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Author: Sasha
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Why did the Takeda family cavalry lose the Battle of Nagashi? October 18, 1561: Battle of Hachimangahara: A decisive battle between Takeda Shingen, daimyo of Kai Province and Uesugi Kenshinobu of Echigo Province, in Shinano River Nakajima, resulting in the Takeda clan retaining the territory south of Zenko-ji Temple.
In the Battle of Hachimangahara, the Takeda Army mobilized 20,000 troops in a desperate gamble. The Uesugi Army also had 13,000 men. This battle is still a traditional Japanese Sengoku battle, with close slashing hand-to-hand combat as the key to victory and defeat. Both sides suffered thousands of casualties and fought a draw.
It can be said that in this traditional battle, the strength of the Takeda Army is very strong. None of the daimyo in the Sengoku was sure that they could defeat the Takeda family.
It is strange why such a strong Takeda family suffered a major defeat in the Battle of Nagashi, especially when the Musketeers destroyed the Takeda Cavalry?
Why was it that at about the same time, the Japanese could defeat cavalry legions with muskets, and the daimyo who also used firearms a lot were badly by the Mongol cavalry?
Unlike the Battle of Hachimangahara, the victorious side of the Battle of Nagashi was Oda and Tokugawa.
In the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate revised the history and triumphantly did not spend on its own side.
According to the history of the Tokugawa shogunate, a large number of the Takeda family's cavalry were intercepted by the horse fence, and then encountered three shots from the muskets, resulting in a crushing defeat.
Actually, this is not the case with the real Battle of Nagashi.
Just a few points:
First, the cavalry of the Takeda family mainly maneuvered on horseback and fought on dismounting.
The war horses of the Warring States period in Japan are all very short Japanese horses, mainly Kiso horses. The Kiso horse is a native Japanese horse breed that is tall in Japan and is a type of Mongolian horse.
Even so, Kiso horses are still small. Although this warhorse has good endurance and can march on the mountainous territory of the Takeda family, it lacks speed and strength. Kiso horses are not suitable as charging war horses, only for transporting logistical supplies and mobile transport troops.
At that time, Takeda obtained some taller war horses through trade with Korea and Daming, but the number was very limited.
Therefore, Takeda's cavalry mainly marched at high speed on horseback, and immediately dismounted after encountering the enemy to engage in traditional infantry hand-to-hand combat.
Fighting on horses at all times, including mounted shots and slashing, similar to the Mongol cavalry, was rare in the Takeda Army.
With the speed and strength of the Kiso horse, it cannot increase its impact power enough to disrupt the enemy camp. At the same time, the strength of Kiso's horse was relatively small, so the cavalry had to be lightly armed, unable to wear heavy armor, and it was very dangerous to encounter enemy attacks.
The cavalry rushed into the enemy infantry in dense formations armed with a large number of spears, as if sending them to death.
Therefore, from 1571, during the battle of the trikata hara, the cavalry of the Takeda family also quickly detoured back to the enemy's flank on horseback, choosing the weak defensive side to decisively dismount for hand-to-hand combat.
This explains the rout of the Takeda cavalry in the Battle of Nagashi. When encountering fortifications such as horse fences, Takeda's cavalry could only dismount and fight on foot, trying to fight hand-to-hand at close range. But they were intercepted by enemy horse fences, civil works that dug trenches and piled earth walls, and even naturally wet mud land, fell into the hunting distance of muskets, and became live targets.
Since the cavalry was blocked by the fortifications after dismounting, the speed of movement was very slow, and it was not unusual to be knocked down by muskets one by one.
It is true that there were also cavalry charges in the Battle of Changshi, but they did not exceed the size of a few hundred people, usually only one or two hundred.
The main thing is still the fight of infantry.
In comparison, the Mongol cavalry encountered by the Ming army at that time was completely different.
The Mongol cavalry fought entirely by cavalry, shooting a large number of arrows on horses at long distances, causing long-range casualties and disrupting the infantry camp of the Ming army.
As soon as the Ming army was in chaos under the cover of enemy bows and arrows, the Mongol cavalry immediately concentrated its main forces and chose one or two breakthroughs to make a fierce attack.
This cavalry charge is very powerful, even if the infantry is knocked down by the opposing horse, it is either dead or wounded.
At the same time, the Mongol cavalry always maintained a part of the heavy cavalry, wearing stronger armor for the charging vanguard.
The bows and arrows of the Ming army were difficult to deal with heavy armor, which was why a large number of shotgun-type fire bolts were used to deal with them.
But the range of the fire bolt was only a few tens of meters, making the Ming infantry very passive.
If the Ming army also used arquebuses, due to poor accuracy, it was necessary to use salvo to intercept them.
However, in the face of the high-speed onslaught of the Mongol cavalry, the arquebus could only shoot once or twice if it did not use the three-stage firing method, and it would not have any effect at all.
On the contrary, the Battle of Nagashi became a good target for muskets due to the slow movement speed of Takeda's cavalry dismounting.
Second, the Takeda family did not have many cavalry.
In the past, the Tokugawa shogunate boasted of defeating the Takeda family's army of 30,000, of which at least 10,000 to 20,000 were cavalry, all scattered by muskets.
In fact, Takeda's total strength was only 15,000 men, and the cavalry was only one-tenth of 1,500.
This is not a significant number, the enemy Oda and Tokugawa combined forces numbered nearly 40,000 men, and the proportion of cavalry was even higher than that of the Takeda army, with a size of nearly 5,000. Even in terms of cavalry, the Takeda Army had the upper hand.
Why did the Takeda family have only more than a thousand cavalry?
This is mainly Takeda's territory, not the origin of war horses. The cavalry does not only need one war horse, but also several horses responsible for transportation to provide logistical support. Even if the Takeda family only had 1,500 cavalry, they would need to equip a total of four or five thousand horses.
For the Takeda family, this is unbearable.
And according to the Japanese Sengoku tradition, weapons and equipment and horses need to be borne by the samurai themselves.
In terms of the economic strength of the samurai, only the upper-class high-ranking samurai could raise war horses at home in peacetime, and ordinary samurai and low-level samurai could never afford to raise them.
Speaking of which, if the Takeda family only had 1,500 cavalry, then they would have to face the 3,000 muskets of the Oda Allied Army, and it was normal to be severely damaged.
Third, the horse fence is a field fortification and plays a relatively limited role.
We watch Japanese Sengoku movies, such as "Shadow Samurai", and find that the horse fence is just a fence.
Everyone may think it is strange, even if the cavalry can't break through a fence on horseback, they should be able to climb over it relatively easily after dismounting, how can they be killed here in large numbers?
Because this is not the case with the facts of history.
Although the Oda coalition forces occupied an absolute superiority in strength and combat strength this time, they still skillfully defended first.
Oda Nobunaga believes that although the Takeda Army is very effective in combat and has high morale, it has few troops, and this time it almost poured out.
As long as the strength of the Takeda Army is exhausted through defense first, and its sharp spirit is frustrated, it will be difficult for them to continue to fight, and they will be defeated.
Therefore, the coalition forces not only built horse fences, but also included trenches, earthen walls, slopes and other field fortifications.
Before the Takeda Army attacked, it happened to be a continuous heavy rain in the area, and the battlefield was muddy, and neither cavalry nor infantry could move quickly, which was extremely unfavorable to the attacking side.
Even after breaking through the muddy ground, the Takeda Army faced a complete set of enemy field fortifications, which was very difficult to break through, and would be subject to constant musket fire.
In short, this is not just a fence.
Fourth, the musket played a limited role.
In the Battle of Nagashi, the Oda coalition army still relied on traditional hand-to-hand combat to defeat the Takeda army.
According to Japanese historians, the number of arquebuses of the Oda Allied Army, more than 30,000 people, was equipped with a maximum of 3,000, mainly equipped with Oda Nobunaga's troops. But this number is the highest, and Oda Nobunaga may only have more than 1,000 arquebuses.
Interestingly, the Takeda Army also attached great importance to arquebuses, armed with 1500 guns. The general of the Takeda Army, Gan Li Nobuyasu, was the main general responsible for leading the iron artillery team.
Until the end of the Battle of Nagashi, arquebuses were still used by armies as a substitute for bows and arrows, and were poorly trained for equipment. After all, it takes 2 years to train an archer, and it is difficult to group in large quantities.
Even the Takeda Army, which attached great importance to arquebuses, was equipped with only the following: horseback 3, iron cannon 5, holding 5, long knife 5, long handle 10, bow 2, flag 3. That is, the arquebus is 5 and the bow and arrow is 2.
In this battle, the Oda Coalition mainly used muskets to weaken the enemy trying to cross the fortifications, but its key role was still hand-to-hand combat in close combat.
Most of the Takeda Army died in hand-to-hand combat, especially in the crucial final battle: Takeda Katsunori decided to personally lead his own formation into the battle in an attempt to revive the Takeda Army, which had begun to disintegrate, and the Tokugawa Army jumped out of the fence to meet the Takeda Army. The Tokugawa Army's generals Ishikawa Shumasa, Sakakibara Yasumasa, Honda Tadakatsu , Osuka Yasutaka, Hiraiwa Yoshikichi, Torii Mototada and other generals broke into Takeda Katsuyoshi's main team and engaged in a white-knife battle with striker Nobuya Mochizuki and defender Nobumitsu Takeda.
In the fierce death battle, many of the Tokugawa family's retainers were killed and wounded, and Ieyasu Konomoto broke into the Takeda army on multiple occasions, blinded in his right eye, wounded seven times, and also killed several Takeda soldiers, but the Tokugawa army teams actively fought in the white blade battlefield of the Takeda army's main formation, killing many people in the Takeda army, and the first rank of Mochizuki Nobunaga was taken by the torii mototada team.
The Oda Army also began to fight back after the regrouping. After the Takeda army began to collapse from the main front, Nobunaga saw the opportunity and sent his mother's troops to order a general attack of the whole army, and the Oda army also began to break out of the defense fence. Tadaji Sakai of the Kite Chao-Nagashi Tokugawa Army sent troops to attack the Takeda Army. Seeing that the situation was unfavorable, the Takeda Nobuhiroo, and Ichishinryu teams in the melee on the central front began to take the initiative to leave the front under pressure. Nobukun Asayama and Nobumitsu Takeda drove directly to the rear despite Takeda Katsurai, and the Takeda Army front completely collapsed.
Fifth, three-stage shots do not exist.
Japanese scholars have verified that three-stage shots were not used in this battle.
The so-called three-stage firing means that the musketeers are divided into three columns, one column is reloaded, and the other two columns are loaded, and then they continue to fire alternately to maintain the fire. This is mainly because the arquebus can only fire one shot at a time and the reloading speed is too slow.
In this battle, the Oda coalition did not use three-stage shots, but used ammunition hands.
Some scholars believe that there was no three-stage firing tactic at the time, and it was difficult to muster so many trained musketeers. The so-called three-stage shot is actually a gunner when he is shooting, his ammunition man is reloading another arquebus, and then handing the gun to the shooter. And it is always the shooter who shoots, and the ammunition man is only responsible for loading, which doubles the rate of fire.
Even so, the arquebus could fire up to 2 to 3 rounds per minute, doubling it to 4 to 6 rounds, and the range was only 100 to 200 meters, which was still not enough to face the cavalry head-on.
In fact, the defeat of the Takeda family in this battle is inevitable.
More than 30,000 against 15,000, the Oda United Army has an absolute superiority, and it is also a crack soldier with strong combat effectiveness and excellent equipment.
In this case, the Takeda family, whose strength was less than half of the enemy, took the initiative to attack, but instead the Oda allied forces defended.
Under the field conditions at that time, the Oda United Army, which built a large number of anti-horse rails and equipped a large number of muskets, had an overwhelming superiority in strength.
This victory is completely the result of simple strength crushing.
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