Synopsis:
The Rise of the Maori Family: The history of the ancestors of the first wise general of the Warring States
Nishikuni Barrel Pan and Izumo Expedition: The debut of Tomotsu Mori Motoyuki
In the twelfth year of astronomy (1543), after the failure of the Izumo Expedition, the Mori Motoyasu emperor Ouchi Yoshitaka was momentarily devastated, abandoning the military and politics, and also recruited many artists and secretaries from Kyoto, and spent all day studying the culture of the secretary of state such as art and literature. As a samurai, especially the Daimyo of the Sengoku period in Japan, Yoshitaka Ouchi's approach naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of many courtiers, including the "arbitrary" courtier Tao Longfang of the Ouchi family.
Yoshitaka Ouchi
Among the genealogical courtiers of the Ouchi family, the Tao, Sugi, and Naito clans had the highest status, and originally in the Ouchi family, the Sugi family's overseer Sugi Shigeru and the Tao's family governor Tao Longfang were opposed due to political disagreements, but the two belonged to the ranks of the "arbitrary faction" of the Ouchi family. After the Izumo Kingdom Expedition, Ouchi Yoshitaka began to reuse the "Bunji" courtiers from the foreign family, which caused dissatisfaction among Tao Longfang and Sugi Shigeru, causing the two to unite.
At this time, Maori Yuan was unaware of the changes in the Ouchi family, and in the thirteenth year of astronomy (1544), the Takehara Kohakawa family, which was close to the Maori family, was due to the extinction of the family governor, and the courtiers of the Takehara Ko hayakawa family requested to welcome The third son of Maori Moto, Tokushimaru, into the heir, but Maorimoto rejected this proposal on the grounds that Tokujumaru was young. The courtiers of the Kohayakawa family had to ask Yoshitaka Ouchi to be a lobbyist, and at the initiative of Yoshitaka Ouchi, Mōrimoto eventually sent his third son to the Takehara Kohayakawa family, and after Moto's service, Ōuchi Yoshitaka personally gave a word and named it "Kohayakawa Takakei". Later, the head of the Ōhakawa clan, Numata Kohayakawa,the governor of the Ōhakawa clan, became seriously ill and was deposed by his courtiers, and Kohayakawa Takakei unified the Takehara Kohayakawa family with the Numata Kohayakawa family, of course, this is the last word.
In the fifteenth year of astronomy (1545), Maori Yuan ceded the governor of the house to his sister-in-law Maori Takamoto, and he himself retreated to the second line. The following year, the Yoshikawa clan governor Yoshikawa Kokei had an infighting with the Yoshikawa clan, and the Yoshikawa clan and their courtiers welcomed Yoshikawa Motoharu, the second son of Mori Motoyasu, into the Yoshikawa clan.
Motoharu Yoshikawa
Just as the Maori family continued to grow and develop, the contradiction that the Maori family's main family, the Ouchi family, had endured for many years finally broke out. In the nineteenth year of astronomy (1550), the three old families of the Ouchi family, the Tao, Sugi, and Naito clans, formed an alliance and decided to depose Yoshitaka Ouchi as the governor of the house and install Yoshitaka Ouchi, the son of Ōuchi Yoshitaka, as the governor of the house. Tao Longfang also informed Maori Yuan of this matter at this time, indicating that MaoRi Yuan had long known that Tao Longfang was preparing to launch a coup d'état, and MaoRi Yuan, who was dissatisfied with the culture-obsessed Ōuchi Yoshitaka, also acquiesced to this action. After Returning to the territory on November 27, Tao Longfang had been saying that he was not ill, and Ouchi Yoshitaka was somewhat defensive about this, and he also wrote a letter to Maori Yuan, saying that in case of civil unrest in the Great Inner Pavilion, he hoped that MaoRi Yuan would be able to send troops to protect himself. However, Yoshitaka Ouchi did not know that Maoriyuan had already been bought by Tao Longfang.
In August of the twentieth year of the Astronomical Decade (1551), Tao Longfang suddenly raised an army to attack Yamaguchi Ouchikan, and Maori Yuan also responded with an army to attack the castle under Ouchi Yoshitaka. However, Maorimoto originally just wanted to abolish Ouchi Yoshitaka and establish Ouchi Yoshitaka as the main ruler, and did not have the will to kill Ouchi Yoshitaka's father and son, but Tao Longfang had already negotiated with the Otomo family to welcome Otomo's younger brother Ōtomo Haruei to come to the Ouchi family as the governor of the ouchi family, so he killed the father and son of Ouchi Yoshitaka at The Danin Temple. Tao Longfang's practice made Maori Yuan bear the notoriety of killing the lord, and also buried the foreshadowing of Tao's break with Maori.
After the change of Daning Temple, the Ouchi family welcomed Otomo Harumi as the governor of the house, changed his name to Ouchi Yoshinaga, and Tao Longfang also abandoned his old name and changed his name to Tao Qingxian, at this time the actual power of the Ouchi family had fallen into the hands of Tao Qingxian. However, during this period, the Nizi family began to be active again, so Maoriyuan was silent and continued to make friends with the Tao family in order to deal with the Attack of the Nizi family.
In the twenty-third year of astronomy (1554), because the Nizi family no longer posed a threat, Maori Yuan raised an army to break with Tao Qingxian, and the Maori family became independent from the already empty shell of the Ouchi family and began to seek their own way of the Sengoku Daimyō. On June 5, Tao Qingxian sent the fierce general Miyagawa Tosho to lead an army of 3,000 people, and Maoriyuan mistakenly thought that this was the main force of the Ouchi Army, and mobilized the entire army to defeat it. After learning of the defeat of the vanguard, Tao Qingxian began to mobilize 20,000 soldiers and horses from the four kingdoms of Zhoufang, Nagato, Toyomae, and Chikuzen to prepare to invade AnyiGuo to attack the Maori family, but because the land pass was garrisoned by Maori Yuan, Tao Qingxian decided to march by sea. However, what Tao Qingxian did not expect was that MaoriYuan was preparing to meet the Great Inner Army on the sea from the beginning.
Tao Qingxian (Tao LongFang)
In the spring of the first year of The Reign of Hiroshi (1555), Maorimoto sent people to build Miyano Castle on Itsukushima, which was the main road of communication by the sea, and Maoriyuan judged that Tao Qingxian could not sit idly by and ignore the castle. Sure enough, on July 7, Tao Qingxian sent Shirai Kenyin to lead the Ouchi family's water army to attack Miyano Castle. On September 21, Tao Qingxian led the Ouchi Army to land on Itsukushima, and the Ouchi family's courtier, Takashi Hironaka, had been friends with Maori Yuan, and he was well aware of Maori Yuan's ingenuity, believing that Miyano Castle was a ploy for Maori Yuan to lure the enemy, so he resolutely opposed the landing on Itsukushima.
However, Tao Qingxian, who had held the real power of the Ouchi family for many years, had already swelled, and he could not listen to the advice of others at all, believing that miyano Castle, which only had five hundred defenders, could be destroyed, and even if Maori Yuan was no longer clever, what could he do after losing the castle? Therefore, Tao Qingxian did not pay attention to Miyano Castle at all, and the Great Inner Army of Itsukushima and the warships docked on the shore were all deployed towards AnyiGuo, and the Ouchi Army was ready to cross the strait and land in Anyiguo at any time.
On the other hand, after learning of Tao Qingxian's plan, Maori Moto left 800 defenders in Yamashiro, Yoshida County, and then personally led a coalition of the Maori family, the Yoshikawa family, the Kohayakawa family, and the Kumagaya and other ani kingdoms to march towards Itsukushima. At this time, Maori Yuan's army was only four thousand men, which was five times the gap with the Ouchi Army, but this was already in his calculations. By land against the Ouchi Army, the Maori Army had no chance of winning, but if the battle was on Itsukushima, the Maori Yuan could use the water army that was not much different from the ouchi family's strength to decide the victory or defeat, and the strength of his own land army was at best only a partial division of the water army.
Maori yuan on
Of course, Tao Qingxian was not unaware of Maori Yuan's thoughts. In Tao Qingxian's view, the number of Ōuchi's naval warships was far higher than that of the Maori family's naval army, and he also sent emissaries to try to win over the two sailors of Noh Island and Laidao Island. Even if the two sailors did not come to join the battle, as long as they did not join the Maori army but watched from the sidelines, the Ouchi water army still had an absolute advantage on the battlefield. Therefore, both Tao Qingxian and Maori Yuan are betting on whether the noh island and the lai island water army will participate in the war.
On September 27, Miyano Castle was in danger, and the noh island and the raishima water army still did not rush to the battlefield. Maori Yuan could not wait any longer, if Miyano Castle fell, the Ouchi Army would immediately cross the sea and land in Anyiguo, then his plan would be completely disrupted and he would lose everything. Therefore, Maorimoto ordered Kohayakawa Takaaki to be mentally prepared to lead the Hayakawa naval army to rescue Miyano Castle alone, at this time the naval army under Kohayakawa Takakei had only more than a hundred warships, while the Ouchi army had more than five hundred.
On September 28, the noh island and the raishima water army finally led the army to Itsukushima, and the two sailors brought a total of about 300 warships, which made Maori Yuan eat a reassuring pill. It was no one else who prompted the two sailors to join the Maori army, it was Tao Qingxian himself. Originally, the three sailors of Laijima, Noh, and Indo originally had the right to levy a protection fee called "police fee" on Itsukushima to ships traveling in the Seto Inland Sea, but this privilege was abolished when Tao Qingxian was in power, and it was collected by Tao Qingxian's acting officials, and the toll also fell into Tao's personal pocket, causing dissatisfaction among the sailors.
Battle of Itsukushima
On September 30, a storm broke out on Itsukushima on this night, and Maori Motoyasu, Mori Takamoto, and Yoshikawa Motoharu crossed the sea under the cover of torrential rain and led 2,000 people to land on the northeast shore of Itsukushima. Maori Moto ordered Yoshikawa Motoharu to lead the advance towards Owanogaoka behind Tao Haruhi's main line, while Kohayakawa Takaaki led the water army around Itsukushima in a circle to the northwest of Itsukushima, disguised as a water army sent by the Kyushu Ōtomo family to support.
At dawn on October 1, maori yuan gave an order, itsukushima immediately sounded the taiko drum of the Maori army, and Yoshikawa Motoharu and the defenders of Miyano Castle immediately attacked the positions of the Ouchi army. Since the Ouchi Army had no intention of staying on Itsukushima for a long time, the camp was very chaotic, and after being attacked by the Maori Army, the Ouchi Army was unable to organize an effective counterattack, and instantly fell into chaos, and rushed to retreat towards the naval warships docked on the west bank of Itsukushima.
At the same time, Kohayakawa Takaaki also launched a surprise attack on the Ouchi family's water army. When noshima and laijima water troops joined the battle, they gave a big gift to the Maori army, and transferred many water troops subordinate to the Ouchi family, so after the war began, many of the Ouchi family's water troops turned against each other and in turn began to attack friendly forces, so that the Ouchi family's water army was immediately defeated, leaving the Ouchi army on Itsukushima and fleeing. However, the Great Inner Army on Itsukushima saw that the warships were defeated, and their morale plummeted, and they had no intention of fighting again, and became lambs to be slaughtered. In desperation, Tao Qingxian committed suicide, and all the elite troops of the Ouchi family were buried on Itsukushima.
The Battle of Itsukushima, along with the Battle of Barrel Narrow and the Battle of Katsugoe, is known as the "Three Surprise Attacks of the Japanese Sengoku", but it is not so much that the Maori family won the battle on this occasion by surprise attack, but rather by the wonderful strategy of the Maori Yuan. In this occasion battle, from the beginning of Tao Qingxian's army, he walked step by step into the pocket that Maori Yuan had already planned, until the defeat of the Great Inner Army, every detail of this occasion battle was in Maori Yuan's plan, which was really worthy of the name of the first wise general of the Japanese Warring States.
In April of the third year of Koji (1557), Maorimoto led an army to capture Yamaguchi Ouchikan and destroyed the famous Ouchi family. Since then, Maori Yuan has invaded Iwami Kingdom, and the Maori family has grown from a small group of people to a super-daimyō occupying the five kingdoms of Zhoufang, Nagato, Iwami, Anyi, and Bungo.
Text author: Sanae Hojo
Reproduction without permission is prohibited
Thank you for paying attention to the headline number "Fingertips to See Japan", this number will share more about the history and culture of Japan, if you have any suggestions, you are also welcome to leave a comment.
More Articles:
The Sengoku period of the Hosokawa family: The Muromachi shogunate that was dragged down by the Hosokawa family
Akiyoshi coup d'état: Hosokawa Masamoto, the "half-shogun" who wantonly deposed shoguns
Birth of the Tokugawa family: Tokugawa Ieyasu's change of surname and unification of the Mikawa Kingdom
Edo Opening: Tokugawa Ieyasu, born to end Japan's Sengoku period