samurais in disintegrated clans

[nokhor]

when a clan was eradicated by their bitter enemies, how far down did the process of eradication reach?

now i understand that the daimyo of a losing clan, his immediate family and usually all his senior retainers would commit seppuku, retire to a monastery, or go into exile but how far down would that process go?

since the victor obviously coudn't depopulate the entire domain, was it just relegated to those who had had a personal relationship with the daimyo? or did it extend to the vassals of the senior retainers too or even further?

now i am sure a lot of that depended on the animosity between the two clans, but there must have been a point where further disenfranchisement of the lower class samurai would have been a negative gain to the victor in terms of lost administrators and warriors.

possible places where examples of this would be found would be in

Takeda vs Imagawa
Oda vs Asai
Toyotomi vs Akechi

[Anssi Hakkinen]

As far as I have studied the subject, total and complete annihilation of even the opposing clan's members was fairly rare, and only done in cases of great animosity (of course, Oda Nobunaga held a grudge with the world http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif). The most loyal retainers usually committed seppuku, assuming they had not been killed in battle earlier: those who remained were usually not considered loyal enough to their former masters to warrant execution or such (after all, if they still held great loyalty to their master, they would have committed junshin [suicide due to loss of lord] with his passing!).

I don't know about the Takeda/Imagawa case, but the reverse scenario occurred in the 1580s: the annihilation of the Takeda by the Tokugawa (who were really the heirs of the Imagawa clan, if not in a literal sense).

At least in that case, those members of the Takeda clan who still wanted to fight the Tokugawa were dead, and that was that. Tokugawa Ieyasu pretty much adopted the Takeda administration for governing the provinces of Kai and Shinano (this is attributed as a partial reason to many of his later successes, as he also "inherited" a large number of Takeda Shingen's Old Guard retainers), and, speaking of adoption, also some of the young survivors of the Takeda clan.

I also seem to remember that some of Asai Nagamasa's former retainers reappeared in Oda/Toyotomi service, but I can't offer any details - maybe Seal-Kô can.

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"Never, youths, however wretched, / Nor in future, upgrown heroes, / Whether you have large possessions, / Or are poor in your possessions, / In the course of your lifetime, / While the golden moon is shining, / May you woo a golden woman, / Or distress yourselves for silver, /For the gleam of gold is freezing, / Only frost is breathed by silver."
-The Kalevala, Poem XXXVIII, verses 241-250

[ShaiHulud]

Hmm, The only time I've heard of an entire clan being wiped out, it was in Scotland. Sorry it wasn't germane, but, I thought it might be of interest.

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

[Zen Blade]

Nokhor,

this is actually a very good question/topic. It did vary from victor to victor and from victory to victory. For example, when Oda destroyed the Asai and Asakura...
Most of the living Asai males (Asai Nagamasa, his father, and his son... maybe others) commited Seppuku, along with at least one top retainer that I know of. However, one retainer, Todo ____ (I forget) joined Toyotomi afterwards and eventually governed (I think) Tottori castle. While another retainer (Ishida Mitsunari's father) retired from service altogether. However, he did commit seppuku when his son was defeated.

Meanwhile, one of the Asakura clan (I forget which brother/relative) betrayed his clan and joined Oda (until he died in battle the following year).

In the case of the Takeda, Oda actually had a large number of the Takeda generals killed whether they defected or were captured alive. Why exactly???? you can speculate, but nothing conclusive.

-another Oda example: The annihilation of Mt. Hiei. EVERYONE DIES AT DAWN.... the entire population.

-I think one basic way of looking at it is each individual's personal honor code.

--now, we await the great FWSeal....

-Zen Blade

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Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil
Last of the RSG

[Matsudaira Motoyasu]

Regarding the Tokugawa and the Takeda, while Nobunaga decided to kill every Takeda retainer he could find after the final Oda/Tokugawa invasion of the Takeda domains, Ieyasu decided to protect those who were willing to join him, especially after Nobunagas' death, when he took Kai and Shinano. As for the government system used by Shingen, most of it was adopted by Ieyasu when in 1585, long time Tokugawa retainer Ishikawa Kazumasa abandoned Ieyasu for Hideyoshi. So Ieyasu had to completly over-haul the Tokugawa military structure as Ishikawa knew all it's secrets.

The difference bettween the way Nobunaga and Ieyasu acted is interesting, as the Takeda had actually done more harm to the Tokugawa than to the Oda.

[FwSeal]

The Oda's treatment of the defeated Takeda in 1582 was, I think, a somewhat unusual event, even for the times. Not only did Nobunaga destroy the bulk of the Takeda family, he also, as Zen mentioned above, ordered the suicide or execution of a number of men who had in fact switched sides during the invasion, including Oyamada Nobushige. Further, he made a point of putting to death a number of former Imagawa men who had joined Takeda in 1569.
Nobunaga's heavy-handed tactics in this case aside, victorious daimyo seem to have been quite willing to take advantage of the abilities of local men. These former retainers of the defeated daimyo understood the ways and nuances of the newly won territory and could be of great use in implementing the new daimyo's policies. This was especially true in lands that had a history of internal division. This might have explained Nobunaga's decision, that Zen also mentioned, to allow Asakura Kageakira to govern Echizen after the fall of the Asakura.
I think the best example of making use of retainers of the defeated is provided by Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1590, Hideyoshi moved him from the Chubu/Tokai to the Kanto region. One of the theories generated by what seems an odd decision on Hideyoshi's part (in fact elevating a potential rival) is that Hideyoshi had hoped the task of organizing and generally 'setting up shop' in such an enormous domain would keep Ieyasu busy for years. Yet Ieyasu met the challange by hiring on dozens of former Hojo retainers and vassals. Not only did this flesh out his retainer band (which had actually been inadequete for the size of the new Tokugawa domain) but the Hojo men, who understood the people of the Kanto, were of great assistance in putting a Tokugawa stamp on the region without undue disruption.
The same applied to Hideyoshi himself in 1573, when he was given a domain in Omi by Nobunaga. Hideyoshi readily made use of the left-over Asai retainers and vassal families. Berry, Hideyoshi's western biographer, does point out that this does not appear to have been a standard practice following most Oda conquests. Nobunaga did advise his men to recruit local men who seemed trustworthy, but to banish or otherwise do away with those who seemed untrustworthy'. One could say that the vicissitudes of the defeated daimyo played a part in this. In the case of the Takeda conquest of the Imagawa, we again see former retainers of the defeated being accepted into the conqueror's retainer band. In particular, the Asahina, long a pillar of the Imagawa house, was quickly admitted into the Takeda vassal body. By 1569 Imagawa Ujizane had gone a long away towards ruining the confidence of his retainer band, already shaken by the defeat at Okehazama. Ujizane had ordered the suicides or execution of a number of men he suspected of treason (Ii Naochika and Iio Tsuratatsu to name two) and had provoked the animosity of the Takeda while allowing the Tokugawa to begin pecking away at his western borders. As in the case of the Ouchi's retainer band in 1551 (and to an extent the Takeda in 1582), the Imagawa men seem to have been ready for a change of leadership. This doubtlessly helped Shingen in deciding what to do with them after Ujizane's expulsion. Further, many daimyo had retainer bands inflated with newer men, families who might not have had a long connection to the daimyo's family. Less was expected of these men (see Hall's 'Japan before Tokugawa' for a couple of good essays regarding this) and their loyalty was certain only as long as the current daimyo fufilled his sole mandate to power - defending the domain. When this was not accomplished, these new retainers often switched sides. As one Japanese historian put it (and I'm paraphrasing), 'simply put, in the eyes of the retainer band, good daimyo won battles, bad daimyo lost them'.

I do think that daimyo were presented with something of a juggling act when deciding on the fate of the defeated retainer band. On one hand, there were advantages to absorbing men experienced in the ways of the new land. On the other hand, the daimyo had to look to the contentment of his existing retainers. One of the primary motivations behind Chosokabe Motochika's drive to conquer Shikoku was the ever-present need to award his veteran retainers in land for their services.


[This message has been edited by FwSeal (edited 01-29-2001).]

[nokhor]

an extreme case:

were any of akechi's men who fought at yamazaki
absorbed into the toyotomi household?

i think i read somewhere that they were all hunted down and killed. considering that akechi had a field army of 13,000, were they all exterminated including the ashigarus?
basically i'm looking for the most extreme case of daimyo to daimyo conflict.

nobunga could only have removed the upper crust of the takeda structure since ieyasu was
so easily able to consolidate his hold on the takeda domain.

did anayama defect to oda or tokugawa? if he defected to the oda, that would seem to refute the oda exterminating all the takeda family/top retainers idea. if he defected to the tokugawa, then he must have been a very loosely held vassal. since he took an independent course of action from tokugawa following the honnoji incident which resulted in his death.

shai-hulud, do you have the specifics of that clan extermination in scotland? was it through clan vso clan warfare or clan vs monarch?

[Saruji]

Quote

shai-hulud, do you have the specifics of that clan extermination in scotland? was it through clan vso clan warfare or clan vs monarch?[/B][/QUOTE]

I assume the incident in question here is the Glencoe Massacre, in which the Campbells slaughtered the MacDonalds. I will not go into detail, since this is off topic, but the Government did collude in the affair. To what extent is a matter of debate. I`d point out that this was not a complete annihilation. The chief and his family were butchered, but some clan members did survive.

Deep feelings are still aroused by the Glencoe Massacre in some parts of Scotland. There is a famous story about a pub which had a sign outside the door reading, `No dogs or Campbells`. A visitor once criticised the landlord for this, making the point that, in the 20th century, a more enlightened view should be taken. The landlord reluctantly agreed, and replaced the old sign with one which read, `No Campbells`.

[FwSeal]

As regards Anayama Nobukimi, he defected to the Tokugawa. This is somewhat surprising in and of itself, though not unheard of. He had actually been a very important member of the Takeda household. He was the son of a daughter of Takeda Nobutora (Shingen's father) and married Shingen's sister (that would be Anayama's cousin).

[This message has been edited by FwSeal (edited 02-06-2001).]

[nokhor]

thanks saruji,

seal, so why did ieyasu allow anayama to go his own way home after the honnoji incident?

was anayama bait to lure akechi's men away from ieyasu? or was he asserting his independence since the death of nobunaga removed the powerful motivating factor that had led him to submit to ieyasu in the first place? if so, anayama's demise at the hands of 'bandits' soon after hattori hanzo teamed up with ieyasu smells like tokugawa getting rid of a potential headache.

[FwSeal]

Actually, the specifics of Anayama's death seem hazy. One account I have seen implied that Anayama had simply been unable to leave with Ieyasu on account, of all things, of hemorrhoids. His chronic condition flared up prior to the flight eastward and prevented him from riding. He thus took a different route, through Yamashiro (and presumably by palanquin). He was accompanied by only a handful of retainers and his luggage. He was then set upon and killed somewhere near Uji. By whom does not seem clear, and there is a theory that former Takeda men had done the deed to repay his treachery, That Anayama had accompanied Ieyasu to the Oda domain at all seems even stranger, and I have not been able to find a good explanation for his motivations in that regard (which is not to say there wasn't one - just that I haven't come across one yet).
But, anyway, I had to double-check the hemorroids part - talk about a strange but (presumably) true...

[This message has been edited by FwSeal (edited 02-07-2001).]

[Choco]

Everything depends.

In some exceptional cases the extreme animosity between enemies would mean that the victor would do its utmost to wipe out the defeated clan.

Typical case is Oda that was pretty much a pathologic case http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

But in my opinion most of warlords tried to absorb or adopt the low level samurais and soldiers in their armies. Of course that would mean a rearrangement of loyalties to their new lord.

Total destruction of a defeated clan's retainers was not rational in military, social of economic terms because that meant the loss of precious resources that the victor could well use in future wars.

After all if the usual policy in clan warfare had been total extermination then there would have been no possible to develop of the Ronin class.

After all many Ronin wariors were precissely that: Former soldiers from defeated clans and lords, who were unable (or didn't want) to get an agreement with the victors and hit looking for a new master.