Quick and Easy Sengoku History

Today's article is Part I of a two-parter that covers the Battle of Azukizaka of 1548(小豆坂の戦い). The central figure of this talk and the next one is one of the few people who, in my personal opinion, made the greatest impact on the entire Sengoku period. If you are somewhat familiar with Sengoku history already, you will likely understand where I am coming from. If not, don't worry. This is what this website is for. Eventually the lasting impact of this person on the time period will unravel itself, and then you can decide whether you agree with me. Taigen Sessai His name was Taigen Sessai(太原雪斎, sometimes recorded as Taigen Soufu, 太原崇孚). As you can tell by the picture, he was a monk. Buddhist monks played various significant roles in the Sengoku period. Some served as advisers for daimyous, some served in military organizations as armed monks, and others took the role of religious leaders. I will go into more details with the different kinds of monks and their technicalit

Today's article is about someone you probably know from video games and anime. Nohime in Samurai Warriors One of the many fan-favorite female characters, Nohime(濃姫) is often depicted someone who is "fitting" to be the wife of the "evil" Nobunaga. Some like to go the "villain" route, some go for the "mature" and "sexy" route. Some do both. What was she like in history? Well, maybe some of these pop cultural depictions are true to a certain extent. We will never know for sure. Women in the era were usually not recorded as well as men were, but some of the modern depictions can probably be traced to the story I am about to tell. Last time we talked about the Battle of Kanouguchi(加納口の戦い), where Oda Nobuhide's invasion of Saitou Dousan's Mino province failed and he suffered great losses. After such a disastrous defeat, the Oda had to find ways to salvage the situation. They discussed what the next step shoul

Today's post will be about a pretty important figure in Nobunaga's life: Saitou Dousan(斎藤道三). At this time point of the story, he was the ruler of Mino Province(美濃国) directly north of the Oda-controlled Owari. The Viper of Mino The history of Mino Province actually was similar to that of the Owari Province. If you remember, Oda Nobuhide pretty much usurped another family's position that was considered unobtainable for him and became the de facto ruler of Owari. Saitou Dousan basically did the same in Mino. Except the man had a even humbler beginning. He grew up as a young monk in Kyoto. He later became an oil merchant and eventually a samurai. He traveled to Mino and became a retainer of Mino's governing family, the Toki family(土岐氏). One thing led to another, and long story short, every boss he ever had either died or disappeared, and he kept inheriting their family names and powers through what people speculated were questionable means. Even the la

In today's talk we will discuss the situation in the Oda family. This is the inevitable infodumping talk that will happen sooner or later, so let's get it over with. I'll make it as painless as possible with short descriptions. In previous posts we talked about how Nobunaga was seen as unfit to lead because of his weird personality and behaviors. There is an overwhelming voice of opposition in the Oda faction against him being appointed the successor of Oda Nobuhide as the leader of Danjou no jou(弾正忠) Oda branch. Here is a summary chart showing which team the Oda people were on. Feel free to reference back to this to remind yourself as you read. We will go over these people one by one. Oda Nobuyuki, Nobunaga's younger brother and rival. Oda Nobuyuki(織田信行) Childhood name Kanjuurou(勘十郎). Nobuyuki was a full brother of Oda Nobunaga, as in, they share the same father and mother. He was often described as a very polite and proper young man, directly cont

Last time we mentioned that Oda Nobuhide was facing two enemies: Saitou in the north, and Imagawa/Matsudaira in the south. The head of the Matsudaira family, Matsudaira Hirotada(松平広忠) was having a very hard time maintaining his foothold in his homeland Mikawa.  Daimyous of Central Japan in 1547 Matsudaira Hirotada After his father was assassinated, Hirotada became the head of family at age nine. Ever since his father died, Oda had been ferociously attacking his territories. He also had a complicated relationship with Imagawa on the east. His reign continued to decline and eventually he gave up Matsudaira's independence in exchange for some safety. Takechiyo Alliance in Sengoku time was never free. Some come with exorbitant costs. Hirotada decided to become a subject of Imagawa Yoshimoto(今川義元). To show his loyalty, he was required to send his 6 year old son, Takechiyo(竹千代), to Imagawa as a hostage. As if this wasn't bad enough, there was a li

Because I'm trying to keep things short and sweet, I will spare you the details of why Sengoku period even began. To understand that you will need to learn about Japan's political structure at the time. For now you only need to know the simplified version: "Ounin War" (Ounin no Ran/応仁の乱) (As a side note, the spelling convention I will follow in this blog will be the one where all the implicit "o"s and "u"s are spelled out, because it's how you type them on the computer and honestly my preferred way. Because most of the Sengoku stuff written in books are done in the British imperialist traditions, you will see letters such as "ō". Just be aware that I might be talking about the same things.) Map of Ounin War(1467-1477). Blue = Hosokawa, Pink = Yaman, Mixed = Disputed Some bullet points for Ounin War 1. It was a civil war fought between Hosokawa Katsumoto(細川勝元) and Yamana Souzen(山名宗全). The war split most of Japan into