Author: Sanae Hojo
Mizumuku Takamatsu Castle
Hideyoshi Hashiba, a famous Japanese general of the Sengoku period, was born from a low background, and both father and son were descendants of the Oda Tsushima Masanaga family. Fortunately, the Oda Nobunaga family grew stronger during Oda Nobunaga's tenure as head of the family, and Hideyoshi Haba was promoted by Oda Nobunaga by virtue of his outstanding ability, becoming one of the superior vassals of the Oda family from a commoner.
As an outstanding military commander, Hideyoshi Hashiba made countless major and minor achievements in his lifetime, and the "Flooded Naka takamatsu Castle" in the Tenshō Decade (1582) was also one of the most famous joint battles in his life. At the same time, this battle was also the last battle that Hideyoshi Hashiba fought under Oda Nobunaga.
<h1>Oda and Maori</h1>
Oda Nobunaga
When it comes to the Battle of Takamatsu Castle, it is necessary to first talk about the diplomatic relations between the two protagonists of this occasion, the Oda family and the Maori family. During Oda Nobunaga's early expansion, the Maori family of nishikate maintained friendly relations with Oda Nobunaga, but as Oda Nobunaga's power expanded and the territorial borders between the two families became closer and closer, the threatened Maori family gradually became hostile to Oda Nobunaga and supported Oda Nobunaga's enemy Ishiyama Honganji during the Ishiyama War (the war between the Oda family and Honganji Temple).
In the fifth year of Tenshō (1577), Hideyoshi Hashiba, the lord of Omi Domain' Nagahama Castle, was promoted by Oda Nobunaga to the rank of commander of the "Chinese Front", with full responsibility for the war on the Chinese side. "China" here does not refer to the Ming Dynasty at that time, but to the Kansai region of Japan, and in ancient Japan's administrative regions were divided into Kiuchi, Near, China, and Far Kingdoms, and the Kansai region, as well as the Koshin region and the Shikoku Island part, which actually belonged to the category of "China". However, with the collapse of the legal system, in the Middle Ages, "China" gradually became a synonym specifically referring to the Kansai region, and our "China" was called "Tang", "Ming" and so on by the Japanese at that time.
The Chinese invasion of the Oda family
After Hashiba Hideyoshi became the commander of the army, he quickly engaged in joint warfare and planning in the Chinese region, and many local Hao clans and daimyōs joined the Oda family. However, as Oda Nobunaga's influence grew, there was a great threat to swallow Japan, and many people who feared the Oda family, were dissatisfied with the Oda family, or wanted to maintain their independent interests gathered against the Oda family, and rebellions occurred in the weak Chinese region of the Oda family. Under such circumstances, Haba Hideyoshi was weak, and at the most critical time, even the base of the Chinese Legion, Banmo Country, was invaded by 30,000 Maori troops.
In the seventh year of Tenshō (1579), Hideyoshi Hashiba transferred the powerful daimyō ukita Naoto under the Maori family to join the Oda family, and the Oda family gained a strong ally in China. However, at this time, Oda Nobunaga was in peace talks with the Maori family, and Hideyoshi Hashiba's strategy was scolded by Oda Nobunaga without Nobunaga's permission, and Oda Nobunaga did not recognize Ukiya as his ally for fear of causing dissatisfaction among the Maori family.
In the eighth year of Tenshō (1580), the Kwantung overlord Hojo clan submitted to Oda Nobunaga, and in the ninth year of Tenshō (1581), Haba Hideyoshi attacked tori castle, an important stronghold of the Mori family in inIwa Kingdom, and The Shibata Katsuya also rose all the way to Hokuri, and the Shimazu family and the Ōtomo family in Kyushu were willing to submit, giving the Oda family an absolute advantage over the anti-Oda forces in various places. At this time, the Ukita Naoya family had been resisting the attack of the Maori family on its own for more than two years, and the kingdom was close to collapse, so Hashiba Hideyoshi sent oda Nobunaga to the Chinese region to help the Uki family, and Oda Nobunaga also agreed to go to Kansai in the autumn of the following year to comprehensively attack the Maori family. It is worth mentioning that in the "Maori Conquest" originally planned by Oda Nobunaga, Ōtomo Muneyuki and Shimazu Yoshihisa of Kyushu were members of the Oda Army and would unite from west to east to attack the Mori family on both sides of the Oda Army.
Ten years of situation
<h1>Mizumuku Takamatsu Castle</h1>
As the saying goes, plans don't always keep up with change. In the first month of the 1582 year of the Tenshō dynasty, the head of the Uki clan, Ukita Naoto, died of illness, and he was unable to wait for reinforcements from the Oda family until his death. Upon learning of this, the Mori clan immediately launched an attack on the Uki clan, defeating the Ukita army in Kojima in February, and the Uki clan could be annexed by the Mori clan at any time, like a candle in the wind.
According to the current situation, the Uki clan was already short of autumn, and Oda Nobunaga hastened to order Hideyoshi Touba to lead an army of more than 20,000 troops to march first on March 15, and arrived at the front line of the war between the Mori family and the Uki clan in April to prepare for China.
Ukita Naoya
Although the army led by Hashiba Hideyoshi could only be regarded as the vanguard of the Autumn Expeditionary Army, and the Maori family made a lot of preparations for the attack of the Oda Army, The Victorious Hideyoshi still captured several castles of the Maori family in succession, and on May 7, surrounded the Fort of Bichu Takamatsu castle defended by the Maori family's vassal Shimizu Muneharu.
Bichu Takamatsu Castle is a flat castle, and its defense is theoretically much weaker than that of Yamashiro Castle. However, Bichu Takamatsu Castle is located in a basin, surrounded by mountains on the east, west and north sides, and the terrain is muddy and swampy, which is not conducive to attack, and the only open land to the south, also built a deep ditch and high fortress, which can be said to be a strong city that does not lose to the mountain castle.
The lord of the city, Shimizu Muneharu, was originally a Hao clan in China, and later subordinated to the Maori family and became one of the foreign members of the Maori family, in the face of the abduction of Hashiba Hideyoshi, Shimizu Muneharu resolutely did not comply, but instead tried to hold the castle and wait for reinforcements from the Maori family.
Hideyoshi Hashiba
Seeing that there was no hope of persuasion, Hideyoshi Decided to capture the city. Although Bichu Takamatsu Castle is easy to defend and difficult to attack, Hashiba Hideyoshi sees the weakness of this castle - the castle is located in the lowlands, in fact, as long as it is surrounded and not fought, Bichu Takamatsu Castle is no different from a coffin castle. Of course, Haba Hideyoshi's so-called "encirclement" also played a little trick, that is, water attack, and the famous "flooded Naka Takamatsu Castle" began.
According to later military records, Habu Hideyoshi spent a lot of gold, silver, grain and rice, hired villagers near Bichin, and built a with a length of nearly three kilometers and a height of about seven meters in the south of Bizhong Takamatsu Castle in twelve days, and the original Bizhong Takamatsu Castle, which was originally surrounded by mountains on three sides, became a mountain on all sides. After closing the coffin board, Hideyoshi Hashiba immediately chiseled the embankment of the nearby Ashomaru River, and the water of the Ashomaru River flooded into the lowlands, and Bichu Takamatsu Castle suddenly became a crumbling island in the artificial lake.
At this time, reinforcements from the Maori family also arrived near Takamatsu Castle in Bichu, and Hashiba Hideyoshi claimed that there were 50,000 Maori troops, and later Ōmura Yuji, who wrote "The Tale of the Only Retirement" under the orders of Hashiba Hideyoshi, said that there were 80,000 people. However, at this time, the Maori family fell out of the rebellion of the Oda Army, and also needed to guard against Ōtomo Muneyuki and Shimazu Yoshihisa in Kyushu, so there may not be many troops who could mobilize to rescue Takamatsu Castle, and Hashiba Hideyoshi was only exaggerating his own achievements (for example, the later "Great Return of China", which obviously went for five or six days, but Hashiba Hideyoshi and Oda Nobutaka said that he had gone for a day and a night).
After besieging Takamatsu Castle in Beichu, Hideyoshi Hashiba confronted the Maori army in Bichu, waiting for Oda Nobunaga's honjin to arrive. However, less than half a month after the flooding of Bichu Takamatsu Castle, Oda Nobunaga committed suicide on the night of June 3 at Honnō-ji Temple in Kyoto when he was attacked by his general Mitsuhide Akira. In the end, Hideyoshi Hadhiba could only negotiate peace with the Maori family on the condition that the Maori family cede the Five Kingdoms (Bichu, Bigo, Misaku, Boqi, and Izumo) and let the shogun Shimizu Muneharu cut his belly, and then Hideyoshi led his army back to Gyeonggi to fight against the rebel Mitsuhide and began his own path of worldly people.
<h1>The mystery of the Battle of Takamatsu Castle</h1>
Although The flooding of Naka-Takamatsu Castle by Hideyoshi Hababa is regarded as a classic battle, there has actually been much controversy about this battle, the most famous of which are two:
1. Did Hideyoshi Habu really build a three-kilometer-long dam and seven meters high?
2. After Hashiba Hideyoshi returned to the division, the Maori army learned that Oda Nobunaga was dead, so why didn't they pursue it?
Let's start with the first question. The specific process and data of the built by Hideyoshi Habashia to flood Takamatsu Castle were not recorded in detail in the historical records at that time, and it can only be known that he did build a natural swimming pool by taking advantage of the terrain. In the Edo period military chronicle Kadokawa Taikaku Chronicle, it is detailed that Hideyoshi Haba built a twenty-six-town, four-room-high embankment from ishiiyama frog nose to Fukusaki, where he was located, in twelve days.
The flooded Takamatsu Castle layout map in the military records
In the third year of the reign of Akira (1791), the Edo-era geographer Furukawa Furumatsu-kun conducted a field investigation near Bichu Takamatsu Castle, and although a hundred years had passed since the Battle of Bichu Takamatsu Castle, the former topography had not changed. After the expedition, Furukawa Furumatsu wrote in the "Map of the Geography of the Water Attack in Takamatsu Castle, Kaye County, China", in a place called "Shuitong (Drainage Port)" that "a new embankment was built here". However, after all, because of the limitations of the times, the military records at that time were eager to write that Hideyoshi Haba pulled out a few hairs and conjured up the embankment overnight for the sake of dramatic effects, so Furukawa Furumatsu's research did not get everyone's attention.
In modern times, modern geographers once again investigated the geography of the vicinity of Takamatsu Castle in Bichu, and calculated that even in modern times, the total amount of sand used to build a dam like the one in kadokawa Taikaku requires more than 60,000 trucks to transport more than 60,000 vehicles day and night, and even so, using modern technology, it is quite difficult to build such a dam in twelve days. At the same time, the cost of building the embankment in the military record is 635,040,000 yuan, 63,504 stones, equivalent to 27.5 billion yen (1,650 million yuan) in contemporary money, which is also a state-level expense in modern times, which is a bit of an exaggeration for Hideyoshi Hashiba, who was a vassal of Oda Nobunaga, who was only the lord of Japan at that time.
According to modern research, although Bizhong Takamatsu Castle is surrounded by mountains on three sides, the south side is actually due to the erosion that is best at, forming a natural, so Bichu Takamatsu Castle was actually originally located in the lowland surrounded by dangerous terrain on all sides, very humid, surrounded by a large number of wetlands and swamps, easy to accumulate water. When hit by torrential rains, the only drainage outlet that Bichu Takamatsu Castle could rely on was the "Suitong" pass marked by Furukawa Furumatsu-kun. In 1985 (Showa 60), the ruins of Takamatsu Castle in Bichu, a flood occurred after a heavy rainstorm hit the Takamatsu area of Okayama Prefecture, Okayama Prefecture, recreating the scene of "flooded Takamatsu Castle" in modern times.
1985 Floods in the Takamatsu area
Therefore, the embankment that Hashiba Hideyoshi actually built is located in this position of "Shui Tong", but this dike is not as spectacular as in the military records, and it is only one-tenth of the size of the general theory, that is, three hundred meters.
Another point of doubt is why the Maori family did not pursue The retreating Hashiba Hideyoshi after learning of the Oda family's Honnō-ji rebellion. Although the art works usually attribute this incident to Takaaki Kohayakawa, saying that he was wise and believed that Hashiba Hideyoshi would take over the world," just as Kuroda's officers and soldiers said to Hideyoshi Hashiba when they learned of the change in Honnoji Temple, "Now is a good opportunity to seize the world", it is all the creation of Zhuge Liang after hindsight.
Takakage Kobayakawa
In fact, the Maori family's situation at that time was difficult to pursue Hideyoshi Haba, and the muddy swamp near Takamatsu Castle was not suitable for the army. In addition, although Habu Hideyoshi withdrew, the Chinese people led by Ukita's army remained in the local garrison, and if the Maori army wanted to pursue Haba Hideyoshi, it must first defeat this coalition army in a short period of time, otherwise if the battle was protracted, they would not even be able to touch Hideyoshi's ass. In addition, the situation of the Maori army in the ten years of Tenshō was actually no different from that of the Takeda family, surrounded by pro-Oda forces on all sides, and the people of the country in the territory also rebelled, and the Maori army was no more than 10,000 troops near Takamatsu Castle in Bichu. Coupled with the departure of the Murakami water army, the Maori family lost control of the Seto Inland Sea, and if the Maori army wanted to move east, it had to secure the seto inland sea, which was a logistical grain route, so they were unable to pursue.
In the end, although the Maori family promised to cede the territory of the Five Kingdoms during the peace talks, it was considered to have preserved the family name at a life-and-death situation, and it would not be as miserable as Takeda Katsurai. At this time, the situation in Gyeonggi was not obvious, and the Maori family hastily turned their faces with the Oda family, in case Oda Nobunaga did not die, would it be their turn to settle accounts after the autumn of the next year? Therefore, after the Battle of Takamatsu Castle in Bichu, it was most advantageous for the Maori family not to pursue Habuki Hideyoshi, to maintain the peace treaty, and to return to the division to quell the turmoil in the territory.
Welcome to pay attention to the headline number "Fingertips to See Japan", which will continue to update the content related to Japanese history, culture, and current affairs.