THE RISE OF THE SAMURAI


TIMELINE: The Sengoku Period: Japan’s Age of War


1467 Onin War begins 1477 Onin War offi cially ends 1494 Hojo capture Odawara 1543


Arrival of Europeans in Japan bringing muskets


1545 Night battle of Kawagoe 1549


1560 1571


Muskets fi rst used in war at the Kajiki siege


Battle of Okehazama makes Oda Nobunaga powerful


Destruction of the warrior monks of Mount Hiei by Nobunaga


1573 Death of Takeda Shingen 1574


1575


Siege of the warrior monk castle of Nagashima


Siege and battle of Nagashino with volley fi ring


1576 Building of Azuchi castle 1578 Death of Uesugi Kenshin 1580


Surrender of Ikko-ikki headquarters of Ishiyama Honganji


1581 Siege of Tottori by starvation 1582


1583


Battle of Shizugatake gives Hideyoshi much control


1584 Battles of Komaki and Nagakute 1586 Building of Osaka castle 1587 Invasion of Kyushu by Hideyoshi 1590 Final siege of Odawara 1591


Siege of Kunoe - unifi cation of Japan completed


1592 First invasion of Korea 1593 Japanese withdraw from Korea 1597 Second invasion of Korea 1598


1600 Battle of Sekigahara 1603


1615


Murder of Oda Nobunaga, Battle of Yamazaki


At Uedahara in 1548 and at Mikata ga Hara in 1572, the Takeda cavalry rode down disorganised infantry units. For cavalry charges to succeed, the old samurai tradition of singling out a worthy opponent for a challenge to single combat had to wait until the enemy line was broken, so group operations gradually became the norm. Individual challenges could follow. The Takeda and Uesugi fought each other five times at a place called Kawanakajima (‘the island within the river’), a battlefield that marked the border between their territories. In addition to this intriguing notion of five battles being fought on one battlefield, Kawanakajima has also become the epitome of Japanese chivalry and romance: the archetypal clash of samurai arms. In its more extreme form, this view even denies the possibility that anyone actually got hurt at the Kawanakajima battles, which are seen only as a series of ‘friendly fixtures’ characterised by posturing and pomp. In this scenario, the Kawanakajima conflicts may be dismissed as mock warfare. During some of the encounters, admittedly, the two armies disengaged before committing themselves fully to a fight to the death, but the wounds and the dead bodies were real enough, and the fourth battle of Kawanakajima in 1561 produced many casualties on both sides.


THE GLORIOUS HOJO Neither Takeda Shingen nor Uesugi Kenshin managed to produce a successful dynasty to follow them. By contrast, the Hojo family of the Kanto plain (where modern Tokyo now stands) built a firm and lasting base where family relationships rather than vassalage were most highly valued and trusted. Hojo Soun (1432-1519), the founder of his line, was to be found fighting in 1467, while the fifth generation of the Hojo daimyo finally capitulated to Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1590. The most noticeable development over this time was in the size of the army that the Hojo daimyo could lead into battle. In 1467, Hojo Soun had only six men under his command. By the time of the death of his great-great grandson in 1590, that original group had grown to tens of thousands, who defended the Hojo domain from within several formidable castles.


Hojo Soun had been born in 1432 and benefited from the marriage of his elder sister to Imagawa Yoshitada, an illustrious daimyo from Suruga province. This happened while the Onin War was still raging, and gave Soun the opportunity to escape from the devastation of Kyoto in 1469 to serve his in-laws in Suruga. When Yoshitada was killed in battle in 1476, his son Ujichika’s rightful inheritance was placed in great peril, so the ‘seven samurai’ of Soun and his six followers went to the assistance of Soun’s nephew. Their military skills settled the matter, for which Soun received from the grateful heir the reward of a castle. Continued service brought further reward, and in 1495 Soun acquired for the Hojo the site that was to be the family’s future capital: Odawara on Sagami Bay.


Death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and fi nal withdrawal


Tokugawa Ieyasu becomes Shogun


Death of Toyotomi Hideyori at Osaka


4


This modern reproduction is of the helmet worn by Yamamoto Kansuke, Takeda Shingen’s leading strategist, who was killed at the Battle of Kawanakajima in 1561.


Military Times in association with Intel and Total War: Shogun 2


Hojo Soun died at the ripe old age of 87 and was succeeded by his son Hojo Ujitsuna (1487-1541), who protected his position in three ways. First, he ensured the continued loyalty of Soun’s old retainers by honouring the memory of his father, a programme given concrete expression by the memorial temple of Soun-ji in Yumoto. Second, he developed a legal and administrative system for the domain that began to institutionalise the systems that under Soun had relied mainly on the daimyo’s own personality. Third, he continued his father’s


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