Takenaka Hanbei
1544–1579. His real name is Shigeji, commonly known as Hanbei. Mino people. Impressed by Hideyoshi's sincerity, he became Hideyoshi's military staff officer, and together with Kuroda Officers and Men Guard, was known as Hideyoshi's "Two Guards", participated in many joint battles and won all victories.
The genius warrior Takenaka Hanbei, who was ushered in by the "Three Gu Ceremony", died at the age of thirty-six, but his good name has been passed down to this day. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who is a noble man of the world, once said, "If you are an enemy of the Half Guards, then he will be the most terrible enemy." However, Takenaka Hanbei is not the kind of warrior who is good at martial arts and has ambitions, and can even be said to have no desire to become famous at all, and has no concern for power. Half-guard has not been in good health since childhood, very thin and has been ill many times.
Nobunaga's courtier Kinoshita Fujiyoshiro (Toyotomi Hideyoshi) followed the three kingdoms period Liu Beili to hire Zhuge Liang "Three Gu Maolu" method, and finally recruited Mino's Takenaka Hanbei as a subordinate, as a soldier and staff officer of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the ability of the half-guard is indeed extraordinary, so that there are still many small stories and legends praising the wisdom of Takenaka Hanbei, the most famous of which is the following small story.
Great city raiders
Due to the weak appearance of Takenaka Hanbei, who did not look like a samurai at all, the lord of the city, Saito Ryuko, disliked him very much, and even Ryuko's attendants were very rude to the half-guard, and one day the attendants actually threw their urine at the half-guard. Although the half-guard's expression was terrifying, it was difficult for people to associate with the weak scholar, while forcibly enduring humiliation, the anger of revenge was secretly burning in his heart. After deciding on a plan for revenge, Takenaka First instructed his younger brother, who was holding hostages in Inabayama Castle, to pretend to be ill, and then led sixteen carefully selected courtiers into Inabayama Castle on the pretext of visiting the sick. As soon as they entered Inabayama Castle, the half-guards immediately launched a battle, taking advantage of the enemy's confusion and ambush of thousands of soldiers outside the city to shout loudly, giving the enemy the illusion that a large army was coming, paralyzing the entire defense system of the castle, and the enemy soldiers fell into greater chaos. Since then, the reputation of the famous city of Takenaka Hanbei, which was difficult to conquer by sixteen people, has been widely spread in the world.
Oda Nobunaga, who heard of this, immediately sent emissaries to convey to Takenaka Hanbei, "As long as Inabayama Castle is transferred to our army, I will give you Mino Bankoku." However, Hanbei flatly refused: "I only did this to protect the dignity of the samurai, not to seize the castle for my own ambitions", although it disappointed Nobunaga, but it deepened Nobunaga and Hideyoshi's impression of Hanbei.
Shortly thereafter, Hanbei returned Inabayama Castle to Saito Ryuko, ceded the position of governor to his younger brother, and lived in seclusion at the foot of Omi Mountain, a man without desire. At this time, Hideyoshi, who was watching the movements of the half-guard, began to contact him frequently, and no matter what, he wanted to recruit the half-guard to the Oda family, and finally after the "Three Gu Gifts", Hideyoshi finally got what he wanted. For Hanbei, it was not so much his allegiance to Oda Nobunaga as he was moved by Hideyoshi's sincerity. Since then, as Hideyoshi's staff officer, Hanbei has won countless battles, and even if he is a heavy enemy, Hanbei will try to persuade him, and he is good at using tactics to win without fighting.
Miki Castle "Thousand Kills Method" Takenaka Daimyo is passed down from generation to generation
As a genius military expert, Miki Castle's "dry killing method" made Takenaka Hanbei famous all over the world. In 1578, Hideyoshi was ordered to capture Miki Castle, which was ruled by Harimabetsu, and in order to eliminate the largest daimyo in the Harima area, the Oda Army first destroyed the branches around Miki Castle one by one, blocking all the roads transporting military food, that is, using the "military food tactic" to besiege Miki Castle without fighting.
In the face of the wave of attacks by Oda Nobunaga and Hideyoshi's army, the Maori side had to immediately mobilize reinforcements and use various methods to try to deliver food to the castle, but the Hideyoshi army used a perfect blockade line to keep the Maori army out of the city. A year later, the encirclement net worked, the city finally ran out of food, the soldiers in the city gradually lost their fighting spirit, and some people began to be starved to death. At this time, Hideyoshi gave the order to attack the chief, and soon completely occupied Miki Castle. The soldiers who came out after Kaesong and surrendered were all skinned and bone-covered, as if they were hungry ghosts who had escaped from hell. This is the "Mikigan Killing Method" that makes Hideyoshi proud, and it is the protagonist of this article, Takenaka Hanbei, who presents Hideyoshi's plan.
"Samurai must die in battle", and returned to the battlefield with a serious illness
Unfortunately, during the Miki Castle Raid, Takenaka Hanbei found himself suffering from lung disease, and although he once left the battlefield for treatment, Takenaka Hanbei, who adhered to the belief that "the place where the samurai die is the battlefield", returned to the Hideyoshi Army Honjin of HiraiYama. On June 13, 1579, the half-guards finally left this world in their positions. On his deathbed, he predicted that Hideyoshi would become a king. Hideyoshi gazes at the lifeless shell of The Half-Guard and vows to use the Half-Guard's "food tactics" to conquer Miki Castle...
Serving Nobunaga Hideyoshi, easily riding the "wild horse" of the Sengoku period, and possessing unrivaled knowledge and tactics, Takenaka Hanbei still insisted on his beliefs at the end of his life, which is still recited by the world.
I admire Takenaka Hanbei very much, and what I admire most is his desirelessness and lack of desire. However, perhaps it is because he has been weak since he was a child and often gets sick to develop such a character. At first, it was thought that The Half Guard had really occupied Inabayama Castle with only sixteen people, but in fact this was only the number of people who entered the castle, but this was enough to show his superior wisdom. Kuroda's strategy was not inferior to that of Takenaka Hanbei, but because of his ambitions, Hideyoshi began to snub the wise man after completing his great cause, but he could not forget Takenaka Hanbei and often recalled his past. Perhaps it is precisely because of the desirelessness and lack of desire of the takekaya half-guard that future generations will admire it, which shows that people really cannot have ambitions. Although the half-guard regular soldiers can win the victory without bloodshed, they always feel that such an approach is somewhat "despicable" and not what a true samurai should do, but it does avoid unnecessary sacrifices.