Battle of Nagashino 1575 AD - Takeda clashes with the Oda-Tokugawa alliance

 

The 16th century in Japan is known as the Age of Warring States – the Sengoku Jidai period.

 One of the most prominent clans of the era, the Takeda, had reached its’ zenith during the reign of its’ legendary leader, Takeda Shingen, who managed to expand the clan’s territories and influence by continuous and bitter warfare.

 The ambitious Shingen, though, had one constant thorn in his side, the Tokugawa clan.

 Through the exceptional military prestige he attained over the years, Takeda Shingen became known as the Tiger of Kai.

 But now, if the Takeda were to march on Kyoto to claim the illustrious title of Shogun and gain control of the capital, they had to advance along the “Tokaido” road, the main southern Japanese road which ran along the Pacific coast of the Island.

 But this area was controlled and blocked by the Tokugawa clan and their powerful ally, perhaps the strongest Daimyo of central Japan at the time, Oda Nobunaga.

 In the winter of 1572, Takeda Shingen launched a campaign against the Tokugawa, even defeating them in a pitched battle.

 Ultimately, this victory proved to be indecisive because the severity of the season prevented any further action.

 Nonetheless, this victory encouraged Shingen to renew his attacks against the Tokugawa.

 But, fate intervened when the leader of the Takeda clan was killed in action the following year, while besieging a castle.

 He was succeeded by his less capable and charismatic son, Takeda Katsuyori.

 The young   and impulsive Katsuyori had a legendary reputation to live up to and it wasn’t long before he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and once again invade the Tokugawa territories.

 What further aggravated the situation between Tokugawa and Takeda was a former Tokugawa retainer from the province of Mikawa, a man named Okudaira Sadamasa.

 Sadamasa was originally a Tokugawa retainer but was forced by Takeda Shingen to follow the Takeda clan.

 After Shingen’s death, Sadamasa decided to abandon the Takeda and re-join the Tokugawa.

 His defection was something that infuriated Takeda Katsuyori…

 On May 30th 1575, just a day after the anniversary of his father’s death, Katsuyori set off against the Tokugawa.

 His plan was to occupy the castle of Okazaki, which was Ieyasu’s headquarters and the capital of the province of Mikawa.

 Apparently within Okazaki there was a traitor who offered to open the gates of the castle whenever the Takeda army reached it.

 However, the plot was eventually uncovered and the traitor executed before Katsuyori ever reached the walls of Okazaki.

 The death of the traitor meant that Katsuyori now needed to revise his plans since a direct attack against the mighty and well-fortified Okazaki would not have been feasible.

 With his 15.000 strong army, Katsuyori turned eastwards and decided to wreak as much havoc as he could within his enemy’s province, before retreating back to his home region.

 Meanwhile, Tokugawa Ieyasu had already sent word about Katsuyori’s incursions to his mighty ally, Oda Nobunaga, who immediately began mobilizing a massive army of 30.000 men.

 At the same time, Tokugawa was being far from idle.

 He understood well his enemy’s intentions and reinforced the key Yoshida castle that was located in the immediate vicinity of Katsuyori’s advance, with 6000 men.

 While moving southwards down the valley of the Mikawa province, Katsuyori bypassed a few castles that were in his way in order to avoid getting bogged down into a long-drawn-out siege, and reached the forts of Ushikubo and Nirengi which acted as exterior defences for Yoshida castle, and which he burned during that same day.

 When Katsuyori eventually arrived outside the walls of Yoshida castle, to his surprise and dismay, he found it being guarded by Ieyasu himself together with his strong garrison of 6000 men.

 Just a few years before, his father found himself in a similar situation and managed to defeat Tokugawa Ieyasu in a pitched battle.

 But this time Ieyasu had learned from his past mistakes and did not intend to leave the safety of his fortification.

 After a day of minor skirmishes between the two sides, Katsuyori decided to abandon the siege and retreated northwards.

 The young Takeda Daimyo was forced to abandon yet another objective of his campaign and one cannot help but think that his subsequent decisions would have been affected by this fact.

 Determined not to return from his campaign empty handed and wanting to save face, Katsuyori directed his army against the minor castle of Nagashino, which controlled the mountain pass through the province of Shinano.

 As fate would have it, Nagashino’s garrison was headed by Okudaira Sadamasa, the turncoat retainer who left the Takeda in order to re-join the Tokugawa clan.

 Despite his meager force of 500 men, Okudaira was both capable and fanatically determined to stand up against Katsuyori, and his men, even though few, were battle hardened, capable and brave.

 Believing that he could quickly storm and occupy the 500 men strong fortification, Katsuyori ordered an all-out assault against Nagashino.

 Notwithstanding Katsuyori’s repeated and ferocious attacks, the garrison held out for 4 days, with a determination born out of desperation.

 Around that point in the siege, the Takeda managed to destroy the castle’s storehouse, thus seriously curtailing the garrison’s capacity for further resistance.

 The garrison was now facing an impossible situation, surrounded from all sides, without provisions they needed immediate relief or reinforcements if they were to survive.

 A brave samurai by the name of Torii Sune’emon volunteered to try and escape through the siege lines in order to inform Tokugawa and Nobunaga about the garrison’s dire circumstance.

 During that same night, Torii managed to sneak his way past the enemy and reached Okazaki where Oda and Tokugawa resided.

 With his mission successfully accomplished, instead of staying with the allied army, Torii attempted to sneak back into the besieged castle to assist his comrades.

 But this time he was not so fortunate and was captured and brought before Katsuyori.

 Sune’emon’s story impressed Katsuyori, who offered him service within the Takeda army, but on one condition, to inform the besieged garrison that no help was coming for them.

 He agreed and was brought before the defenders, but instead of informing them that no help was on the way, he cried out: “STAND FAST, ODA AND TOKUGAWA ARE ON THEIR WAY!” The brave Torii Sune’emon was killed on the spot, but his comrades now knew that reinforcements were coming.

 Now that Katsuyori knew that a large force was on its way, he held a council with his retainers and veteran officers.

 The elder and more experienced samurai officers advised him either to retreat back to his mountainous and well-defended home province or attempt to immediately storm Nagashino so that they can then use its defenses to their own advantage while trying to defensively fend off the comparably, massive relief force.

 Takeda Katsuyori though, eventually sided with the more aggressive and hot headed younger Samurai of his entourage, who clamored for a pitched battle against their bitter enemies.

 The stage was set for the Battle of Nagashino.

 On the 27th of June, the Oda-Tokugawa army arrived on the outskirts of Nagashino and began taking their positions on the plain nearby.

 Tokugawa Ieyasu took post on the right wing of the formation, while Oda Nobunaga positioned his headquarters on the left wing of the army.

 Both Oda and Tokugawa were well-versed in the strengths of their enemy’s army and took the appropriate measures to counter them by erecting an almost 2 km long wooden palisade with timber that was brought to the battlefield by the Oda army.

 The palisade was essential for the Oda-Tokugawa battle plan.

 They intended to use their numerous arquebusiers to deal with the mighty Takeda cavalry and the wooden palisade would provide the perfect protection for the arquebusiers, who were vulnerable in close quarter combat.

 Oda Nobunaga’s trump card was a detachment of 3.000 men that he secretly dispatched during the night with the objective of attacking the Takeda besiegers while their main force advanced to the battlefield.

 At the crack of dawn on June 28th 1575, Takeda Katsuyori left around 3000 men to continue the siege of Nagashino and with his remaining 12.000 troops began marching to the battlefield.

 The plain of Nagashino was not completely flat, but interrupted by a few small hills.

 In addition, just in front of the fortified Oda-Tokugawa positions was a small river that ran through the valley, which posed as another obstacle to a potential cavalry charge.

 Despite those concerns, Katsuyori was determined to face his enemies head on, so he divided his force into three large groups, with himself and his bodyguards taking position within sight of the enemy line just behind the vanguard.

 The young daimyo was not fazed by the prospect of mass arquebus volleys because he believed that the previous night’s rainfall would have rendered the guns useless...

 At around 6 AM that morning, the leader of the Takeda gave the order for a general charge.

 The first wave of the renowned Takeda cavalry charged through the plain.

 Their rapid advance was decelerated by the intervening river but was unhindered.

 Meanwhile, the disciplined Oda arquebusiers held their shots until the enemy were within 50 metres of their palisades, and then they fired!

 The first volley was something that the Takeda were prepared for, but then came a second volley followed by a third.

 Thousands were wounded or killed during that first charge, but the Takeda pressed on and reached the enemy lines.

 Fierce hand-to-hand fighting ensued between the intervals of the palisade.

 An entangled mess of horsemen and spearmen fought each other furiously and with determination.

 With the initial momentum of the charge having been spent, Katsuyori ordered a second wave of the attack.

 The Takeda cavalry, once again swept through the field over the dead bodies of their comrades and reached the enemy lines where the intense and desperate fighting was renewed.

 A concentrated and deliberate push was attempted on the left wing of Oda-Tokugawa’s formation by an amassed cavalry force of the Takeda, but despite their initial success, the topography of the area and the wooden palisade proved to be impregnable and the Takeda forces were driven back after suffering heavy casualties.

 At the opposite side of the battlefield, the extreme right wing of the Oda-Tokugawa army was the only part that was exposed with no palisade in front of it.

 Here, Katsuyori’s cavalry managed to inflict the worst damage to their enemies and the arquebusiers were not so effective due to the lack of the protective palisade.

 A mass of both mounted and dismounted Samurai fought it out, eye to eye, toe to toe.

 The Takeda men managed to puncture through the first line of the Oda-Tokugawa defences and some of them even moved against the centre of their enemy’s formation.

 But Tokugawa Ieyasu dealt with them swiftly by ordering a mass volley against the advancing Takeda men.

 Seeing this, Takeda Katsuyori decided to enter into the battle with all of his reserves along with his personal bodyguard.

 While the main forces were engaged in fierce combat, the 3000 strong detachment that Oda Nobunaga secretly dispatched during the previous night, launched its attack against the besiegers of Nagashino castle.

 The surprise was complete and the Takeda forces were caught in between the attacking detachment and the defenders of Nagashino.

 After a brief and fierce struggle, the Takeda besiegers were eventually crushed.

 Back on the main battlefield, the once great Takeda army was spent.

 Their ferocious and brave charges proved to be ineffective against a numerically superior and entrenched enemy, while the concentrated volleys of the well-defended and disciplined Oda-Tokugawa arquebusiers devastated their ranks.

 Katsuyori understood that his only option was an immediate retreat

 if he wanted to avoid total annihilation.

 After almost 8 hours of fighting, the remnants of the Takeda army began a massive retreat to the north towards the safety of their home province.

 Oda Nobunaga saw the perfect opportunity to get rid of the Takeda clan once and for all and ordered his army to chase down the retreating enemy.

 It was only due to the heroic actions of Katsuyori’s rear guard that his army avoided an even greater disaster, but his defeat was nonetheless quite severe.

 Takeda’s army was devastated, out of the 15.000 me n that he brought to the battlefield only 5000 survived, a casualty rate of 67%.

 On the other hand, the already larger force of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu, suffered only 6000 casualties.

 The battle of Nagashino was a pivotal moment in Japanese history, spelling the end of one of the great clans of the Sengoku Jidai.

 Nagashino was also the battle that firmly established Oda Nobunaga as one of, if not the most powerful Daimyo of Japan, and it also solidified the alliance between him and Tokugawa Ieyasu.

 Takeda Katsuyori managed to survive his defeat for 7 more years, but his power base was destroyed and most of his retainers eventually turned their backs on him.

 In 1582, surrounded from all sides and abandoned by most of his allies,

 Katsuyori committed seppuku together with all of his remaining family members…