The biography of Oda Nobunaga

1576-1580

The reduction of the Takeda made Nobunaga's dream of conquering Japan seem more and more plausible, although there were three enemies who were close enough to take active issue with his designs...

1) The Honganji. The Ishiyama Honganji stronghold proved no less formidable then before Nagashino. In June 1576 he dispatched Harada Naomasa with an army to attack the Honganji-an effort that ended in failure and the loss of Harada's life. Nobunaga responded by personally leading an attack that succeeded in taking quite a few heads but saw Nobunaga wounded in the course of the fighting. Realizing that a direct assault on the heavily defended fortress would prove extraordinarily costly even if it succeded at all, Nobunaga decided to change tactics. He began reducing the Ishiyama Honganji's satellites, crushing the Saiga monto of Kii and weakening the warrior monks of the Negoroji. The Honganji itself held firm, drawing support from two powerful clans sympathetic to its cause - the Uesugi of Echigo and the Môri of Western Honshu.

2) The Uesugi.  Uesugi Kenshin and Oda Nobunaga had maintained a wary relationship into 1576. For a time, Kenshin had cooperated with Nobunaga against the Takeda, but lost interest in their alliance after Nagashino. Two factors contributed to the rising tension between the two clans. Firstly, Nobunaga was gradually expanding deeper into the Hokuriku, a region Kenshin considered within the Uesugi sphere of influence. Secondly, ground was broken on Azuchi Castle in the spring of 1576, and Nobunaga made little secret that he planned to make his new capital the grandest castle ever built. Kenshin took this, or at least chose to take this, as a threatening gesture-after all, Azuchi would block any move by Kenshin into the Kinai Region and act as a staging area for attacks into the Hokuriku. Kenshin's response was to step up his own expansion. He had already taken Etchu and in1577 attacked Noto, a province that Nobunaga had already made some political investment in. Nobunaga responded by leading a large army into Kaga and met Kenshin's army at the Tedori River. Kenshin proved himself to be as wily a foe as his old enemy Shingen, and lured Nobunaga into making a frontal assault across the Tedori at night. In a hard-fought struggle, the Oda forces were defeated and Nobunaga was forced to retreat south. Kenshin returned to Echigo and made plans to return the following spring, this time to destroy Nobunaga. Unfortunately, time deserted Kenshin just as it had Shingen, when he was at the height of his power and in a position to thwart Nobunaga's ambitions. In fact, Kenshin's death on 13 April 1578 was so fortuitous for Nobunaga that rumors of assassination began circulating almost immediately. In actuality, it appears more likely that Kenshin died from natural causes - he was supposedly quite ill even as he prepared for the coming campaign season. Regardless of the circumstances of his death, Kenshin's passing triggered a bitter civil war within the Uesugi and made Nobunaga's life that much easier. Over the next four years Oda forces under Shibata Katsuie, Maeda Toshiie, and Sassa Narimasa would pick away at the Uesugi's holdings, until they were at the borders of Echigo.

3) The Môri. In terms of sheer lands under their rule, the Môri were one of Japan's most impressive clans. From humble beginnings under Môri Motonari, the Môri had expanded to control much of the Chugoku region, and now watched Nobunaga's expansion with dismay. Motonari had been an early critic of Nobunaga and when he died in 1571 his successor, Môri Terumoto, carried on the Môri's budding opposition. The Ishiyama Honganji proved a convenient place to oppose Nobunaga. In 1576 Nobunaga diverted the naval forces of Kûki Yoshitaka to the waters off Settsu and proceeded with a naval blockade of the Honganji, assisted by the Atagi of Awaji Island. The Môri responded by mobilizing their first rate navy, which was commanded by the Murakami family: men who, like the Kûki, had cut their teeth in piracy. Sailing east, the Môri brushed aside Atagi Nobuyasu's forces off Awaji and proceeded to defeat Kuki Yoshitaka's ships at the 1st Battle of Kizugawaguchi. The Honganji's supply line was opened and supplies were funneled in via sea transport, making Nobunaga's efforts at blockade on land moot. Realizing that the Honganji would have to be isolated if he ever hoped to capture it, Nobunaga tasked Kûki with devising naval vessels that would offset the Môri's numerical superiority. Yoshitaka dutifully went back to Shima and in 1578 unveiled six massive, heavily armed warships some have fancied were equipped with armored plates. These formed the core of a fleet that sailed back into the Inland Sea and drove off the Môri at the 2nd Battle of Kizugawaguchi. The next year, Môri Terumoto made another abortive attempt to lift the naval blockade but failed. By that point, the Môri were faced with a crisis of their own: Nobunaga's generals were marching west. Akechi Mitsuhide was charged with conquering Tamba and then advancing along the northern coast of the Chugoku.  Toyotomi (Hashiba) Hideyoshi entered Harima and began a number of sieges that would ultimately open the gates to the Môri's hinterland.

1580 opened with the Honganji completely isolated and now rapidly running low on supplies. Finally, faced with Nobunaga's seemingly endless energy and determination as well as starvation, the Honganji looked for a peaceful solution. The court stepped in (persuaded by Nobunaga) and requested that Kennyo Kosa and the commander of the Honganji garrison, Shimotsuma Nakayuki, honorably surrender. In August the Honganji came to terms, and threw open their gates. Somewhat surprisingly, Nobunaga spared all of the surviving defenders - even Kosa and Shimotsuma. After over a decade of bloodshed, Nobunaga had subdued the last of the great ikko bastions and cleared the way for an eventual rise to national hegemony.

One more difficulty remained to be dealt with in Nobunaga's backyard: Iga province. Small, mountainous and strategically unimportant, Iga and its rustic warrior houses had been spared Nobunaga's attentions for over a decade. Then in 1579 Oda Nobuo, Nobunaga's 2nd son, sent in an invasion force under Takigawa Kazumasu to bring the province under Oda control. The operation was a fiasco and prompted Nobuo to lead an army into Iga himself. This campaign (October 1579) was a near-disaster as well, and earned Nobuo no small amount of criticism from his father. Of course, Nobunaga had little choice but to avenge this embarrassment to the Oda name, although other matters delayed him from doing so until 1581. In October of that year, an army of some 44,000 men descended on Iga and brutally quelled the independent-minded samurai there.

When 1582 began, Nobunaga found himself in a suitable position to finish off the Takeda clan once and for all. Massing all of his available forces (anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 men), Nobunaga made for Katsuyori's still considerable territories. Supported by Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Hôjô clan, Nobunaga easily broke into Shinano and Kai, whose people had lost all confidence in their daimyo. Katsuyori himself, all but abandoned by his men, committed suicide in the shadow of the Temmoku-zan. Of all the Oda's samurai enemies, Nobunaga seems to have despised the Takeda most of all, and gloated shamelessly over Katsuyori's head.

On 21 May Nobunaga returned to Azuchi Castle and was greeted by an imperial court that promised him new titles including, if he wanted it, that of shôgun. Nobunaga gave no answer, nor would he ever. Already, Akechi Mitsuhide was plotting against him; within two months Nobunaga would be dead.