Nobunaga 007: The Monk Who Tamed the Tiger - The Battle of Azukizaka (1548) Part II

Today we will continue the talk about Oda Nobuhide's attack on Okazaki Castle of Mikawa, leading to the clash of Oda forces and Imagawa/Matsudaira forces in the Battle of Azukizaka(1548).

Picking up from where we left off in Part I of this talk, Nobuhide's son, Nobuhiro was the vanguard of this battle. However, when he saw Taigen Sessai's large force at an advantageous position, he stopped and waited for his father's main forces.

After Nobuhide's main forces arrived, Nobuhiro informed his father of the situation, and they decided to approach carefully.

The enemies in front of them was Matsudaira Hirotada, stopping them from reaching Taigen's Imagawa main forces on the Azukizaka slope.

I'm not sure if you guys ever play team-based online games. Maybe psychologists can explain the mechanism but, it's actually pretty hard to stop advancing after charging against the enemy and winning. It's easy to laugh at other people for "YOLOing" because it looks stupid, but a lot of people are actually prone to being controlled by the "heat of the battle", myself included(I suck at online games unless it's 1 vs 1.)

I'm sure Nobuhide and Nobuhiro wanted to approach this gingerly, and they probably even made plans. But they didn't expect Matsudaira's forces to lose this easily. Matsudaira Hirotada couldn't put much of a fight before retreating. And the Oda forces rushed on.

Things really looked good. Nobuhide probably thought he was gonna win this one.  Oda forces were doing well. Momentum seemed unstoppable. Taigen Sessai himself even looked within reach.

Then the monk smiled, and gave the signal.

Suddenly, countless troops appeared seemingly out of nowhere, rushed into Oda's flanks and cut Nobuhide's forces in two, then quickly enveloped Nobuhide.

The Tiger of Owari fell into the monk's trap.

Faking retreats to lure enemies in wasn't exactly rocket science. It had been a tried and true strategy throughout ages. The trick is to make the retreat believable. Nobuhide and Nobuhiro definitely knew of the strategy, but even the most experienced people can fall into an old strategy with good execution.

Matsudaira Hirotada

The best kind of acting isn't acting at all. Maybe Matsudaira Hirotada was a great actor, but I think the more likely explanation was that his morale was genuinely low.

In the last article we discussed his situation. His son Takechiyo was taken hostage by Oda Nobuhide. He had to divorce his beloved wife to shake off suspicion from Imagawa. Oda Nobuhide tried to convince him to surrender, using Hirotada's son Takechiyo as leverage... This was probably the lowest point of Hirotada's life. He was responsible for the survival of the Matsudaira family, and he kept making extreme personal sacrifices for it. However, things just kept getting worse and worse. He lost his lands to Imagawa and had his family utterly destroyed. And now the Matsudaira's existence relied on the whim of Imagawa Yoshimoto. The experience was very tiring and disheartening. You can imagine how difficult it was for him to get pumped up and fight confidently.

Did Taigen Sessai know this? Possibly. The monk had a reputation of being an excellent strategist and tactician. More importantly, he was known to read people very well. It was entirely possible that he took the time to put himself in Hirotada's shoes, thought about how he felt, then came up with a strategy in which Hirotada's fatigue and lack of morale were actually crucial. He ordered Hirotada to intercept the Oda forces head on, knowing that he would lose, making it easier to lure Nobuhide into his ambush.

Back to the battle itself. Oda forces were put into utter chaos. Keep in mind, this battle was only a few months apart from Oda's huge loss at Kanouguchi. Most of these soldiers were likely newly recruited. Others experiences the recent disaster at Kanouguchi and were still suffering from PTSD of of that battle. With this ambush, the Oda forces instantly collapsed.

Nobuhide and Nobuhiro ordered the troops to turn around and re-cross the Yahagi river, trying to retreat to Anjou castle. They eventually made it there, but at a great cost of losing many men. Nobuhide put Nobuhiro in charge of defending Anjou, and returned to Owari himself.

And with that, Okazaki was successfully defended. Things returned to where they were.

Aftermath

Things didn't look too great for Nobuhide. The whole point of this battle was to reclaim the credit he lost at Kanouguchi, but the loss of Azukizaka further tanked his reputation, putting him in an even worse situation than before. Due to all the stress and fatigue, Nobuhide's health started to show signs of deterioration. Family members and retainers began to discuss plans for successorship, again, as if they didn't discuss this a million times already. It was the typical pro-Nobunaga faction vs pro-Nobuyuki faction BS, trying to convince Nobuhide to choose their candidates. But this time, Nobuhide was probably too ill and tired to listen.

Matsuraida Hirotada was happier, but not by much. Winning the battle was good news for him, but he still wanted to reclaim the lost Mikawa territory. He begged Imagawa Yoshimoto and Taigen Sessai to take Anjou castle for him. Based on how skillful Taigen was at Azukizaka, he thought taking back Anjou would be a piece of cake.

After numerous pleas, Imagawa agreed to help. Taigen Sessai led an army to attack Anjou Castle, but for mysterious reasons, he was quickly defeated by Oda Nobuhiro's defending forces and retreated.

What was the monk plotting? One can only speculate. It did look like a deliberate loss. Maybe he wanted to keep some leverage in controlling Hirotada by not granting all of his wishes at once, even though he could.

Hirotada felt depressed. He probably could tell that Imagawa wasn't willing to help. One day he tried to distract himself and went hunting. He thought maybe this would take his mind off the crappy situation he was in for a few hours.

When he was alone in the woods, a few people appeared and surrounded him. Without saying anything, they attacked Hirotada and put a blade in his chest.

On March of 1549, Matsudaira Hirotada's life ended.

Who sent these assassins? We will never know. It could have been Oda Nobuhide, trying to take revenge against someone who brought him humiliation of defeat. Or it could be Imagawa Yoshimoto and Taigen Sessai, trying to seize control of Mikawa direct by eliminating Hirotada, now that the time was right.

Either way, Matsudaira Hirotada's life ended.

Due to the sudden death of the previous Matsudaira family head, Hirotada had to take on the responsibility of reviving the Matsudaira family at age of 9. Being stuck between two powerful daimyous, the man tried everything in order to survive. In the end, he unfortunately did not succeed. And before his death, he was not able to reunite with his son Takechiyo.

The news of Hirotada's death reached Owari, and eventually, Takechiyo.

How did the boy react to the news? We will find out 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. Mikawa Tousenki (三河東泉記) 

http://iss.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I025907929-00

Pictures belong to their respective owners. Maps belong to:

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

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