Age of the Samurai

Age of the Samurai, story by story.

1. IOwari, Japan, June 1560
   

   Chapter I · Owari, Japan, June 1560

   Okehazama

   You play Oda Nobunaga

   Ten men to every one of his, and everyone calls him a fool. What will he do?

   Central Japan, 1560: the country has an emperor and a shogun, and neither of them rules anything. Its warlords fight over the pieces.

   Your first call · Imagawa: ten men to your one

   Ride out nowShut the gates and hold Kiyosu

   Sources

   • Ota Gyuichi, Shincho koki (The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga), Japanese text, Gajikan gasho edition: opening book §7 (his youth: sleeves torn off, half trousers, pouches at his belt, riding every morning, swimming from spring to autumn, matchlock lessons with Hashimoto Ippa, eating chestnuts, persimmons and melons in the street, hanging on people's shoulders, called the great fool), §9 (his father's funeral: swords tied with straw rope, no hakama, a fistful of incense thrown at the altar; a monk from Tsukushi says he is the one who will hold a province), §21 (the monk Tenzaku tells Takeda Shingen that Nobunaga dances only Atsumori, 'a man's fifty years, beside the realm of the gods, are like a dream'), §23 (the forts at Tange, Zenshoji and Nakajima around Narumi; Marune and Washizu facing Odaka), §24 (the 1560 campaign: Yoshimoto at Kutsukake; the attack on the forts planned for the morning tide; the night of small talk and 'when luck runs out, even the mirror of wisdom clouds'; dawn reports, the Atsumori dance, armour, eating standing, six riders to Atsuta, smoke over the forts, about two hundred men; Ieyasu in red armour supplying Odaka; Sassa and Senshu's three hundred, about fifty killed; the elders grabbing the bridle on the causeway to Nakajima; under two thousand men; the speech: they are tired, we are fresh, take no heads; the hail storm in the enemy's faces, the camphor tree, the god of Atsuta; the charge when the sky cleared; the abandoned palanquin; three hundred guards reduced to fifty; Hattori Koheita wounded, Mori Shinsuke takes the head; home to Kiyosu that day with the head carried before his horse; Yoshimoto's Samonji sword worn by Nobunaga), translated for this chapter
   • James Murdoch, A History of Japan, vol. 2 (1903), ch. II pp. 33 to 43 (the Portuguese at Tanegashima and the first arquebuses in Japan, 1542 to 1543) and ch. VI pp. 121 to 123 (Imagawa's march of 1560 with the levies of three provinces; Nobunaga, a small baron of Owari called 'Lord Fool'; Okehazama; Ieyasu, eighteen, one of Imagawa's vassals, soon allied with Nobunaga)
   • Battle of Okehazama (Wikipedia): date 12 June 1560; modern estimates of about 25,000 Imagawa men against 2,000 to 3,000; Matsudaira Motoyasu takes Marune; the traditional flanking-march story as later embellishment
   • James Murdoch, A History of Japan, vol. 2 (1903), full text: pp. 27 to 28 (Imagawa of Mikawa, Totomi and Suruga; Nobunaga 'the son of a small baron in Owari'), pp. 122 to 125 ('Lord Fool'; Okehazama; Ieyasu 'then eighteen', one of Imagawa's sub-feudatories; the alliance almost immediately after)
   • Okubo Tadataka, Mikawa monogatari (1622), Japanese text, NDL edition (Wikisource): Takechiyo comes of age and is named Jiro Saburo Motoyasu, taking the 'Moto' from Yoshimoto; Motoyasu supplies Odaka with provisions in the 1560 campaign; he later changes his name on breaking with Suruga
2. IIMikawa, Japan, June 1575
   

   Chapter II · Mikawa, Japan, June 1575

   Nagashino

   You play Takeda Katsuyori

   How far will a famous father's son go to prove himself, against a fence full of guns?

   Mikawa, Japan, spring 1575. The Takeda clan of the mountains has the most feared army in the land, and a new lord with something to prove.

   Your first call · Nobunaga: maybe on his way

   Storm the wallsSit back and starve them

   Sources

   • Ota Gyuichi, Shincho koki, Japanese text, Gajikan gasho edition, book 8 §4 'The battle of Nagashino in Mikawa' (Nobunaga sets out on 13th of the 5th month; arrives at Shitara on the 18th and hides about 30,000 men in the low ground; fences against horses before Ieyasu's and Takigawa's positions; Katsuyori crosses the Takizawa river with about 15,000 men in thirteen groups, twenty cho away; Nobunaga sees a chance given by heaven; Sakai Tadatsugu's column of about 4,000 with 500 guns goes round by night and storms Tobinosu at the hour of the dragon on the 21st, freeing the castle; about 1,000 guns under five commanders; Takeda attacks in waves led by Yamagata, Shoyoken, the Obata, Takeda Nobutoyo and Baba; fighting from sunrise to the hour of the sheep; Yamagata, Baba, Sanada and others killed, about 10,000 dead), translated for this chapter
   • Okubo Tadataka, Mikawa monogatari (1622), Japanese text, NDL edition pp. 113 to 120 (Shingen's illness and death on campaign; Ieyasu takes Nagashino in 1573 and gives it to Okudaira Kuhachiro; Okudaira's father's defection; Takatenjin lost in 1574 with Nobunaga's relief too late; the Oga Yashiro plot to seize Okazaki discovered, Oga executed; Katsuyori turns on Nagashino; Torii Suneemon slips out, reaches Ieyasu, learns Nobunaga is coming, is caught at Shoyoken's siege line carrying bamboo bundles, is offered his life and land to say Nobunaga is not coming, is put on a cross near the castle, shouts that Nobunaga has come to Okazaki and to hold on three days, and is killed; Sakai's column at Tobinosu; the fence; the Takeda generals shot down in waves; Katsuyori escapes), translated for this chapter
   • Koyo gunkan, Japanese text (Onkodo edition, 1892 to 1893), book 14, p. 51 (Baba, Yamagata and Naito urge withdrawal to Kai or Shinano, then storming the castle, then a long standoff; Nagasaka Chokan answers that no Takeda in twenty-seven generations turned back on seeing an enemy; Katsuyori swears by the Mihata and Tatenashi, the clan's sacred banner and armour, that the battle will be fought; the oath cannot be changed; the generals killed by guns at the triple fence) and book 39, p. 160 (Shingen never showed his back to an enemy in thirty-eight years), translated for this chapter
   • Battle of Nagashino (Japanese Wikipedia, 長篠の戦い): the garrison of 500 with about 200 guns, the burned storehouse, Torii's swim, the Oda 30,000 and Tokugawa 8,000, the Koyo gunkan council and its reliability, the three-rank volley as a later invention; Takeda Katsuyori (Japanese Wikipedia, 武田勝頼): his age, the 1574 campaigns, escape after Nagashino, death at Tenmokuzan with his son on 11th day of the 3rd month, 1582
   • Battle of Nagashino (Wikipedia): Julian date 29 June 1575; about 1,000 guns in the Shincho koki against later claims of 3,000; the three-stage volley as a later invention
   • Robert Loftus, 'Nagashino, 29 June 1575' (course notes after Turnbull, Willamette University): the garrison of 500 under Okudaira Sadamasa, bent on revenge for the Takeda execution of his wife and brother; Torii's capture and death; the council urging withdrawal
   • Koyo gunkan, Japanese text (Onkodo edition), the Nagashino council told by Abe Kaga (three proposals of Baba, Yamagata and Naito; Nagasaka on twenty-seven generations; the oath by the Mihata and Tatenashi), the battle narrative (Baba, 62, killed after urging Katsuyori to call the battle off) and the thirty-eight-years passage
   • Ota Gyuichi, Shincho koki, book 15, Tensho 10 (1582): Katsuyori and his son Nobukatsu die fighting at Tako in the mountains by Tenmokuzan on the 11th of the 3rd month
   • James Murdoch, A History of Japan, vol. 2 (1903), pp. 129 to 131: Shingen's death; Katsuyori's 'precipitate retreat' after Nagashino; the invasion of Kai in 1582 and his death at Tenmoku-san
   • Koyo gunkan, Japanese text (Onkodo edition), Wikisource Template:NDLJP899828: Katsuyori 28 (Japanese count) when Shingen died in 1573 and 30 at Nagashino with 15,000 men; Okudaira Kuhachiro's wife, held as a hostage, crucified by Katsuyori after the Okudaira father and son went over to Ieyasu; Baba served the Takeda from 18 under three lords, never wounded, killed at 62; Baba first named among Shingen's war council
3. IIIKyoto, Japan, June 1582
   

   Chapter III · Kyoto, Japan, June 1582

   Honno-ji

   You play Akechi Mitsuhide

   His lord is asleep in Kyoto with a few dozen pages. Which way does the road turn?

   Japan, summer 1582. Oda Nobunaga has conquered half the country, and the rest is falling fast.

   Your first call · Nobunaga's guard: a few dozen pages

   Turn left, for KyotoMarch west. Strike him later

   Sources

   • Ota Gyuichi, Shincho koki, Japanese text, Gajikan gasho edition, book 13 (1580: Nobunaga's written reprimand of Sakuma Nobumori and his son, who are sent to Mount Koya and then wander barefoot into the Kumano mountains) and book 15 §§25 to 35 (Ieyasu entertained at Azuchi 15th to 17th of the 5th month, Mitsuhide in charge, delicacies from Kyoto and Sakai; Hideyoshi's water siege of Takamatsu and the Mori armies; Nobunaga decides to go west and orders Mitsuhide and others ahead; Mitsuhide to Sakamoto, then Kameyama; the night on Mount Atago and the lots drawn two or three times; the linked-verse party and the verse 'toki wa ima ame ga shita shiru satsuki kana'; Nobunaga to Kyoto with twenty or thirty pages; the night of the 1st of the 6th month: Mitsuhide and four officers decide the plot; the fork at Oinoyama, left down to Kyoto; the Katsura river; Honno-ji surrounded at dawn; Nobunaga thinks it a quarrel, then 'it cannot be helped'; bow, broken string, spear, wounded elbow, women sent away, death inside the burning hall; Nobutada at the Nijo palace), translated for this chapter
   • James Murdoch, A History of Japan, vol. 2 (1903), ch. VI pp. 121 to 123 (Hideyoshi 'this peasant Tokichiro') and pp. 137 to 141 (Nobunaga in the Honnoji with about a hundred men and the capital empty of troops; the Jesuits on Akechi as a former lordless man, able engineer and over-ambitious; his fief; Yamazaki thirteen days after, Akechi killed by a peasant as he fled)
   • Akechi Mitsuhide (Japanese Wikipedia, 明智光秀): the Ieyasu reception; Honjo Soemon's memoir that the rank and file thought they were marching against Ieyasu; Azuchi taken on the 5th of the 6th month and its treasure given out; 500 pieces of silver to the court on the 9th; the Hosokawa cut their topknots and refuse; Yamazaki on the 13th (2 July 1582), the armies' sizes; death at Ogurusu at the hands of fugitive hunters; the Tennozan story as a later invention
   • Honno-ji Incident (Japanese Wikipedia, 本能寺の変): Mitsuhide's memorandum of the 9th of the 6th month to the Hosokawa father and son
   • Wa-raku (intojapanwaraku.com), on Hosokawa Gracia and the Honno-ji incident: modern summary of Mitsuhide's letter to the Hosokawa, angry that they cut their topknots, offering Settsu and Wakasa, saying he acted for Tadaoki's future and would step aside once things were settled
   • Honno-ji Incident (Wikipedia): Julian date 21 June 1582; 13,000 men; Hideyoshi's return in about a week; the line 'the enemy is at Honno-ji' first appears in Hayashi Razan's later history
   • Luis Frois, Annual Letter of 1583, as quoted in James Murdoch, A History of Japan, vol. 2 (1903), pp. 176 to 181: Akechi 'of low birth' but able, lord of Tamba and Tango; four colonels summoned; the march at midnight on Wednesday 20 June; Honno-ji surrounded; Nobutada's stand and death; Azuchi's treasure distributed and a sum sent to the Dairi; Hideyoshi's advance with Nobutaka and 20,000; Takayama first into action; the rout; Akechi leaves Shoryu in disguise and is speared by countrymen; his head offered to Nobunaga's ashes, his body put on a cross outside the city; 'his brief sway of twelve days'
   • Kawasumi Taikoki, Japanese text (Wikisource): the Atago renga of the 28th of the 5th month; on the 1st of the 6th month Mitsuhide draws up his men east of Kameyama and Saito Kuranosuke reckons them at about 13,000; the conspirators summoned; the march over Oinosaka and across the Katsura river
   • Keio University Objecthub, 'Letter by Akechi Mitsuhide': Mitsuhide a descendant of the Toki clan of Mino; the Atago hokku 'Time is now', read as implying his resolve to destroy Nobunaga
   • Kohou Maizuru (Maizuru City), March 2020, 'Hosokawa Fujitaka (Yusai)': Tadaoki married Mitsuhide's daughter Tama; after Honno-ji Fujitaka refused to side with Mitsuhide, shaved his head and took the name Yusai
4. IVCentral Japan, August to October 1600
   

   Chapter IV · Central Japan, August to October 1600

   Sekigahara

   You play Kobayakawa Hideaki

   Fifteen thousand men and promises to both sides. Which promise does he keep?

   Japan, summer 1600. The man who united the country is dead, his heir is a boy of seven, and Japan is splitting into two armies.

   Your first call · Fushimi: under two thousand defenders

   Join the attack on FushimiRefuse, and sit it out

   Sources

   • Kobayakawa Hideaki (Japanese Wikipedia, 小早川秀秋, after Kuroda Motoki 2017 and Mitsunari Junji 2019): born 1582, nephew of Hideyoshi's wife Kodaiin, adopted by Hideyoshi, court rank in 1588 and the castle of Kameyama with 100,000 koku; given to Kobayakawa Takakage after Hideyori's birth (adoption 1594); reduced to Echizen (120,000) in 1598; restored to Chikuzen with 590,000 by the five elders' grant of 1599; in the Fushimi siege for the West from about 21 July (lunar); stays apart in Kyoto and Omi; on 14th of the 9th month throws Ito Morimasa out of the Matsuoyama fort with 8,000 or 15,000 men; attacks Otani Yoshitsugu, is driven back two or three times, then Wakisaka, Kutsuki, Ogawa and Akaza turn and the West collapses; Kuroda Nagamasa and the retainers Inaba Masanari and Hiraoka Yorikatsu behind the defection (Hiraoka related to the Kuroda by marriage); the 'warning shots' and the kampaku offer as doubtful later stories; mocked as a turncoat (Nakatomi Sukenori's diary: 15,000 men); Okayama, 550,000 koku; death on 18th of the 10th month, 1602, aged 21 by Japanese count, from drink-related jaundice; house extinct
   • James Murdoch, A History of Japan, vol. 2 (1903), ch. XIV pp. 404 to 420 (Torii Mototada, 62, holding Fushimi for Ieyasu; Kobayakawa's captain secretly offers to help defend it and Torii, suspecting a ruse, refuses; Fushimi besieged by about 40,000 from 27 August with 1,800 defenders, falls 8 September; Kobayakawa returns to Osaka, then loiters for a month pleading ill health; arrives near Ogaki on 20 October, will not enter the castle, occupies Matsuo hill above Otani; turns on Otani, who repels him twice until Wakisaka and Ogawa turn)
   • Battle of Sekigahara (Japanese Wikipedia, 関ヶ原の戦い): Ishida's council and the West; 14th of the 9th month, Kobayakawa ejects Ito Morimasa from Matsuoyama and the Western army leaves Ogaki that night; the letter of Ishikawa Yasumichi and Hikosaka Motomasa of the 17th: battle from the hour of the snake (about 10 a.m.), Kobayakawa, Wakisaka and the Ogawa turn, the enemy breaks at once
   • Battle of Sekigahara (Wikipedia): Gregorian date 21 October 1600; Hideaki the nephew of Hideyoshi; the conventional and revisionist views of when he defected; Ieyasu's victory and the shogunate of 1603
   • James Murdoch, A History of Japan, vol. 2 (1903), pp. 404, 433 to 434: Torii Mototada, 62, Ieyasu's companion since boyhood, their farewell at Fushimi; at Otsu the captured Ishida calls Kobayakawa 'the meanest coward and traitor on the face of the whole earth', and Kobayakawa 'became a sorrowful man from then'; moved to Bizen (Okayama), became extravagant, died in 1602; Okayama given to Ikeda the next year; p. 414 Kobayakawa on Matsuo-san
   • Tokugawa jikki (Toshogu go-jikki), vol. 4, Japanese text (Wikisource): the West raised in Hideyori's name; at Sekigahara, Kingo Hideaki, long in secret communication with the East, turns
5. VOsaka, Japan, 1614 to 1615
   

   Chapter V · Osaka, Japan, 1614 to 1615

   Osaka Castle

   You play Lady Yodo

   The shogun wants her castle and her son. How much will she give up to keep them?

   Osaka, Japan, 1614. In the greatest castle in the land lives a woman who has already watched two castles fall, and her son, the heir of the man who united Japan.

   Your first call · Ieyasu: looking for an excuse

   Refuse. Katagiri is a traitorHave Katagiri seized

   Sources

   • James Murdoch, A History of Japan, vol. 2 (1903), ch. XVII 'The great Osaka struggle', pp. 507 to 553: the Daibutsu bell (over 14 feet, 63 tons) and the phrase kokka anko splitting Ieyasu's name; the ceremony stopped; Yodogimi's two ladies received cordially at Sunpu with no mention of the bell; Katagiri kept waiting and never seen; Katagiri's proposals (Hideyori to move, Yodogimi to Edo as a hostage, or Hideyori to Edo); the ladies' suspicion; Yodogimi's refusal ('I will die with my son here in Osaka'); Ono Harunaga's plot; Katagiri warned of an ambush leaves Osaka; the cannon shot of 15 January 1615 into the ladies' apartments, killing two maids; Jokoin, Yodogimi's younger sister, and Ieyasu's lady Acha negotiating; the peace terms; Yodogimi's earlier reluctance to let Hideyori go to meet Ieyasu
   • Yodo-dono (Japanese Wikipedia, 淀殿, after Fukuda 2007, Owada 2009, Kuroda 2017): born 1569 at Odani; the fall of Odani in 1573, her father's suicide and her brother's execution by Hideyoshi on Nobunaga's order; the fall of Kitanosho in 1583 and the deaths of her mother and stepfather; Hideyoshi's protection; married to Hideyoshi by 1586; Hideyori born 1593; in 1600 she allowed neither an endorsement in Hideyori's name nor his going out with the Western army, and after Sekigahara Ieyasu sent word that he believed mother and son uninvolved, for which she thanked him; Senhime, daughter of her sister, married to Hideyori in 1603; the 1611 Nijo meeting; the Katagiri crisis; Yodo in armour with armed ladies cheering the guards (Todaiki); the turn to peace after the bombardment; the peace of 20th of the 12th month; death with Hideyori in the storehouse of the Yamazato bailey on 8th of the 5th month, 1615
   • Siege of Osaka (Japanese Wikipedia, 大坂の陣): the bell inscription; Katagiri's three proposals of 18th of the 9th month and his departure on 1st of the 10th; about 100,000 ronin and no daimyo for Osaka; Tokugawa forces of about 200,000; the peace terms (outer baileys destroyed and moats filled, Yodo not a hostage, Hideyori's safety and lands); the story of the trick over the inner moats found only in later books; the demand of spring 1615 to expel the ronin or move to Yamato or Ise, refused on the 5th of the 4th month; the fall of the castle; Kunimatsu, eight, beheaded at Rokujo-gawara on the 23rd of the 5th month
   • Siege of Osaka (Wikipedia) and Yodo-dono (Wikipedia): Gregorian dates (Yodo's death 4 June 1615), the bombardment of Yodo's quarters killing two maids, the role of Ohatsu (Jokoin) and Lady Acha, Kunimatsu's execution
   • Ota Gyuichi, Shincho koki, Japanese text, book 6, Tensho 1 (1573): Hashiba Hideyoshi takes Odani's Kyogoku enclosure by night; Asai Bizen (Nagamasa) made to kill himself; his ten-year-old eldest son sought out and crucified at Sekigahara; Asai's lands given to Hideyoshi
   • James Murdoch, A History of Japan, vol. 2 (1903), pp. 124 note 2 (Yodogimi the daughter of Asai and Nobunaga's sister), 194 to 195 (Frois on the fall of Kita-no-sho: Shibata kills his wife, Nobunaga's sister, and then himself), 513 to 558 (the Osaka struggle: Katagiri's three plans and departure; no great lord answers Hideyori, 90,000 ronin; the shot into Yodogimi's apartments; Jokoin and the terms; the 1615 demand; 4 June 1615, Hideyori kills himself in the fireproof storehouse and Yodogimi dies there; Kunimatsumaro, eight, beheaded in Kyoto)
6. VIEdo and Ako, Japan, 1701 to 1703
   

   Chapter VI · Edo and Ako, Japan, 1701 to 1703

   The 47 Ronin

   You play Oishi Kuranosuke

   His lord was made to die and his enemy lives. What does a samurai owe a dead master?

   Edo, spring 1701. Japan has been at peace for nearly a hundred years, and its samurai spend their days on paperwork and ceremony.

   Your first call · The shogun's troops: thousands, and boats

   Hand over the castle. Plead for DaigakuShut the gates and fight

   Sources

   • Kajikawa Yoriteru, diary for the 14th of the 3rd month, Genroku 14 (1701), Japanese text: Asano attacks Kira from behind in the great corridor, cuts him as he turns and twice more as he flees; Kajikawa seizes Asano
   • Ako incident (Japanese Wikipedia, 赤穂事件, after Yamamoto Hirofumi 2012, Noguchi Takehiko and the primary records it quotes): the attack of 14th of the 3rd month, 1701, during the reception of the imperial envoys; Kira's wounds; Asano's statement that he acted from a private grudge; same-day seppuku in a garden; Kira unpunished and sent the shogun's sympathy; two fast palanquins to Ako in four and a half days; Oishi's redemption of the domain's paper money at sixty per cent, payments to retainers, sale of weapons; the three-day council; the shogun's inspectors with more than 4,500 men and hundreds of boats; Ono Kurobei's opposition and flight; Oishi's plan of mass seppuku at the gate, more than sixty pledges; petitions for Daigaku; the castle handed over on the 18th and 19th of the 4th month; Yamashina; Horibe Yasubei and the Edo radicals; Kira's move to Honjo and retirement; the Yamashina meeting of the 2nd month, 1702, deciding to wait until the third anniversary; Daigaku sent to the Hiroshima house on the 18th of the 7th month; Oishi's words 'better to see it crushed than keep a soiled name'; the Maruyama meeting of the 28th; the return of the pledges, from about 120 to about 50; forty-seven on the night; the raid of the 14th of the 12th month: Kira found in a storeroom and killed, no deaths among the ronin; Sengakuji; the sentence and seppuku on the 4th of the 2nd month, 1703; Kira's heir stripped; Daigaku pardoned in 1709
   • A. B. Mitford, Tales of Old Japan (1871), 'The Forty-seven Ronins' (the popular version of the story, including Oishi's feigned debauchery in Kyoto and the Satsuma man, treated here as later legend)
   • James Murdoch, A History of Japan, vol. 3 (1926, ed. J. H. Longford), ch. VI 'The Forty-Seven Ronin', pp. 218 to 230: Kajikawa's testimony (21 April 1701); Asano's death that evening; the messengers at Ako on 26 April; the plan of seppuku at the gate, Oishi and sixty others; Daigaku's petition; Kira's retirement (January 1702); Daigaku consigned to the Asano of Aki; over 120 confederates, about sixty by August, forty-seven by December; the raid, Kira in the charcoal shed, six ronin wounded; Sengakuji; the sentence and seppuku of 20 March 1703; Kira's heir stripped; the Satsuma-man story as fiction
   • Japan Tourism Agency multilingual commentary database, 'Site of the Matsu no Oroka': the corridor named for the pines painted on its sliding doors; site of Asano's 1701 attack on Kira