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FwSeal
06-29-2001, 13:18
Zen, I thought I'd pass along some information regarding the Battle of Norada, which was an important moment in the life of Asai Nagamasa.
This battle was also the high point of the long Asai-Rokkaku feud, which by this point had been ongoing for decades. The tide of their conflict ebbed and flowed, with the Asai allying with the Miyoshi and Asakura for support. Castles along the Asai-Rokkaku border in Omi changed hands numerous times, as did the allegiance of various minor clans in the area. By the early fall of 1552, the situation had begun to swing in the Rokkaku’s favor, and Asai Hisamasa at length thought it best to enter into negotiations. In the 1st month of 1559, Hisamasa offered to marry his son Katamasa to the daughter of a Rokkaku retainer, Hirai Sadataka. Katamasa was far from happy with the arrangement, and while he went through with the wedding, he divorced his new wife just three months later and returned to Odani Castle. Katamasa went one better by discarding the ‘Kata’ from his name (that having been from Rokkaku Yoshikata) and assumed a new tag, Nagamasa. Nagamasa may have been encouraged in his defiance by certain Asai retainers who believed that no good would come from treating with the Rokkaku, especially with Hisamasa (a decent enough administrator but no soldier) as the lord of the Asai.
Needless to say, the Rokkaku were none-too-pleased with these developments and moved to chastise the Asai for Yoshikata dispatched an army into the Asai domain and this laid siege to Sawayama Castle. In response, the Asai began fishing for support, approaching the Takamiya and Takanose clans. When Yoshikata learned that Takanose Nobuzumi had pledged his support to the Asai, he placed Nobuzumi’s Hida Castle under attack. Finding that the defenders could not be broken by an assault, Yoshikata attempted to flood them out, diverting two nearby rivers for that purpose. This endeavor failed, however, when the embankments his men constructed washed out. Frustrated, Rokkaku moved deeper into Asai territory in the 8th month, and thus came to clash with the Asai army near Norada.
The Rokkaku counted some 20,000-25,000 men in their army (at least according to the Asai San-ki), with Gamo Katahide and Nagahara Nagaoki in the vanguard and the Narazaki, Tanaka, Kido, Wada, and others in the second rank (followed by other Goto, Yamada, and Miura, ect…).
The Asai army numbered some 6,000, jointly led by Asai Hisamasa and Nagamasa. Under their command were contingents under Akao Kiyotsuna, Isono Kazumasa, Dodo Kuranosuke, the Hongo, Yuge, Imamura, and others.
The Dodo, who crossed a river that separated the armies and attacked troops under Gamo Katahide, opened the battle. The fight was ebbing and flowing when the Tanaka and other Rokkaku troops threw themselves against the Dodo’s flanks and caused the latter to retreat in some disorder. Much pleased by the work done thus far, Yoshikata ordered a general advance across the river, forcing the Asai to give ground before the Rokkaku army. Yoshikata soon reached Norada, by which time things looked bleak for the Asai. At this point, however, Nagamasa held a hasty conference with a number of his commanders, including Imai Ujinao, and worked out a stratagem. Despite the Asai’s numerical inferiority, Nagamasa decided to divide the army, sending a few contingents at the Rokkaku’s flanks on diversionary maneuvers. When this had been done to Nagamasa’s satisfaction, he hurled the remainder of his forces into the Rokkaku center. The desperate gamble succeeded – panic gripped the Rokkaku’s soldiers, and Yoshikata was swept along with his fleeing army south. 940 Rokkaku and 700 Asai men are said to have been killed.
Nagamasa emerged from this victory with his reputation much enhanced and his older retainers commenting that he was ‘Sukemasa reborn’ (Sukemasa being Nagamasa’s capable grandfather). Hyperbole aside, Nagamasa's showing at Norada had been very good indeed, especially given that he was only 15 years old. This proved the death of Hisamasa’s political career. Perceived as being too weak to protect the family from the Rokkaku, he was compelled by his retainers to step down in favor of his young son. Hisamasa went into retirement and would commit suicide when Odani fell in 1573.

Toranaga sama
06-29-2001, 13:22
hot damn

Anssi Hakkinen
06-29-2001, 20:35
A very interesting insight into Sengoku Jidai politics (as well as warfare). It appears going against Sun Tzu's instructions can pay off sometimes, too - although I imagine the Rokkaku army was not of the highest quality (rout bug perhaps http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif).

Hosakawa Tito
06-29-2001, 22:33
Wow Seal,Nagamasa was only 15 when he pulled this off?He goes against all accepted military strategy and defeats an army 4 times his own size.Amazing,the Rokkaku lost some face that day.It's a wonder his senior retainers went along with him,talk about let the dice fly.I'm with Anssi,must have been the rout bug http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

FwSeal
06-30-2001, 04:06
According to the Asai San-ki, the river (to be very honest, I'm not sure enough about the exact reading of the river's name just now to make a stab at it) was choked with Rokkaku dead as a result of their defeat. This leads one to assume (and assuming the statement was not simple hyperbole) that panic caused the Rokkaku retreat and the real bloodletting occured when they attempted to recross the river.

Present at Norada was Rokkaku Yoshiharu (aka Yoshisuke), Yoshikata's own 15-year old son. Later, Yoshiharu and Nagamasa would become allies of a kind when the Asai and Rokkaku found common cause against Oda Nobunaga. Resentment lingered between the two houses, however, and they never seemed able (or willing) to work in concert (as the Asai and Asakura did). Yoshiharu was not the leader Nagamasa was, but he was a survivor. In 1574 he lost the last of his holdings in Omi and fled to Kai, where he took up with the Takeda. He remained there for some years, spending at least part of that time in the Erinji. He managaed to avoid capture by the Oda in 1582, but the Erinji was not as lucky. On the charge that the temple had sheltered an enemy of the Oda house, the Erinji was burned along with its monks. There are various reasons given, I should mention, for the burning, of which Yoshiharu's stay there is most commonly cited (some say Nobunaga ordered the deed done out of spite, as the Erinji was Shingen's favored temple, or that the Erinji had sheltered Takeda refugees during the invasion). Some years later Yoshiharu found service with Toyotomi Hideyoshi and eventually managed to secure a position at Osaka Castle, where he taught archery to Toyotomi Hideyori. He passed away in 1612, almost 40 years after the death of Asai Nagamasa. Rokkaku Yoshikata fared just as well. In 1572 he had stepped down in favor of Yoshiharu and was later pardoned by Nobunaga for his earlier resistance. He lived quietly enough, devoting his years to the study of martial arts philosophy. He died in 1598, at the age of 77.

Zen Blade
06-30-2001, 05:07
WOW Seal!

Good story.

Very good mate.

Thanks for the info...

have you read through all of the "Asai San-ki" or whatever the source for this battle was?

btw, Seal, did you ever find out if Nagamasa did indeed have any brothers of note?

thanks again

-Zen Blade

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Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil
Last of the RSG
Clan Tenki Council-Unity

FwSeal
06-30-2001, 06:11
I have seen a certain Asai Masamoto, brother of Nagamasa, mentioned in passing, but have yet to find anything useful about him http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif

I have not been able to find the complete Asai san-ki, but have read a number of excerpts, including a bit about the rule of Hisamasa I think I mentioned a few months ago. That description of Norada came for the most part from Bessatsu Rekishi Tokuhon #85, Sengoku no Kassen and a few related articles on Nagamasa and the Asai san-ki(I am pretty confident about the facts stated, though there are a few names and places I didn't feel confident enough about to mention, sadly http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif.

At any rate, I guess you could say that Nagamasa earned the 80 or so War that Koei gave him in Nobunaga's Ambition II and LOD http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

Koga No Goshi
06-30-2001, 07:55
Question,

I'm curious as to why troop numbers under the various lords seems to vary drastically. For instance, in this battle Asai was only able to muster 6,000. Later, when he would fight Oda at Anegawa, he would muster what, 30,000? The same with Oda, he would have 1,500 in one battle and 15,000 in another. Why would the size of feudal armies, even raised from the same province, vary so much?



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Koga no Goshi

Why did you bring 16 Female Ashigaru? Keep clicking weather, they're only strong one week a month.

Zen Blade
06-30-2001, 08:40
Koga,

First off... realize that most numbers tend to be inflated and not overly reliable.

However, the Asai never mustered more than ~15000 men at any one battle.

often, the bulk of the army was from the Asakura. Although the Asai force was usually the better of the two(not to be bias or anything)

A good example of this would be Anegawa.
(check FWSeal's site if you haven't yet).
You'll see varying numbers of troops present at Anegawa, but I don't think the combined Asakura/Asai force was more than 20000 (at most). And from that, there are various estimates of who the troops fought for... I have seen estimates that give a 50/50 split, but also ones that give a 40/60, 60/40 split between the Asai and Asakura.

For army size in general:
As ashigaru became more common, numbers could vary based upon season, and who a clan might be at war with. For example, when the Oda were at war on all fronts... they would have to send some detachments east to keep the Takeda in check.

-Zen Blade

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Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil
Last of the RSG
Clan Tenki Council-Unity

FwSeal
06-30-2001, 09:42
Well, I think that at Anegawa, the 30,000 included both the Asai and larger Asakura force. The figures there seem to vary from source to source, from 18,000 (8,000 Asai, 10,000 Asakura) to 25,000 (11,000 or so Asai, 14,000 Asakura). If the former estimate is correct, the Asai army was more or less the same size it had been at Norada. But that aside, discrepancies in army sizes do seem to crop up quite a bit and while as far as this is concerned, your guess is as good as mine http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif, I have wondered just how much one can take at face value from the sengoku-related chronicles. While nobody would accept the figures given in such texts as the Heike Monogatari and Taiheki (which recorded armies that would have challanged those of Hideyoshi many years later) as being accurate, most writers seem to take a much less critical eye when it comes to the Sengoku period. When such an eye is cast on the popular conception of certain events, many questions can be raised. A good example is the 4th Battle of Kawanakajima, which I touched on a few months ago. The thrust of the article I abstracted for the forum was that there is some evidence to suggest that that great battle was not so great after all. I'll quote some relevant points from that post...

2. After the battle, Shingen presented 2 of his generals with special citations for bravery, while Kenshin presented 7 citations. Compared to other battles the two fought in, these numbers are extremely low. To quote the article, '... if you were to look only at the number of citations, it would be impossible to think of the 4th Battle of Kawanakajima as a large battle.'

3. Within two months of the conclusion of the battle, Shingen moved into Kozuke and attacked at least two castles. For his part, Kenshin was already back to fighting the Hojo in Musashi just a month or so after 4th Kawanakajima. The author makes the very valid point that if the battle was as bloody and damaging as is normally assumed (with thousands of killed and thousands of wounded), then it seems very odd that within two months both armies were back in action with little to no apparent diminishment of their power.

I guess my point to my blather is that I wonder how many army figures (to say nothing of losses) are even correct to begin with. One somewhat recent work on Oda Nobunaga placed the rather conservative figure of 10,000+ for the Imagawa at that battle, with Oda's strength somewhere between 2,000-3,000. If this estimate is close to the mark, than the odds facing Nobunaga were somewhat better than the 2,000 to 20,000+ plus one usually sees listed for that contest. On the same token, the glory of Nobunaga's victory is correspondingly diminished - perhaps a pertinent point (assuming the more conservative figure is valid, and that was only one opinion).
A much better example concerns the Kawagoe Campaign (1544-45). In that situation, the allied Uesugi families surrounded the Hojo fort of Kawagoe, confident that Hojo Ujiyasu would be too concerned with the Takeda and Imagawa (with whom he was then at odds) to come to the rescue. To make doubly sure, the Uesugi let it out that they had an army of no less than 80,000 men! Sober accounts of the campaign suggest strongly that this inflated figure was designed to overawe Ujiyasu. Yet popular history has seized on the 80,000 man horde, and Turnbull went one better by listing the Uesugi army as numbering a whooping 100,000 men ('Samurai Sourcebook, pg.211). To take Turnbull, then, Ujiyasu managed to rout 100,000 men with 8,000 - quite an achievement! This is all the more interesting in view of the fact that even when the Hojo controlled all of the Kanto, and were in grave danger over 40 years later at the advance of Hideyoshi's horde, only 40,000 men could be raised. This, despite the Hojo domains being some of the most carefully administered in Japan.
Well, again, I suppose my point, however befuddled, is that discrepancies may, in some cases, have more to do with the historian than the circustances of the daimyo involved...

[This message has been edited by FwSeal (edited 06-30-2001).]

FwSeal
06-30-2001, 09:44
heh, Zen basically said, in a much more succinct and less belabored fashion, what I was attempting to get across.
Thanks, Zen http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif