Nobunaga 006: The Monk Who Tamed the Tiger- The Battle of Azukizaka (1548) Part I

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 technicalities in future articles.

Taigen Sessai was a Buddhist scholar who became an adviser of the Imagawa family. He was a mentor of the famous Imagawa Yoshimoto(今川義元). An expert at both political and military strategies, he helped the Imagawa achieve great prosperity. Some argue that the fact that Imagawa's accomplishment at this point of the story should be contributed to him.

Okay. That's enough bragging. Let's go back to the main topic at hand.
Last time we mentioned that Oda Nobuhide made peace with Saitou Dousan. At least for now, Owari and Mino were allies. Nobuhide's next move would be to engage in warfare with Imagawa of the south.

Factional pap around Owari, 1548. Blue outline indicates Owari-Mino alliance.

Previously Nobuhide had some success at pushing into Mikawa(三河) and the Matsudaira got sort of screwed. As a recap, Matsudaira Hirotada had to officially join Imagawa as a subordinate in order to protect himself(hence the same territory color in the map). For more details, see article Nobunaga 002.

Nobuhide actually took Anjou Castle(安祥城) of Mikawa in a previous battle that I did not cover, establishing a military foothold in real Mikawa terriotry. The next move would be to take Okazaki Castle(岡崎城), which for all intents and purposes served as the "capital" of the Mikawa province. This was a crucial move in order for Nobuhide to gain control of Mikawa.

If you remember the horrifying defeat Oda Nobuhide experienced recently at Kanouguchi against Saitou Dousan, you might wonder, "why would he not want to recover a bit before dumping more money and manpower into starting another war?"

The answer was simple: He could not afford to take a break.

This is a good time to pause and talk about the volatile nature of the Sengoku period military-political-economic clusterfuck.

As we covered in the very beginning, Oda Nobuhide was by definition a usurper(as much as he tried to make it subtle). To keep his position he had to use his reputation, which was gained mostly from military success and the monetary gain/territorial expansion that ensued. The more military success he had, the more reputation he built. The more reputation he built, the more control he had over Owari. The more control he had, the more financial support he had(from merchant investors among others). The more financial support he had, the more he could dump into wars for him to gain more reputaion, and the cycle began anew. See figure.

The vicious cycle that most Sengoku daimyous had to face.

When Nobuhide failed at his invasion of Mino in the Battle of Kanouguchi, his resources took a significant hit. More importantly, so did his reputation. The people who were unhappy with his usurpation(such as those in the main branches of the Oda family) could not really go against him before when he was doing well, but now that he fucked up, they were free to voice their contempt. If this kept going on, they could exert a lot of political pressure on Nobuhide that might eventually lead to his removal/impeachment or even death.

The fact that Nobuhide was even the leader of Owari was on a very flimsy basis. With such a great defeat, people sure as hell was going to pop out and complain. Nobuhide had to shut them up. This kind of vicious cycle based on money and war required continuous momentum. Once you took a hit and your momentum stopped, then you're in big trouble and you could vanish from history instantly. In order to protect himself and his family, Nobuhide absolutely had to build his reputation back up - by starting another war.

This is actually a rather common theme in history. Sometimes people like to portray some historical figures as "cold-blooded warmongers", but in my opinion a lot of what happened to history had more to do with circumstances than the individual people. This kind of a system in Sengoku period sucked, but it wasn't exactly something Nobuhide could change. It's hard to imagine that some people in history genuinely "loved wars". They were likely motivated to start wars by protecting their own interests or the interests of those important to them. So before passing judgment on historical figures, I think it's important to understand the context. Nobody is a one-dimensional villain who's just "evil" no matter what. Too often we ask the question whether someone was a "good guy" or a "bad guy" in history, like the way we were taught in school. It's rather unfortunate that we sometimes characterize rational actions as pure "evil". If you were in their shoes, you would have done the same.

Anyway, I'm done with the little personal rant just now. I have another similar philosophical spiel about Ukita Naoie once we get to him later. You guys can tell me if you enjoy these or not. 

Moving right along. Nobuhide would now use his base in Anjou Castle to invade further into Mikawa and eventually take Okazaki.

We mentioned previously that, Matsudaira Hirotada's son, Takechiyo was taken to Oda Nobuhide due to an accident. So now Nobuhide actually had Takechiyo's life at this disposal. The first thing Nobuhide did was to try to convince Hirotada to surrender Okazaki Castle to him, in exchange of his son's freedom.

It's hard to imagine that a father would give up his child's life. However, Hirotada refused to surrender.

Matsudaira Hirotada

Hirotada was put in a tough spot. The Matsudaira was sandwiched between Oda and Imagawa, and some of his relatives, such as his former wife's family Mizuno(水野), led by Mizuno Nobumoto(水野信元) already sided with the Oda, helping them gaining Mikawa territory. Because of this, Hirotada was actually forced by Imagawa to divorce his former wife Odai(於大), who was the mother of Takechiyo, in order to prove his loyalty.

You may argue that by the time Hirotada definitively joined Imagawa, he already gave up on the family he built with Odai. He probably prepared himself for never seeing them again, as painful as this sounds. Out of the two factions, Imagawa probably felt safer for him. As much as getting his son Takechiyo back was an enticing offer, if he accepted it, it would likely piss off Imagawa and put him in a even worse situation. At this point, all he could do was to stand his ground in Okazaki, waiting for Imagawa's reinforcements. 

Oda's vanguard of this battle was Oda Nobuhiro, leading an army of 4,000 from Anjou Castle.

Oda Nobuhiro, Nobunaga's elder half-brother.

We briefly talked about this guy before. He was Nobunaga's half-brother. Quick recap: despite of Nobuhiro being older, he was not considered the "eldest" because his mother was a concubine. Nobunaga was still the eldest son for successorship candidacy if we only count children born to proper wives.

Anyway, Nobuhiro helped out his dad Nobuhide in many battles that Nobunaga was a little too young to participate in. This time he took the important role of vanguard in the invasion of Okazaki Castle.

His troops left Anjou Castle, crossed the Yahagi River(矢作川) and marched towards Okazaki Castle. Nobuhide's main forces would join later.

By the time Nobuhiro arrived, Imagawa's reinforcements was already there. It was a force of 10.000 men commanded by the monk Taigen Sessai, with the help of his vice commander Asahina Yasuyoshi(朝比奈泰能). Oda and Imagawa forces clashed at the slope of Azukizaka(小豆坂).

Battle of Azukizaka, 1548

Taigen Sessai and Asahina Yasuyoshi placed their troops on the top of the Azukizaka slope. with Matsudaira Hirotada's troops placed nearby.

Seeing this setup, Oda Nobuhiro felt it would be unwise to charge right in. He decided to wait for his father Nobuhide's reinforcement then decide the next step.

We will conclude the Battle of Azukizaka in the next article.

References:

1. Shinchoukouki(信長公記) http://www.page.sannet.ne.jp/gutoku2/kouki.html

2. Ootsuka, Isao. Sengoku daimyou imagawashi 4dai(戦国大名今川氏四代). Shizuoka: Hagoromo Shuppan, 2010.

3. Imagawa Bugenchou (今川分限帳) http://webarchives.tnm.jp/dlib/detail/3274;jsessionid=C3E9CB4B3F3701DE96EF10874BD06DF4

Pictures belong to Koei, maps belong to:

http://emaki.sengoku-jidai.com/nob/nob-okehazama.html

http://www.geocities.jp/seiryokuzu/