Prologue.
It just so happened that by the end of the XVI century. all of Japan was engulfed in a brutal civil war. Large local clans, led by their princes - daimyo, were engaged in only that they fought with each other, trying to get more land, rice and influence. At the same time, the old clan nobility was supplanted by a new one, who sought strength and influence with a sword in hand. Old clans fell into oblivion, and new ones rose. So the Oda clan was at first subordinate to the Shiba clan, the shugo family (Japanese "protector", "protector") - the post of the military head of the province in the Kamakura and Muromatsky shogunates in Japan in the XII-XVI centuries. In Western historiography, it is often translated as "military governor") from Owari, but managed to seize power from him in the province while the head of the Shiba clan was in Kyoto, and Onin was in the turmoil of war. First, Oda's father Nabunaga became the feudal ruler in Owari. And Nobunaga himself took over from him in 1551, when he was seventeen years old. In 1560, the influential local daimyo Imagawa Yoshimoto with a 25,000-strong army attacked Owari from Mikawa province, counting on Oda's youth. He, with only three thousand soldiers, met him in a gorge near Okehadzam, took him by surprise and … killed him! Having consolidated his power, he put an end to the Ashikaga shogunate and fought for a long time with Takeda Shingen, another similar fighting general who stood in his way. Several times they fought each other in Kawanakajima, on the border of their domain, but neither of them succeeded in delivering a fatal blow to the other. After Shingen's death, his son Katsuyori inherited his father's land and hatred of Oda. He became an influential daimyo and in June 1575 he responded to the deposed shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki to his call to destroy Nobunaga, which he would do, and led his army to the borders of Mikawa Province, where the then young Tokugawa Ieyasu (who was previously called Matsudaira Motoyasu) ruled the lands. Nobunaga. Ieyasu sent a request for help to Nobunaga. He immediately moved his troops and … that's how the historic battle of Nagashino happened.
Heroic feat of Torii Sunyeon at the walls of Nagashino castle. Uki-yo by artist Toyhara Chikanobu.
Meanwhile, Katsuyori first sent his troops to Nagashino Castle, which stubbornly defended one of Ieyasu's close associates. The castle was besieged, but he could not take it, and meanwhile the Oda-Tokugawa army was already close and camped in Sitaragahara, although it did not attack the Takeda Katsuyori army, but began to build field fortifications. Fearing a possible attack from the rear, Takeda Katsuyori, nevertheless, disregarded the advice of his advisers to retreat in front of a numerically superior enemy, and first lifted the siege from Nagashino Castle, and then deployed his army on the plain of the Gatanda River facing the enemy army in Sitaragahara.
The battle that went down in history.
Why is this battle so prominent in Japanese history? How did the allied forces manage to defeat the "invincible" Takeda cavalry? Is the battle credible in Kurosawa's famous film Kagemusha? Was the participation in the battle of the arquebusiers hidden behind the palisade a fundamentally new tactic? Experts in the Edo period often exaggerate the role of the Tokugawa troops in this battle, thereby glorifying his future shogunate, which is why their statements should not be taken for granted. With a scrupulous study of the historical document compiled by the close associates of Nobunaga Ota Guichi, the picture appears to be somewhat different. This is what the Englishman Stephen Turnbull and the Japanese Mitsuo Kure wrote about in their studies.
Let's start with the place of the battle. At Sitaragahara, where the Rengogawa River flowed in a valley between steep hills and where the 15,000-strong Takeda army clashed with the 30,000-strong Oda-Tokugawa army. At that time, the Takeda army was considered stronger, so the Oda-Tokugawa commanders, despite the numerical superiority, decided to take a defensive position. The order was given and executed with Japanese thoroughness: ditches were dug in front of the position and bamboo lattices were installed to protect archers, spearmen with long spears and arquebusiers.
Modern reconstruction of the Battle of Nagashino. Arquebusiers on the battlefield.
Arquebusiers or fortifications?
Previously, it was believed that three thousand arquebusier shooters participated in this battle on the side of the allied forces, but in the course of recent research it was possible to find out that there were less than one and a half thousand. Indeed, in the original documents there is a number 1000, and there is evidence that later someone ferried it to 3000. However, it is clear that in an army of 15,000 such a number of shooters cannot be decisive! In 1561, two thousand arquebusiers served at Otomo Sorin in Kyushu, and at Nobunaga himself, when in 1570 he declared war on the Miyoshi clan, together with reinforcements from Saiga, there were two to three thousand guns. Of course, the arquebusiers were also in the Takeda army, but for some reason they did not provide her with serious fire support in the battle at Sitaragahara.
Oda Nabunaga. Old Japanese woodcut.
A common myth says that the Takeda cavalry galloped into the positions of the allied forces and was literally mowed down by arquebus fire. At the end of the Heian period and during the Kamakura period, horse samurai with bows really made up the majority of the army, but with the advent of firearms, military leaders began to use horsemen in a different way in battle - and precisely in order to protect them from the fire of arquebusiers. By the time the Battle of Sitaragahara (as the Battle of Nagashino is often called in Japan), Japanese samurai were already accustomed to fighting on foot, with the support of ashigaru infantry. The numerous cavalry attacks shown in Kurosawa's film were simply impossible in real life. At the very least, it is safe to say that after the first unsuccessful attack, Takeda's generals would have realized that the land, soggy after the night rain, was unsuitable for a cavalry attack. But then, why was Takeda's army defeated?
Armor of Oda Nabunaga.
Fortifications against infantry
The topographic features of the battlefield at Sitaragahara are as follows: a river, or rather a large stream flowing along a swampy lowland from north to south. Along its banks, to the left and to the right, a strip of narrow and flat floodplain stretched, behind which rather steep hills began. On their own, that is, on the western coast, the troops of Oda and Tokugawa built as many as three lines of various field fortifications: ditches, earthen ramparts poured from the soil taken out during construction, and wooden palisades-lattices. Excavations in this area showed that in a short time the Allies were able to build truly colossal fortifications.
The golden umbrella is the standard of Oda Nabunaga and his nobori flag with three coins of eiraku tsuho (eternal happiness through wealth).
Mon Oda Nabunaga
Mon Ieyasu Tokugawa
The soldiers of the allied army were strictly forbidden to leave their positions and rush towards the enemy. The combined Allied forces, armed with bows, matchlock rifles and long spears, were stationed at these fortifications awaiting Takeda's attack. And it began with an attack by "sappers", who were supposed to pull apart bamboo gratings with iron cats, and to protect themselves from fire, they used tate easel shields. And so they were swept away by volleys of the arquebus, so that they did not even manage to approach the palisade on the slippery swampy soil. But the next line of attackers to the first palisade nevertheless broke through and managed to knock it down. But this did not give them joy, since they faced the second obstacle - a ditch. The attacks of Takeda's warriors went one after another, but the daredevils were destroyed in parts, and the ditches had to be overcome literally over the corpses. Many were killed while trying to knock down the second palisade, after which the exhausted Takeda warriors were finally given the signal to retreat. The myth of Takeda's invincible army vanished over the Sitaragahara ditches, filled with the bodies of the dead.
Battle of Nagashino. Painted screen.
The action of the arquebusiers. Fragment of the screen.
Why did Takeda Katsuyori decide to get involved in this carnage? And the Oda and Tokugawa army forced him to do this, as they threatened his rear. Well, Katsuyori himself was still too young and was too confident in his magnificent army. In addition, the allies managed to kill all Takeda ninja scouts before they could report to him about the depth of the defensive fortifications; moreover, the fog, characteristic of the rainy season, made it impossible to see them from afar. Katsuyori should have abandoned a frontal attack on such strong enemy fortifications. Remembering the time of year, he could lie low for a day or two and wait for a heavy downpour, which would disable all the firearms of the allies. Takeda's old vassals, who had fought with his father Takeda Shingen, tried to dissuade him from starting a battle on such conditions, but Katsuyori did not listen to them. After the council of war, one of the commanders said that he had no choice but to attack, obeying orders.
Death by a bullet from a samurai Baba Minonokami. Uki-yo by artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi.
What was the most important lesson of Nagashino for the Japanese? It is almost a common truth: no army can break through the previously fortified and properly defended positions of the enemy, who, moreover, has a numerical superiority. Neither Oda Nobunaga, nor Toyotomi Hideyoshi, nor Tokugawa Ieyasu or Takeda Katsuyori mentioned a particularly effective use of the arquebus, since concentrated fire was not new to Japanese tacticians.
Reconstruction of the fence at the site of the Battle of Nagashino.
Ingenuity and tradition
Moreover, already in our time, it was hypothesized that even before the first arquebuses came to Japan in 1543, pirates and merchants had already brought here a lot of guns with a matchlock. The arquebus of the mid-16th century was a heavy and rather primitive example of a smooth-bore firearm, albeit lighter than a musket. She had a range of actual fire no more than 100 m, and even then for a sufficiently large target - such as a human figure or a rider on a horse. On a calm day, the arquebusier was forced to cease fire from the thick smoke when fired. Their reloading required a lot of time, about half a minute, which in a close-range battle could be considered a fatal factor, because the same rider could freely ride a long distance during this time. In the rain, the arquebus could not shoot at all. But be that as it may, but in just a few years, Japan has become the largest exporter of guns in Asia. The main centers of arquebus production were Sakai, Nagoro and Omi. Moreover, they also supplied detachments of mercenaries armed with arquebus. But the Japanese could not produce good gunpowder due to the lack of saltpeter, and they had to import it from abroad.
Monument to Takeda Katsuyori in Yamanashi Prefecture.
The advent of the ashigaru on foot and the increase in mass hand-to-hand fighting have changed all the traditional Japanese perceptions of war. The era of the ceremonial beginning of battles ended with cheers, a listing of the merits of their ancestors in the face of the enemy and whistling arrows, and the warriors, in the midst of the battle, stopped moving aside to resolve personal disputes. Since the body of the samurai was protected by strong armor, such weapons as a spear acquired particular importance, and they began to resort to using swords only as a last resort. However, the art of the archer was still valuable. The Arquebusiers were never able to oust the archers from the Japanese army, so their troops fought side by side; in terms of firing range, these two types of weapons were comparable, and the rate of fire of the bow exceeded the rate of fire of the arquebus. Warriors, armed with arquebus, bows and spears, formed united detachments, led by samurai. It would be wrong to believe that Japanese methods of warfare were completely transformed by the emergence of firearms: they were just one of the many factors influencing the process.
Nobunaga was a talented commander, but did not know that the king was made by the retinue. He was rude to his subordinates and once in front of everyone he hit his general Akechi Mitsuhide. He decided to take revenge and betrayed him, forcing him to commit seppuku, although he himself eventually died. Uki-yo by artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi.
It is interesting that the Japanese, who practically did not change anything in the design of the guns themselves, created many original adaptations for them. For example, lacquered rectangular cases worn on the breech of the arquebus and protecting their ignition holes, and wicks from rain. Finally, they came up with unique "cartridges" that significantly accelerated arquebus firing. European musketeers, as you know, stored gunpowder in 12 "charges", which looked like a leather or wooden tube with a lid, inside which was a pre-measured powder charge. The Japanese made these pipes made of wood and … through, with a tapered hole in the bottom. A round bullet was inserted into this hole and plugged it, after which gunpowder was poured on top of it.
When loading, the tube opened (and these tubes, like the Europeans, the Japanese ashigaru hung in a sling over their shoulder), turned over and the gunpowder poured into the barrel. Then the shooter pressed the bullet and pushed it into the barrel after the gunpowder. The European, on the other hand, had to climb into a bag on his belt for a bullet, which lengthened the loading process by several seconds, so that the Japanese fired from their arquebus about one and a half times more often than the Europeans from their muskets!
Torii Sunyemon - Hero of Nagashino
The names of the heroes of the Battle of Nagashino for the most part remained unnamed for history, since a lot of people fought there. Of course, the Japanese know some of those who fought bravely there. However, the most famous among them was not the one who killed the most enemies, but the one who proved himself to be an example of samurai fortitude and loyalty to his duty. This man's name was Torii Sun'emon, and his name was even immortalized in the name of one of the stations of the Japanese railway.
It so happened that when Nagashino Castle was besieged, it was Torii Sun'emon, a 34-year-old samurai from Mikawa Province, who volunteered to deliver a message about his plight to the Allied army. At midnight on June 23, he quietly got out of the castle, went down a steep cliff in the dark to the Toyokawa River, and, undressing, swam downstream. Halfway there, he found that the prudent Takeda samurai had stretched a net across the river. Sun'emon cut a hole in the net and thus managed to bypass it. On the morning of June 24, he climbed Mount Gambo, where he lit a signal fire, thus informing the besieged in Nagashino of the success of his enterprise, after which he went with maximum speed to Okazaki Castle, which was 40 kilometers from Nagashino.
The samurai shows his master the head of the enemy. Engraving by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.
Meanwhile, both Oda Nabunaga and Ieyasu Tokugawa were just waiting to speak as soon as possible, and then Torii Sun'emon came to them and said that there were only three days of food left in the castle, and then his master Okudaira Sadamasa would commit suicide in order to save the lives of their soldiers. In response, Nobunaga and Ieyasu told him they would perform the next day and sent him back.
This time, Torii lit three bonfires on Mount Gumbo, informing his comrades that help was near, but then tried to return to the castle the same way he had come. But the Takeda samurai also saw his signal lights, and found a hole in the net, across the river, and now they tied bells on it. When Sun'emon began to cut her, there was a ringing, he was seized and brought to Takeda Katsuyori. Katsuyori promised him to save his life, if only Sun'emon went to the gate of the castle and said that help would not come, and he agreed to do it. But then what happened is described in different sources in different ways. In some, Torii Sunyemon was placed on the bank of the river opposite the castle, from where he shouted that the army was already on the way, called on the defenders to hold out to the last, and was immediately impaled by spears. Other sources report that he was tied to a cross before that, and after his words, they left him on this cross in front of the castle. In any case, such a courageous act led to the admiration of both friends and enemies, so one of the Takeda samurai even decided to depict him crucified on a cross upside down on his banner.
This is the flag with the image of the crucified Torii Sunyeon.
