Battle of Nagashino

In the summer of 1575, at Nagashino in Mikawa Province, the allied armies of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu crushed the forces of Takeda Katsuyori. The Takeda lost many of their best commanders, and Nobunaga's drive to unify Japan came to look unstoppable. Long told as a triumph of massed musket fire over cavalry, it is now viewed more cautiously. Because the decisive fighting took place on the plain of Shitaragahara, about four kilometres west of the castle, it is increasingly called the Battle of Nagashino and Shitaragahara.

The Takeda and Tokugawa had been at war since the days of Katsuyori's father, Takeda Shingen, and the Takeda had repeatedly overrun Tokugawa lands. When Shingen fell ill on campaign in Mikawa in 1573, his army withdrew to Kai Province while the succession passed quietly to Katsuyori. Ieyasu took the chance to win back northern Mikawa, and his generals Honda Tadakatsu and Sakakibara Yasumasa captured Nagashino Castle, which became his base in the region. Ieyasu's alliance with Nobunaga was an unequal one, in which he served as a buffer against the Takeda.

In June 1575 Katsuyori invaded Mikawa with about 15,000 men and surrounded Nagashino, held by only 500 defenders. Ieyasu, able to raise only about 8,000 troops, asked Nobunaga for help. Nobunaga left Gifu with about 30,000 men, joined Ieyasu at Okazaki and on 26 June camped at Shitaragahara, short of the castle. He set his army in a hollow so that the Takeda would underestimate its size, and the allies built earthworks and wooden fences against horses.

A messenger from the castle, Torii Suneemon, was captured on his way back and crucified after shouting to the garrison that help was coming. Katsuyori's senior retainers urged him to withdraw, but, judging the enemy weak and unwilling to fight, he chose to give battle.

Katsuyori faced the allies across the Rengo River with about 12,000 men, leaving 3,000 at the siege. On Nobunaga's orders, the Tokugawa retainer Sakai Tadatsugu led about 4,000 men on a night march and, early on 29 June, took the Takeda fort on Mount Tobigasu behind the castle, linking up with the garrison. With the enemy now in their rear, the Takeda had little choice but to attack. Nobunaga placed matchlock units under five commanders in the front line. Wave after wave of Takeda attacks was stopped by gunfire and the fences. By midday the Takeda were giving way, and the fighting ended around two in the afternoon, with the allies cutting down many more as their ranks broke.

The Shinchō Kōki, a chronicle of Nobunaga's life, records that the Takeda lost 10,000 men. Several of the famous Twenty-Four Generals of Takeda Shingen died, among them Baba Nobuharu, Yamagata Masakage, Naitō Masatoyo and the brothers Sanada Nobutsuna and Sanada Masateru. Katsuyori retreated to Kai, and Ieyasu quickly began retaking castles the Takeda had seized. The clan survived for seven more years before its destruction in 1582.

For much of the 20th century the battle was told as the triumph of Nobunaga's genius: 3,000 musketeers firing in three rotating ranks of 1,000 to mow down the reckless Takeda cavalry. This version, popularised by a 1903 Japanese army staff history drawing on Edo-period war tales, has been largely abandoned. The more reliable Shinchō Kōki does not mention rotating volleys, and its original text speaks of about 1,000 guns at the front, though the allies probably fielded more than 1,500 in all. The Takeda had perhaps 1,000 to 1,500 guns of their own and no units made up entirely of horsemen.

Research since the 2010s stresses instead the allies' numbers, Nobunaga's concealment and positioning, and supply. Through his control of the port of Sakai and the Kyoto region, Nobunaga could buy lead and saltpetre from overseas, while analysis of shot from the battlefield suggests the Takeda were melting down copper coins for want of lead. Katsuyori's decision to attack, common practice at the time, now looks less reckless than tradition held, and most Takeda commanders died in the retreat rather than the assault.

Our 1530 and 1600 maps show Japan in its Warring States era, the Sengoku period, before and after the battle.