Quick and Easy Sengoku History

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

I am going to write a series of blog posts chronologically following the major figures in the Sengoku period. I think it helps to have a "main plot" that other things can branch off from. At the risk of being cliche, I want to go with the Nobunaga->Hideyoshi->Ieyasu main plot. Because this story progression is the center of a lot of the major events in the second half of the second period(the most popular half) so it will be most relevant to most readers. Of course, I will take requests for standalone writeups as well if people want them. I will be stealing illustrations from various Sengoku games for my posts so don't sue. Have fun!