Battle of Okehazama
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| Battle of Okehazama | |||||||
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| Part of the Sengoku period | |||||||
 The grave of Imagawa Yoshimoto, in Nagoya, near the site of the battle. |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| forces of Imagawa Yoshimoto | forces of Oda Nobunaga | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Imagawa Yoshimoto, Matsudaira Motoyasu | Oda Nobunaga | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| ~25,000 | ~3,000 | ||||||
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The Battle of Okehazama (桶狭間の戦い Okehazama-no-tatakai?) took place in June 1560. In this battle, Oda Nobunaga defeated Imagawa Yoshimoto and established himself as one of the front-running warlords in the Sengoku period.
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[edit] Background
In May or June 1560, Imagawa Yoshimoto, with an army of perhaps 25,000 men, set forth on a march to Kyoto. Entering the Oda territories in Owari Province, he first took the border fortresses of Washizu and Marune before setting up camp in a wooded gorge known as Dengaku-hazama. This was all reported to Oda Nobunaga by his scouts and, in response, Nobunaga then led his own forces into position at a temple called Zenshō-ji, a short distance away, on the other side of the Tōkaidō.
Had Nobunaga decided on a frontal assault, the battle would have been deceptively easy to predict; his army was outnumbered ten to one by the Imagawa forces. A frontal assault would be suicidal and an attempt to hold out at Zenshō-ji would only last a few days. Because of the odds against their side, some of Nobunaga's advisers even suggested a surrender. Nobunaga, however, decided to launch a surprise attack on the Imagawa camp. When he made his decision, he gave this speech:
"Imagawa has 40,000 men marching toward this place? I don't believe that. He 'only' has 25,000 soldiers. Yes, that is still too many. So, Sado, you want me to surrender. What if we do surrender? Will you get content with losing your life that way? Or what if we hold on like Katsuie wants me to? What if we stay here in this castle, lock it up, and wait until the Imagawas lose appetite and stop the siege and go home? We will be able to prolong our lives for 5 or 10 days, and what we cannot defend will still be undefendable. We are at the bottom of the pit, you know. And our fate is interesting. Of course the misery is too great, too. But this is how I see it: this is a chance in a lifetime. I can't afford to miss this. Do you really want to spend your entire lives praying for longevity? We were born in order to die! Whoever is with me, come to the battlefield tomorrow morning. Whoever is not, just stay wherever you are and watch me win it!"
[edit] The battle
Nobunaga left a small force at the temple with a preponderance of banners, to give the illusion of a much larger force, attracting his enemies' attention and distracting them from the force, 3,000 strong, which was moving towards them on a circuitous route through the wooded hills.
The Imagawa army did not expect an attack, and were particularly not alert as a result of the incredible heat; in fact, they were celebrating their recent victories with song, dance, and sake. The chance they would detect the approaching Oda forces was further hindered by the sudden downpour and thunderstorm which arrived as their attackers were making their final movements towards the camp on 12 June.
When the storm passed, Nobunaga's men poured into the camp from the north, and the Imagawa warriors, taken completely unaware, fled in every direction. This left their commander's tent undefended, and the Oda warriors closed in further. Imagawa Yoshimoto, unaware of what had transpired, heard the noise and emerged from his tent shouting at his men to quit their drunken revelry and return to their posts. By the time he realized, moments later, that the samurai before him were not his own, it was far too late. He deflected one samurai's spear thrust, but was beheaded by another.
[edit] Aftermath
With their leader dead, and all but two of the senior officers also killed, the remaining Imagawa officers defected to other forces. In a short while, the Imagawa faction was destroyed. The victory by Nobunaga was hailed as miraculous, and this proved to be his first step to his goal of unification. One of the officers who would betray the Imagawa was Matsudaira Motoyasu (later to be known as Tokugawa Ieyasu) from Mikawa Province, along with Honda Tadakatsu and Hattori Hanzo. Motoyasu formed his own force in Mikawa, and would later become an ally of Oda Nobunaga and the last of the great unifiers.
[edit] List of notable samurai in the battle
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[edit] References
- Turnbull, Stephen (1987). 'Battles of the Samurai'. London: Arms and Armour Press.
