Synopsis:
The Rise of the Maori Family: The history of the ancestors of the first wise general of the Warring States
In the thirteenth year of Yongzheng (1516), when the governor of the Maori family, Mori Kogen, died, the heir Yukimatsu Maru was only two years old, and although his uncle Morimoto served as the governor of the house, Maori Moto was only twenty years old this year.
Maori yuan on
By this time, Takeda Motohiro of the Ani Kingdom had formed an alliance with Niko, and after learning that the Ouchi clan was showing signs of weakness in the Māori clan, the strongest nation in the Anyi Kingdom, he besieged Arita Castle, Yama Prefecture, which had previously been captured by Mori Kogen. The Anyi Takeda family was backed by the Niko family, and with the support of the Sanyoshi clan, a subordinate to the Nichi clan in the neighboring Bigo Kingdom, the military was far more powerful than that of the Maori family.
On October 22, Arita Castle was in danger. The twenty-one-year-old Maori Yuan led the Maori army from the Ape Hanging City as the head of the family governor, which was the first time maori yuan appeared as a general and his first position. Compared with other Warring States warlords, Maori Motoyasu's initial battle was indeed too late, so the Takeda Army also insulted this novice on the battlefield, and Takeda Motoharu sent a general Motonagi Kumagaya to lead hundreds of mounted samurai to defend the Nakai hand on the east bank of the Guanchuan River.
What everyone did not expect was that Maori Moto received reinforcements from the Yoshikawa family at this time, and although the strength of the Troops was not as good as the Takeda Army, it exceeded the partial division of Kumagaya Motonobu, so after suffering a fierce attack, Kumagaya Motonobu was killed because he could not get the timely support of reinforcements.
Takeda Motoharu, who was in Arita Castle, learned that Kumagaya Motonobu was killed in battle, so he left his companions Fanqing and Shinagawa Nobunaga under Arita Castle to continue the siege, while he himself led the Takeda Army to the Maori Army. In contrast, the Maori Yuan, whose strength was less than half of the Takeda Army, did not show weakness, and led the Maori Army to march directly towards the front of the Takeda Army.
Motoshige Takeda
The two armies fought fiercely across the Uchikawa, and Maori Moto personally came to the front of the battle to boost morale, threatening that today was the day that "Motoyasu died in battle", and Takeda Motomoto also shouted "Kill that guy" while riding to the front of the battle. Takeda Motohiro was indeed a fierce general, and under his leadership, the Takeda army became more and more courageous, and Takeda Motohiro rose up to kill, and even personally rode away from the large army to pursue the Maori army.
However, just as Takeda Motohiro was crossing the river, Maori Moto suddenly pointed at Takeda Motohiro and shouted, "That man is Takeda Motohiro, shoot him!" Immediately afterward, seven or eight samurai in the Maori army immediately drew their bows and shot at Takeda Motoharu, who was caught off guard, his chest pierced by a sharp arrow and fell into the river, and the Maori family's retainer, Lieutenant Inoue, immediately rode to the horse and cut off Takeda Motoharu's head. After takeda Motoharu was killed in battle, the morale of the Takeda army collapsed, and the entire army was defeated. The Battle of Arita was later called the "Barrel Narrow Room of the Western Kingdom", not because of the "surprise attack", but because the battle of the occasion and the "Barrel Narrow Battle" changed the situation in the Eastern Kingdom, completely changed the situation in the Western Kingdom, and the advantages and disadvantages of the Maori and Takeda families were completely reversed after the war.
After the Battle of Arita, Maorimoto married the daughter of Yoshikawa Kunisei. Around the second year of Ōnaga (1522), due to the enduring power of the nuns into the Anyi Kingdom, Maorimoto was forced to turn his back on the Ouchi family and submit to the Nizi family due to the critical situation. The following year, the Maori family governor Yukimaru died prematurely, at the age of nine, and at the recommendation of his courtiers, Maori Yuan inherited the Maori family governor and moved to the Mori family's main city, Yoshida Gunzan castle. However, the succession of Maori Yuanyuan caused dissatisfaction among some of the courtiers, who supported Maori Yuanyuan's half-brother Xianghe Yuangang and wanted to launch a coup d'état, only to be discovered by Maori Yuan, and xiangyuan gang and others were killed by Yuan.
In May of the fourth year of Ōnaga (1524), Ōuchi Yoshiyuki, who had returned to his domain, mobilized 25,000 samurai from the Zhou Defense Kingdom, Nagato Kingdom, Toyomae Kingdom, and Chikuzen Kingdom to launch a counterattack against Anyi Kingdom, hoping to regain control of Anyi Kingdom. Ouchi's army marched in two directions towards AnyiGuo, with Ouchi Yoshiyuki personally leading 10,000 men to attack Sabo-gun, while his son Ouchi Yoshitaka led 15,000 men to invade Sato-gun and besiege Takeda Mitsuwa (Takeda Motohiro's son) Cage Castle of Sato Ginzan Castle. On August 5, Maori yuan received instructions from Nizi to lead the armies of AnYiguo and Bihouguo to take advantage of the rainy night to attack Ouchi Yoshitaka under the castle of Ginzan in Sato, killing hundreds of people in an instant, and the army collapsed all the way to the main position of Ouchi Yoshihideo.
The nuns endure
Tao Xingfang, a descendant of Ouchi Yoshitaka, also saw the strength of Maori Yuan in this battle, and after seeing Ouchi Yoshiyuki, he said to Ouchi Yoshiyuki: "Maori Yuan is no small person in this regard, if he is subordinate to the enemy, it is a poison that can kill us, and if he can be omitted, it can become a good medicine for the Ouchi family." ”
As early as the Arita War, Ouchi Yoshiyuki had heard about the martial arts of Mori Motoyasu, and when he was still in Kyoto, he specially sent a letter to Mori Moto, praising his merits in the war with Takeda Motoharu. As a result, Ouchi Yoshiyuki decided to transfer Mori Motonobu, who also returned to Ōuchi Yoshiyuki in March of the fifth year of Ōei (1525).
During the period when Maori Moto became the governor of the house, he began to eliminate the stubborn hostile forces of the Anyi Kingdom, and co-opted some of the people, such as the Shinto clan and the Kumagaya clan, all befriended the Maori family during this period, and under the strategy of the Maori Yuan, the Maori family established the position of the leader of the national alliance in the Anyi kingdom.
In the eighth year of astronomy (1539), the Ouchi clan attacked the Shōgun clan in Kitakyushu and reconciled with the Daimyo Ōtomo clan of Bungo Kingdom, after which the Ouchi clan turned the spearhead and began to focus on the eastern battlefield of Honshu Island. The following year, Takeda Mitsukazu, the governor of the Takeda family, died, and since Takeda Mitsukazu had no concubines and his son was very young, the Takeda family welcomed Takeda Shinshi from the Takeda family's Wakasa Takeda family to be the governor of the house. After Takeda Nobuyoshi succeeded to the throne, the Takeda family debated whether to negotiate peace with the Ouchi family, which eventually developed into an infighting, frightening Takeda Nobushi, who had just arrived in an unfamiliar place, to abandon Sato Ginzan Castle and flee to the Izumo clan to join the Niko family.
At this time, the head of the Nizi family was Nizi Haruhisa, the grandson of Niko, who happened to want to take care of Maori Motoyasu, so he led an army of 30,000 to invade Anyi Kingdom, and by the way, supported Takeda Shinshi to return to takeda's home city of Saeto Ginzan Castle. However, Haruhisa's attack on Yamashiro in Yoshida-gun was soon defeated by the arrival of the Ouchi army, and Takeda Nobumi also lost Sawato Ginzan castle and went into exile again in Izumo Kingdom, and the Anyi Takeda family was officially destroyed. Although it is rumored that Takeda Shinshin died of illness in Izumo Kingdom, recent research has revealed that he may have returned to the Wakasa Kingdom, where his family was located, and later to the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki, and after the fall of the Muromachi shogunate, he went with Ashikaga Yoshiaki to the territory of the Maori family.
Haruhisa Amagiko
In the Astronomical Decade (1541), due to the defeat of Niko Haruhisa at Anyi Kingdom, many of the people of Anyi Kingdom and Bigo Kingdom turned to the Ouchi family, and the old monster of the Nizi family, Niko, also died in this year. In the first month of the following year, ouchi Yoshitaka, the governor of the Ouchi family, personally led the army to the battlefield, trying to take advantage of the instability of the Nizi family to destroy it in one fell swoop, and Maori Yuan, as the lord of the country of Anyi, also led the Maori army to participate in the battle.
The Ouchi army marched all the way, seizing many of the nizi's castles, and in March of the following year, it officially launched an attack on the nizi's main city, Tsukiyama Tomita Castle. However, while defending the castle, Nizi Haruhisa adopted the tactics of guerrilla warfare and ordered the nationalists under the nizi family to attack and disrupt the logistics supply line of the Great Inner Army. Due to the struggle of the "Shingumiya Party" of the Nizi family, the Ouchi army was unable to capture Tsukiyama Tomita Castle in a short period of time, and the supply line was constantly harassed by the Nizi army, resulting in the low morale of the Ouchi army under Tsukiyama Tomita Castle, and many people in the country became war-weary.
After entering April, the kunitakes who had surrendered to the Ouchi family, such as Mikō Yakufu, Misawa Norikiyoshi, Honjo Tokimitsu, and Yoshikawa Kokei, suddenly raised their anti-flags and entered Tsukiyama Tomita Castle to join the Nizi Army, and the Ouchi army fell into a disadvantage and the battle plan was declared a failure. In May, the Ouchi army began to retreat, and Niko Haruhisa immediately launched a pursuit, many of the Ouchi family's vassals were killed in the battle behind the temple, and Ouchi Yoshitaka's adopted heir, Ouchi Haruhi, drowned on the way back from the overturning of his ship.
Izumo Expedition
After Maori Yuan and his concubine Maori Takamoto were ordered to the temple in this battle, the Maori army was not only pursued by the Nizi army, but also attacked by the Izumo Kingdom engaged in the "Fallen Samurai Hunting" (hunting and killing defeated samurai), and Maori Yuan once wanted to commit suicide with his concubine Takamoto. Fortunately, Watanabe, the retainer of the Maori family, put on the armor of Maori Motosho and led seven samurai to fight with the pursuers to the death, and Mori Moto was able to take the opportunity to return to Yamashiro castle in Yoshida County.
The "Izumo Expedition" of the Ouchi family and the "Anyi Expedition" of the Nizi family in the previous two years were almost carved out of a mold, and both families were seriously injured because of the expedition. After this, ouchi's governor, Yoshitaka Ouchi, was so devastated that he was no longer enthusiastic about war and turned to cultural entertainment such as waka, and the Ouchi family also weakened. However, the two fiascos of the Nizi family and the Ouchi family gave the Maori family a great opportunity to profit from the fishing man, and the Maori yuan also took advantage of this opportunity to show their grand plans and began the road of maori family hegemony in the western country.
Text author: Sanae Hojo
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