The Battle of Itsukushima, the Battle of Kazetsu (1545), and the Battle of Barrel Pan (1560), which broke out in 1555, were later known as the Battle of Itsukushima.
The three major surprise battles of the Japanese Sengoku
"The biggest feature of the three battles is
The side with absolute weakness achieved a complete victory in a short period of time through various diplomatic, deceptive and strategic means and established the victor's hegemony in the region for a long time
。 And today we're going to focus on that
Battle of Itsukushima
This was a major battle that affected the Western Kingdom, especially the Chinese region.
As early as October 1, 1555, the first year of Kojima (1555), in the spring of half a year before the outbreak of the Battle of Itsukushima, Maorimoto was ready for the Itsukushima surprise attack.
From the spring onwards, Moto built a small castle in Miyao, northeast of Itsukushima, because even though there was already a defensive line of Yoshida-gun Yamashiro Castle, he still could not have absolute certainty in the duel with the Tao army in the Kusatsu area, so he decided to launch a surprise attack on Itsukushima.
Maori Yuan believed that the Tao army would definitely invade Anyi through Itsukushima. In the 9th year of Tenshō (1540), when Niko attacked the mountain castle of Yoshida County, Tao Qingxian and others passed
Itsukushima - Haitian
, to Yoshida County Mountain Castle rescue. This route of travel not only ensures station support and rear liaison routes,
Compared with the route along the coastline, passing through Sakurao Castle and Kusatsu Castle, the consumption of combat power and time was reduced, and it was widely believed that if you passed through Itsukushima during combat, you would be able to get shelter from Itsukushima Shrine (pictured in chinese)
。
Although the situation at that time differed from the inference, Yuan still insisted on the value of Itsukushima's strategy, and he judged that the Tao army must pass through Itsukushima, so he began to build the city.
As for the construction of the city, it is necessary to improve the success rate of the surprise attack, so
The Tao army must be trapped on Itsukushima for more than 10 days
。 Because of the arrival of the Tao army from Yamashiro in Yoshida County, and then ordering the land and sea armies to attack, plus waiting for the troops to move, assemble, and take ships to carry out sea operations, these front-loading operations also took several days.
In order to successfully execute the surprise attack tactic, the second layout was to allow the water army to accurately reach the attack position. The water forces scheduled to participate in the surprise attack were the Iida Motozuku Water Army from the Ota River in Hanoi, The Mihara Ko hayakawa Water Army, as well as the Murakami Takeyoshi, the Nojima Of Raishima Tōnō, and the Laishima Water Army. In order to allow these sailors to assemble safely and quickly, Maorigen attacked Hogi Castle in April, eliminating the Tagaya clan of Kakama Island and Kurahashi Island.
The third surprise attack tactical layout is to prepare the cage castle of Yamashiro in Yoshida County, repair the castle, and reserve weapons, food, drinking water and other materials, the purpose of these actions is to make the enemy think that maori yuan is the main force to take the cage city battle, and the other purpose is to make two plans for the situation that Tao Qingxian finds the surprise attack intention, but also to make two plans for the situation that the surprise attack operation has to be suspended.
Compared with the Maori army's Itsukushima fortification, Baomu Castle raiders and other actions, the Tao army also began to move. On May 13, 100 garrison ships were dispatched to attack Miyao Castle and burn down Arinoura. However, the Maori plan to build the castle was still completed in early June, and the Maori Moto also made Ouchi's old vassal the lord of the city, and then he sent the surrendered Maori to the city. Yoshikawa Motoharu, 500 of Kohayakawa Takakei also joined the ranks of the castle.
The reason why ouchi was put in charge of defending the castle was to arouse the hostility of the Tao army and prompt him to attack Itsukushima.
On 7 July, the Tao army attacked Miyao Castle again, and after being repulsed, the Tao army sent 14 to 15 ships to the Area of Sakurao and Kusatsu, but the Maori side closed its doors at this time, so the Tao army turned to attack Inho Castle.
Nimbo Castle fell in May of the previous year during a maori raid on Itsukushima. The attack was due to the insufficient strength of the Tao army, which was unable to pose a threat to the city and eventually withdrew. But because Tao Jun saw the Maori army's passive battle against Nimbo Castle at Miyao Castle, Tao Qingxian guessed that Maori Yuan's intention was to divert attention to Itsukushima. Therefore, the Tao Army internally proposed to avoid passing through Itsukushima and only advance along the coastline. The other side advocated passing through Itsukushima, believing that the Maori army refused to fight a decisive battle in Nimbo Castle to preserve its strength, and deduced that the Maori army of the water army that had not been used since the beginning of the war should not attack from the Sea of Itsukushima, so they believed that as long as Itsukushima and Niho Castle were taken, then Sakurao Castle, Kusatsu Castle, and other places would not be attacked, so they advocated not changing the strategic plan of marching to Itsukushima.
On the other hand, Māori Moto spread the news that the Māori army was going to adopt the cage castle plan of Yamashiro in Yoshida County, and that itsukushima's castle-building plan had failed due to the harassment of the Tao army. Although he was not sure whether Yuan Yu knew the content of the Tao Army's camp's opinion, he still let the Lord of Sakurao City, Gui Yuancheng, serve as the Internal Ying of the Tao Army, and told Tao Jun that "
If the Tao army marched towards Itsukushima, then Yuan would personally conquer Itsukushima, and then Katsura Motosumi would be able to take advantage of the opportunity to capture the mountain castle of Yoshida County.
In fact, this is a deliberate strategy to make people make up their minds, because the Tao army will use this to get the secret information that Yuan went out to Itsukushima, and Tao Qingxian trusts this person very much, so as long as the internal plan works, the Tao army will believe that the Maori army will directly attack Itsukushima Miyao, rather than take a surprise attack plan.
Just as the Maori army was making various preparations and waiting for the right time, on September 21, Tao Qingxian landed with 20,000 men and horses and began to storm Miyao Castle.
Yuan also launched the Itsukushima campaign according to the plan, and all armies entered a state of readiness. Then, on the 27th, Moto set out with 4,000 troops from Yamashiro castle in Yoshida County and arrived in Kusatsu on the same day. On the 27th and 28th, the water army went to Kusatsu to meet.
The Maori army marched to Itsukushima in a storm during the night of the 30th. Before launching the attack, Yuan first privately investigated the army and navy configuration of the Tao army. According to the Contents of the Samurai Mandai Chronicle,
The Maori army filled the fishing boats with clams, pretended to be fishermen who sold clams, and then ordered people disguised as monks to take a boat to secretly reconnoiter and go to Itsukushima Shrine
Therefore, Yuan launched an attack without the Tao army discovering the surprise attack attempt, and carefully let the water army of Kohayakawa Takakei set out from the front of the castle to the west bank of Itsukushima To attract the main attention of the Tao army, during which the main force was also sent to Gupu, northeast of Itsukushima.
Because of this surprise attack, all the soldiers and civilians of the Tao Army except Tao Qingxian were annihilated. In fact, as long as Tao Qingxian spends more thought, at least to strengthen the reconnaissance and vigilance operations of the army and navy, it is not so easy to let the Maori army know the specific strength, perhaps the Maori yuan will give up the surprise attack, even if the Maori army still forcibly launches an attack in the end, it will not lead to such a fiasco.
Let's briefly analyze the course of this war and look at maori yuan's plan for this man who was called "the wise general of the absolute generation" in the Warring States period. In this contrast between the Maori army of only 4,000 people and the Tao army having as many as 20,000,
If the attack had been done head-on, there was no doubt that the Maori army would have achieved almost no victory
However, Yuan's strategy was to take a series of strategic actions to weaken the enemy as much as possible before the start of the war.
First of all
He set out to dissociate Tao Qingxian from his subordinates
。 Maori Yuan drove Tao Qingxian's heavy minister Jiang LiangRongfang to join him before the war, but later because Jiang Liangrongfang was still careless when he served as the internal adviser of the Maori army, his half-hearted attitude made Yuan decide to remove this uncertainty factor. So he sent emissaries to secretly disclose the intelligence of Jiang Liangrong's house against the water to Tao Qingxian.
Borrowed Tao Qingxian's hand to kill Jiang Liangrongfang
Map of the Battle of Itsukushima, Yizhou
secondly
Yuan will cut off the problem of the plan
He fabricated a conspiracy that could contain the Rear Nizi clan and seize Tsukiyama Tomita Castle, resulting in the father and son of the Nizi Kunihisa, who also belonged to the Nizi clan, being killed by the lord Niko Haruhisa as an anti-thief.
At last
After stabilizing the Rear Nizi clan, he lured the Tao army to Itsukushima, which was not conducive to the large army's operation
。 Initially, Miyao Castle was built at a strategic point on the north shore of Itsukushima Island, and then provoked Tao Qingxian to come and attack the city with the rebels of the Tao army, and then provoked Tao Qingxian to attack the city with the post of defender of TheoFumi and ShinriUchi Shosuke, and then installed spies under Yamaguchi Castle, Tao Qingxian's base camp, and hyped up "Itsukushima's fortification plan fails, and if Miyao Castle is attacked, the Maori army's warships will also be blocked by the Tao army at sea, unable to obtain supplies." In addition, Maori Yuan instructed the heavy minister Gui Yuancheng to pretend to surrender to Tao Qingxian and secretly act as Tao Qingxian's internal response to the mountain castle of Yoshida County, the main city of maori, in order to make Tao Qingxian more convinced, Gui Yuancheng wrote a letter, which read that Tao Qingxian led an army to attack Miyao Castle, MaoRi Yuan would personally cross the sea to break the siege, and Gui Yuancheng would take this opportunity to seize the mountain castle of Yoshida County and wait for Tao Qingxian to return from Strict Island to take over.
In addition, Maorimoto, out of concern about the weak strength of the Kohayakawa water army, turned to Nojima Murakami and Iyo water army, who were opposed to Tao Haruhito, for help.
To put it simply, this step strategy is to practice the ancient precept of "the enemy of the enemy is the friend"
。 After everything was ready, the reckless Tao Qingxian was really deceived, led the main army and all the water army to Itsukushima Miyao, and finally suffered a devastating blow, Tao Qingxian himself died in the battle, so the Maori family took an important step to dominate the Chinese region, in the Battle of Itsukushima, Maori Yuan showed a variety of talents and strategies that were really unexpected, which is also the wise general who believes to be the heir of the "Great River Flow Military Science", leaving his own glorious chapter in the history of the Japanese Warring States.
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