Battle of Nagashino

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Battle of Nagashino
Part of: Takeda Campaigns
Battle of Nagashino.jpg
date June 28, 1575
place Nagashino , Mikawa Province in ( Japan )
output Siege fails, victory of Oda and Tokugawa
Parties to the conflict

Takeda Katsuyori

Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu

Commander

Takeda Katsuyori , Anayama Nobukimi , Takeda Nobukado , Takeda Nobutoyo

Oda Nobunaga , Tokugawa Ieyasu , Okudaira Sadamasa

Troop strength
15,000 30,000
losses

10,000 dead, including 54 samurai leaders

unknown

The Battle of Nagashino ( Japanese 長 篠 の 戦 い , Nagashino no Tatakai ) took place at Nagashino Castle in Mikawa Province in Japan in 1575 during the Sengoku period .

The castle has been besieged by Takeda Katsuyori since June 17 because it threatened the Takeda supply lines. Okudaira Sadamasa , a vassal of Tokugawa Ieyasu , commanded the defense. Both Tokugawa and Oda Nobunaga sent troops to lift the siege, and Takeda Katsuyori was defeated.

background

Takeda Katsuyori became Oda Nobunaga's main rival at the end of the Sengoku period. He took action against Oda's allies with his army. Nagashino Castle was conquered by Togukawa Ieyasu in 1574. In 1575, Takeda Katsuyori attempted to retake the castle as a springboard for an offensive against Mikawa Province .

course

Takeda Katsuyori besieged Nagashino Castle with around 15,000 men. Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu brought up a relief army of around 30,000 men. The Takeda army was best known for its samurai who fought professionally on horseback. The relief army consisted mainly of ashigaru . 3,000 of them were equipped with arquebuses . Oda Nobunaga had his relief army build a three kilometer long palisade . The position was positioned between a river and mountainous terrain and, together with the castle of the Takeda cavalry, took up the space for long maneuvers. Takeda Katysuyori, believing his elite warriors were superior to the Ashigaru, ordered a frontal attack. The Takeda launched five waves of attack on the relief army, reinforced by spearmen, archers and samurai. After the fifth attack wave, the Takeda withdrew due to the high losses.

Takeda lost about 10,000 men, two-thirds of its siege army. Eight of his famous 24 generals were killed in the battle, including Yamagata Masakage and Oyamada Nobushige .

consequences

The victory of Oda's western tactics and firearms over the Takeda cavalry attack is often cited as a turning point in Japanese warfare. Many call it the first 'modern' battle in Japan.

Takeda's cavalry attack represented the old, traditional form of warfare. Ironically, however, it was only introduced less than a generation earlier by his father, Takeda Shingen . Previously, duels between the samurai were more the rule.

The battle is often seen as the introduction of more modern firearm tactics to Japan. There is often the view that Oda Nobunaga used the firing of targeted, coordinated volleys of larger units in his arquebuses. However, there is no contemporary written evidence of this.

Nagashino was the decisive military defeat for the rest of the Eastern Three Pacts between the later Hōjō , the Imagawa and the Takeda ( Imagawa Ujizane had already left). As a result, the three unifiers were able to annex or eliminate the remaining sovereign principalities and ushered in the Edo period .

Movie

The battle and the final years of the Takeda clan were themed in Akira Kurosawa's 1980 film Kagemusha (Shadow Warriors). In the film, a headstrong thief is forced to replace the dead ruler, Takeda Shingen . The film takes place in the years before Takeda Katsuyori's defeat at Nagashino and ends with the annihilation of the cavalry army, which runs ineffectively against the barricades and archers Odas.

literature

  • Richard Bowing, Peter Kornicki (Eds.): The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Japan. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1993, ISBN 0-521-40352-9 , p. 65.
  • Jeroen P. Lamers: Japonius Tyrannus. The Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga reconsidered (= Japonica Neerlandica. Vol. 8). Hotei Publishing, Leiden 2000, ISBN 90-74822-22-3 .
  • Stephen Turnbull : The Samurai Sourcebook. Arms and Armor Press, London 1998, ISBN 1-85409-371-1 .
  • Stephen Turnbull: Nagashino. Slaughter at the Barricades. Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2000, ISBN 1-85532-619-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Peter A. Lorge: The Asian Military Revolution - From Gunpowder to the Bomb. Cambridge, 2008, pp. 53-56
  2. ^ Brett L. Walker: A Concise History of Japan. Cambridge, 2015, p. 105

Web links

Commons : Battle of Nagashino  - Collection of images, videos and audio files