquest of Iga, and in 1581, he launched a second invasion a force of 40,000 to 60,000 men attacking from four sides of the basin. His armies covered the province, drowning any notion of further revolt. With a ferociousness reserved for his fiercest enemies, Iga was utterly destroyed. In a matter of days, Nobunaga put an end to the political and social structures of Iga and its neighbors that had existed for nearly a century. Despite their crushing defeat at the hands of Oda Nobunaga's modernized military, the historical and political significance of these autonomous communes cannot be ignored.