Nobunaga 001: Ounin War, the Tiger of Owari and the Idiot of Owari
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:
Before Kippoushi was old enough to do anything, his daddy Nobuhide made quite a name for himself in his home province Owari(尾張).
Supposedly, Owari was ruled by the Shiba family(斯波). However, after the Ounin War, the power of local governance greatly fell and the de facto power holders were tempted to usurp these ruling positions.
Nobuhide was one of these power holders.
In this figure you can see the hierarchy of how the Owari province was run. First let us define a few terms.
Shugo Daimyou(守護大名): A centrally-appointed governor of a province by the court. After the Ounin war a lot of them got weak and became puppets.
Shugodai(守護代): "Deputy" shugo. As you can see from the name, it's a tier lower than shugo daimyou. However, these shugodai positions were not appointed by the central government. They were originally meant as the "helpers" that were locally appointed by the shugo. A lot of these shugodai held actual power after Ounin war and the puppet masters behind the shugo daimyou puppets.
Bugyou(奉行): "Commissioner". A general term. Actual definition is broad and vague and very context-dependent. In the specific context of Owari, they were the people a tier lower than the shugodai. In the picture, they are put in the grey box, collectively known as the "Three Commissioners of Kiyosu(清洲三奉行)". Not all systems have these.
Nobuhide belonged to the family of commissioners under "Danjou no jou" (fist one on the left). Ever since taking over his dad's commissioner position in 1527, he practically achieved "gekokujou" over the years and held real power. Although he nominally maintained the hierarchy, his influence was far above that of his "boss" in the Kiyosu Oda family, eventually overshadowing the actual "big boss" of Owari, the Shiba family.
It wasn't really a hardcore, solid "unification" of the province as achieved by some other unifiers in the later parts of the Sengoku period, but it was impressive in its own way, earning him the nickname of "the Tiger of Owari"(though this name likely came from a novel long after he was dead).
Naturally, after Owari was unified for the most part, Nobuhide looked for territorial expansions as expected of any warlords in the period.
Here is what he was up against:
His closest threats were Saitou(yellow) and Matsudaira(cyan, family name was changed to Tokugawa later). Although he tried his best, his effort in expanding territory beyond Owari did not prove very fruitful. His battles will be detailed in later articles. But for now, let us shift gears and spend some time talking about Kippoushi.
"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.)
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| 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 two factions and lasted from 1467 to 1477 until a truce was reached.
2. Hosokawa and Yamana supported different potential successors of the Ashikaga Shougun at the time, therefore a war broke out.
3. The war is considered to be the start of the Sengoku period because it severely weakened the power and influence of the Shougun and the Shugo Daimyous(守護大名, the de jure rulers of different Japanese provinces). It gave rise to a phenomenon of de facto power holders of lower social status to usurp higher local governance, aptly named gekokujou (下剋上), meaning "the low overcomes the high".
4. In the Kantou region(eastern Japan) there was a concurrent political turmoil known as Kyoutoku no Ran (享徳の乱). It is less well known than the Ounin War but it is also seen as a co-contributor to the beginning of the Sengoku period for having the same effect in power-shifting. If I have time in the future I can spend some time on it.
4. In the Kantou region(eastern Japan) there was a concurrent political turmoil known as Kyoutoku no Ran (享徳の乱). It is less well known than the Ounin War but it is also seen as a co-contributor to the beginning of the Sengoku period for having the same effect in power-shifting. If I have time in the future I can spend some time on it.
The Tiger of Owari
Fast-forward to the year 1534. In the province of Owari (a province in central Japan), A boy was born to Oda Nobuhide(織田信秀). Nobuhide named him Kippoushi(吉法師). |
| Nobuhide the daddy. |
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| Kippoushi the boy. |
Before Kippoushi was old enough to do anything, his daddy Nobuhide made quite a name for himself in his home province Owari(尾張).
Supposedly, Owari was ruled by the Shiba family(斯波). However, after the Ounin War, the power of local governance greatly fell and the de facto power holders were tempted to usurp these ruling positions.
Nobuhide was one of these power holders.
Nobuhide's Unification
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| Governance Hierarchy of Owari Province |
In this figure you can see the hierarchy of how the Owari province was run. First let us define a few terms.
Shugo Daimyou(守護大名): A centrally-appointed governor of a province by the court. After the Ounin war a lot of them got weak and became puppets.
Shugodai(守護代): "Deputy" shugo. As you can see from the name, it's a tier lower than shugo daimyou. However, these shugodai positions were not appointed by the central government. They were originally meant as the "helpers" that were locally appointed by the shugo. A lot of these shugodai held actual power after Ounin war and the puppet masters behind the shugo daimyou puppets.
Bugyou(奉行): "Commissioner". A general term. Actual definition is broad and vague and very context-dependent. In the specific context of Owari, they were the people a tier lower than the shugodai. In the picture, they are put in the grey box, collectively known as the "Three Commissioners of Kiyosu(清洲三奉行)". Not all systems have these.
Nobuhide belonged to the family of commissioners under "Danjou no jou" (fist one on the left). Ever since taking over his dad's commissioner position in 1527, he practically achieved "gekokujou" over the years and held real power. Although he nominally maintained the hierarchy, his influence was far above that of his "boss" in the Kiyosu Oda family, eventually overshadowing the actual "big boss" of Owari, the Shiba family.
It wasn't really a hardcore, solid "unification" of the province as achieved by some other unifiers in the later parts of the Sengoku period, but it was impressive in its own way, earning him the nickname of "the Tiger of Owari"(though this name likely came from a novel long after he was dead).
Naturally, after Owari was unified for the most part, Nobuhide looked for territorial expansions as expected of any warlords in the period.
Here is what he was up against:
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| Map depicting major neighboring powers of Owari in Nobuhide's reign |
His closest threats were Saitou(yellow) and Matsudaira(cyan, family name was changed to Tokugawa later). Although he tried his best, his effort in expanding territory beyond Owari did not prove very fruitful. His battles will be detailed in later articles. But for now, let us shift gears and spend some time talking about Kippoushi.
The Idiot of Owari
Kippoushi had a very infamous early life.
People at the time didn't have a term for what he was doing, so they called him the "big idiot of Owari (owari no ooutsuke, 尾張の大うつけ).
What exactly did he do?
Good news. We now have a term for it. It's called chuunibyou.
Chuunibyou(中二病) literally means "second year of middle school/8th grader disease". It is a time in a child's life when he/she is going through adolescence and does a lot of seemingly intentionally-weird things, either because they are confused about how to express themselves, or because they just want to attentionwhore a little bit.
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| A modern diagram of the idiot. |
Nowadays kids do a lot of weird shit. Naming themselves after swordsmen, claiming to be magicians, drinking tomato juice and calling themselves vampires... They also sometimes get super pretentious, claiming to only read "classic literature" when they were literally reading comic books the day before. Or they get super anal about people's tastes in music. We've all been through that time. It was weird, and people sucked.
Back in Sengoku days, if you acted like a teenager of today, people mocked you for it because it wasn't (as much of a) social norm as today.
Was their society much more oppressive than ours, or are we just horrible parents? I'll let you decide.
Anyway, Kippoushi was basically acting like a chuuni. Dressed in fancy/outrageous clothes, painted his sword red and roamed the streets. People thought he was a weirdo to be laughed at.
But at the same time, it is worth noting that the "big idiot of Owari" nickname was given to him by the common folks. He was noted for having extensive interactions with the common men, learning various skills and knowledge from them while showing off his weirdness. In the process, he learned a lot from his commoner friends.
Nevertheless, this gave Kippoushi a horrible reputation as a stupid weirdo. Although he was the eldest son of Nobuhide, many retainers of the family opposed the idea of making Kippoushi the successor, saying that he would ruin Nobuhide's legacy.
But this guy was not opposed to it.
His name was Hirate Masahide(平手政秀). He was Kippoushi's teacher.
A retainer of the Oda family mostly known for his diplomatic skills, Hirate was also a very cultured man. Nobuhide made him in charge of Kippoushi's education.
He likely believed that despite outward appearances, Kippoushi had potential to be a great leader. But at the same time he had been trying his hardest to correct Kippoushi's chuuni ways so that the family would have a higher opinion of Kippoushi.
But Kippoushi refused to change, putting Hirate in a very awkward position. At the time, many family members and retainers had their eyes on Kippoushi's little brother and wanted to make him the successor instead. Hirate was promising them that Kippoushi would change, but he did not. Although Kippoushi respected his teacher, his attitude towards the advice was probably best described as "meh". As a boy with an unorthodox thinking process he likely had other priorities.
With such an uncooperative student, Hirate had a very hard time fighting for Kippoushi's respect in the family, making him very worried for Kippoushi's future.
Time flies. Around the year 1546, Kippoushi turned 13(yes I am aware, and I can do math. East Asian age reckoning is always about a year off so bear with me). A genpuku(元服) ceremony was held for him, signifying his entrance to adulthood.
In this ceremony, boys lose their childhood names and gain proper names.
And in this case, Kippoushi was renamed to Nobunaga, Oda Nobunaga(織田信長).
Another aspect of entering adulthood for boys was to have their "first battles"(初陣). Soon after the ceremony, Nobunaga participated in a small scale raid against the then Imagawa-controlled Matsudaira territory in Mikawa.
Historically, Nobunaga's first battle was known as the Battle of Kira-Oohama(吉良大浜の戦い).
Actual records of this battle are very scarce. Some say it was a small scale raid, others say it was just Nobunaga and a few of his riders setting fire to enemy resources. But either way, it was a successful little first battle for Nobunaga.
Hirate was watching over him for this battle. You can probably imagine, seeing his student fighting his first real battle, the old man was probably worried sick, micromanaging what the boy did so that he didn't get hurt.
Back in Sengoku days, if you acted like a teenager of today, people mocked you for it because it wasn't (as much of a) social norm as today.
Was their society much more oppressive than ours, or are we just horrible parents? I'll let you decide.
Anyway, Kippoushi was basically acting like a chuuni. Dressed in fancy/outrageous clothes, painted his sword red and roamed the streets. People thought he was a weirdo to be laughed at.
But at the same time, it is worth noting that the "big idiot of Owari" nickname was given to him by the common folks. He was noted for having extensive interactions with the common men, learning various skills and knowledge from them while showing off his weirdness. In the process, he learned a lot from his commoner friends.
Nevertheless, this gave Kippoushi a horrible reputation as a stupid weirdo. Although he was the eldest son of Nobuhide, many retainers of the family opposed the idea of making Kippoushi the successor, saying that he would ruin Nobuhide's legacy.
But this guy was not opposed to it.
| Hirate "Old Man" Masahide |
His name was Hirate Masahide(平手政秀). He was Kippoushi's teacher.
A retainer of the Oda family mostly known for his diplomatic skills, Hirate was also a very cultured man. Nobuhide made him in charge of Kippoushi's education.
He likely believed that despite outward appearances, Kippoushi had potential to be a great leader. But at the same time he had been trying his hardest to correct Kippoushi's chuuni ways so that the family would have a higher opinion of Kippoushi.
But Kippoushi refused to change, putting Hirate in a very awkward position. At the time, many family members and retainers had their eyes on Kippoushi's little brother and wanted to make him the successor instead. Hirate was promising them that Kippoushi would change, but he did not. Although Kippoushi respected his teacher, his attitude towards the advice was probably best described as "meh". As a boy with an unorthodox thinking process he likely had other priorities.
With such an uncooperative student, Hirate had a very hard time fighting for Kippoushi's respect in the family, making him very worried for Kippoushi's future.
The Idiot's First Battle
Time flies. Around the year 1546, Kippoushi turned 13(yes I am aware, and I can do math. East Asian age reckoning is always about a year off so bear with me). A genpuku(元服) ceremony was held for him, signifying his entrance to adulthood.
 |
| Genpuku Ceremony |
And in this case, Kippoushi was renamed to Nobunaga, Oda Nobunaga(織田信長).
Another aspect of entering adulthood for boys was to have their "first battles"(初陣). Soon after the ceremony, Nobunaga participated in a small scale raid against the then Imagawa-controlled Matsudaira territory in Mikawa.
Historically, Nobunaga's first battle was known as the Battle of Kira-Oohama(吉良大浜の戦い).
Actual records of this battle are very scarce. Some say it was a small scale raid, others say it was just Nobunaga and a few of his riders setting fire to enemy resources. But either way, it was a successful little first battle for Nobunaga.
| Nobunaga in his first battle. |
Nobunaga returned safely, but there would be many more battles to be fought, especially political ones in the family. Hirate would have a lot more to worry about.
At the same time, the Oda's relationship with its northern neighbor Saitou was gradually worsening. Oda Nobuhide and Saitou Dousan(called Saitou Toshimasa at the time) would soon come into direct conflict.
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