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History Nuggets: Honor, Intrigue and Conspiracies in the Age of Samurai [1]
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Date: 2023-05-09
June 1562—Lord Nobunaga was in a foul mood. Two prior attempts by his top generals to construct a forward fortification at the key strategic location of Sunomata had failed. Sunomata was a key location between Lord Nobunaga’s Owari province and the rich farmlands that lay in the Province of Mino to the North.
Lord Nobunaga offered great rewards to any man who could build a fort at Sunomata within the next month.
Placing a fort at Sunomata would give Lord Nobunaga’s Oda Clan forces a foothold north of the Kiso River that lay between the two provinces, but assembling materials for fort construction across the river could not be hidden. Thus the Saito Clan forces defending Mino Province would launch an attack to prevent the fort from being completed during the difficult river crossing. After the past two failures, nobody wanted to volunteer for a third attempt.
At that moment, a hand popped up. “I can do it in seven days.”
Murmurs of puzzlement and hostility arose. The man who volunteered himself for the role was named Kinoshita Tokichiro Hideyoshi. Extremely ugly, he was frequently compared to having the face of a monkey and had six fingers on his right hand. The son of a peasant, he was not even born a Samurai.
Hideyoshi had entered into the services of Lord Nobunaga a couple of years ago by flattery and guile as a personal servant and attendant. Hideyoshi gained Lord Nobunaga’s attention when Lord Nobunaga put on his sandals during the cold winter and realized they were comfortable and warm—Hideyoshi had thought to carry the sandals around by his chest in his kimono. This forethought earned Hideyoshi a role managing the kitchens of Lord Nobunaga’s castle, where Hideyoshi demonstrated a talent for numbers and finding unexpected savings.
However, Hideyoshi was no feudal lord—he had no lands or forces of his own, so it was baffling that he would suggest he could build the fort where Lord Nobunaga’s generals had failed.
Lord Nobunaga eyed him then said, “Seven days, or your head” and the meeting was adjourned.
Hideyoshi did not have money or lands to raise forces, but he did have connections to several local bands of soldiers—it was common for masterless bands of soldiers to fight as mercenaries or act as bandits, and Hideyoshi knew they would jump at the chance to be made Samurai—soldiers with a master and a salary.
So with promises that with success, they would be made into respectable samurai, Hideyoshi recruited a small band of soldiers familiar with the Kiso River area.
And Hideyoshi had a plan. Hideyoshi believed that the problem with prior attempts was that the Oda forces had accumulated construction materials directly across the river from Sunomata, making the crossing obvious. Instead, Hideyoshi had his men prepare lumber for constructing the fort several miles further upstream, hidden from view. The lumber was lashed into makeshift rafts.
Then, Hideyoshi’s men set off in the dark of night, allowing the river to carry them downstream to Sunomata. By the following morning, when the Saito Clan forces realized what had happened, a nearly complete fort had sprung into view.
It would also be Hideyoshi’s first step in his rise from peasant farmer to the ruler of Japan after Nobunaga’s death. Hideyoshi’s rapidly constructed fort was called the “Ichiya-Jo” or “Single Night Castle.” The fort’s location now has a full-on medieval castle replica (instead of a mere fort) built upon its ruins, and Hideyoshi’s accomplishment is still celebrated today.
the sign reads “Sunomata Single Night Castle”
It’s an extremely memorable tale that also dovetails into explaining how Lord Nobunaga’s forces came to conquer Mino Province between 1560 to 1567.
There’s only one problem with it: it has been debunked as a fabrication. The story originates with a popular history called Ehon Taikouki written in 1797, more than two hundred years after the events. The anecdote became so popular, it made it into school textbooks and popular culture, much in the way Washington and the apple tree was widely taught as if it was factual.
Historians have found evidence a fort existed at Sunomata well before 1562 and was well-defended by Saito forces. No contemporary account of Hideyoshi capturing or building a fort there is reported.
The story of Hideyoshi’s great deed does contain a grain of truth, however. After winning the great victory at the Battle of Okehazama in 1560, Nobunaga turned his attention to Mino. Hideyoshi emerges onto this historical stage for the first time in this campaign, and this son of a peasant is richly rewarded for his exploits. It is indeed at Mino that Hideyoshi begins his ascent.
But Hideyoshi’s real accomplishment was not a military victory—it was in persuasion, in intrigue. Hideyoshi was richly rewarded for convincing multiple Saito generals to switch sides in the conflict.
There’s a certain image of Samurai that is presented in popular culture, where Samurai value their honor above their lives. This has a certain truth to it, as applied to the Samurai that emerged from 250 years of peace in the late 19th century.
But Samurai of the 16th century were far more cut throat and transactional in how their viewed their relationships with their lords.
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Note: this diary is part of the Nobunaga Series that is a subseries within History Nuggets. The series is proceeding chronologically through Oda Nobunaga’s life, but each part stands on its own as a diary.
This diary is Part 2. For the prior diary, please click here. For the first in the series, please click here.
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“Gozume” and Samurai Honor
To understand how Samurai of the 16th century viewed the Lord-Samurai relationship, there’s a pretty easy way to grasp the idea: think of being a Samurai as analogous to having a job.
There are certain obligations the employee owes his employer, and the employer owes the employee So long as these obligations are being met, the employee should be expected not to actively undermine the employer from the inside. But the employee doesn’t have a lifetime obligation to the employer, nor is the employee somehow expected to “go down with the ship.”
To illustrate this relationship in more concrete terms, there was an obligation by a lord called “後詰め / Gozume” which roughly translates to “duty to reinforce” or “duty to aid.”
In feudal Japan, a Lord (Daimyo) would control wide swaths of territory, and then he would have many men serving under him. Some would control their castles and territory, some would effectively live on a salary, and others would be paid so little that they would need to work as farmers or craftsmen on the side to make a living.
Those who had their personal forts or castles would be expected to defend them should they come under attack. But this obligation was not open-ended. The vassal was not simply obligated to defend the fort to the death.
A Lord whose vassal comes under attack owes his vassal “gozume”—the obligation to reinforce and relieve. If the Lord fails to come to the aid of the vassal, the lord broke his end of the “gozume” bargain, meaning the vassal is free to break the employment relationship.
In other words, if the Lord fails to aid his vassal, the vassal can honorably accept terms of surrender, or even flip to join the other side. None of this was seen as dishonorable—a Lord that fails in his duties cannot expect the loyalty of his samurai vassals.
Furthermore, if the Lord is seen as unwilling or unable to come to assistance, it would be considered reasonable for nearby vassals to come to the same conclusion. If an army invaded a territory, and the Lord of the area failed to come to their aid, large-scale mass defections of vassals who lost confidence in their lord were not an uncommon result.
It was also seen as entirely normal during peacetime for Samurai who viewed their lords as incompetent or simply received a better offer to leave for a more lucrative position.
The idea of a rigid Samurai code of honor that forever bound a Samurai to his lord was mostly an 18th~19th century invention during the lost peaceful isolation period. It was much easier for Samurai to accept the idea of fighting to the death and loyalty over all else when there hadn’t been any actual fighting to do in generations.
Mino Province and the “Viper of Mino”
Nobunaga’s friends and foes, 1561
In 1560 at the Battle of Okehazama, Nobunaga won a great military victory over his foes to the east, the Imagawa clan. The sudden death of their Lord resulted in political chaos for the Imagawa territories, and the province of Mikawa broke off and declared independence under Lord Matsudaira Motoyasu.
Nobunaga promptly allied with his former enemy securing his eastern border. His relationship with the Saito Clan of Mino to his north was far more complicated.
The Saito Clan came to power through Gekokujo (the lower supplanting the greater), when the lower ranking Samurai Saito Dosan succeeded in supplanting the traditional “legal” lord of the province, Dosan was a subject of many novels and anecdotes, in part because of a very appealing rag to riches story.
The traditional view was that Dosan was born the son of a monk, hated the idea of becoming a Buddhist priest and became an oil merchant, and was hired into managing the household of the Toki family ruling Mino. Dosan went on to supplant his lord and took over the province in 1542. For how he wormed his way into the province before devouring it whole, he was given the nickname “the Viper of Mino” in modern novels, often confused with a historical nickname.
But scholarship in the 1970s on primary source documents revealed that the “Dosan story” is the story of a father and son pair. The father was a former monk that became an oil merchant, then became a samurai. His son, Dosan, inherited his father’s position and continued the family’s rise, until he took over the province in 1542—demonstrating some of the confusing aspects of studying the Sengoku era, with many unreliable secondary source materials.
Dosan and Nobunaga’s father were arch-enemies that fought each other repeatedly on their border. Both had risen through gekokujo above their station by talent, both were considered by their contemporaries to be exceptional generals and politicians. Neither could gain an advantage over the other.
In 1547, Dosan and Nobunaga’s father agreed to a peace treaty, which was sealed with Nobunaga’s marriage to Dosan’s daughter, Kichou. Dosan had heard of Nobunaga’s reputation as being an “idiot” but Dosan was greatly impressed when Nobunaga arrived with bodyguards equipped with dozens of arquebus.
Arquebus (early firearms) were quite rare and expensive in Japan, but Dosan believed they were the weapon of the future, but struggled to find any he could buy. Thus, when he realized his new 13-year-old son-in-law had come to the same conclusion and spent a small fortune assembling an arquebus squad, Dosan rated his son-in-law very highly. Dosan is recorded as commenting “My sons will find themselves serving Nobunaga one day.”
Dosan and Nobunaga would have an exceptionally close relationship for the Sengoku period, to the point where Nobunaga would ask Dosan’s soldiers to come to defend his home castle when he went on a campaign—an almost unheard-of level of trust.
And so it likely came as a shock to Nobunaga when Dosan was betrayed by his own eldest son, Yoshitatsu. Dosan did not get along with his eldest son and favored his younger brothers. Rumors that Dosan planned to replace Yoshitatsu as his heir circulated constantly.
Before Dosan could make a move, Yoshitatsu struck, gaining the loyalty of Dosan’s key subordinates to force Dosan into retirement in a temple. Yoshitatsu then executed all of his brothers to remove any claimants to power and took over the rule of Mino province in 1555.
The following year, Dosan raised an army against his son to take back the rulership of Mino. Nobunaga mustered his army in support of Dosan and rushed to his father-in-law’s aid, but Dosan was defeated and killed before Nobunaga could arrive.
Nobunaga and Yoshitatsu’s enmity erupted into open war. Yoshitatsu died in 1561 of a sudden illness, succeeded by his 14-year-old son, Tatsuoki. Nobunaga likely saw the fact he was now up against a 14-year-old boy as a golden opportunity to capture the rich farmlands of Mino Province.
Hideyoshi’s Rise and Nobunaga’s Conquest of Mino
Just two days after Lord Yoshitatsu’s death, Oda Nobunaga’s forces were on the march into Mino Prefecture. Nobunaga’s armies clashed with the new Mino Daimyo Tatsuoki. Nobunaga won the battle, but he realized from the unexpectedly fierce resistance that the Saito forces remained loyal to their new teenage Lord. The Saito Clan was not about to roll over.
Nobunaga backed off and began rethinking his strategy.
Mino Province could be split into 3 portions—the rich farmlands of West Mino, the strategically placed and rich farmlands in central Mino, and the mountainous and poor Eastern Mino.
The Saito Clan placed their capital at Inabayama Castle, a multilayered major castle complex that was built directly into a mountain, surrounded by a vibrant city at a major crossroads and along the commercially important Nagara River. This castle dominated Central Mino.
For the first few years, Nobunaga avoided taking on the seemingly impregnable Central Mino and unsuccessfully tried to force his way into Western Mino militarily. This was met with a series of military setbacks from 1561 to 1565.
Nobunaga switches strategies and begins aiming to secure a route to directly attack Inabayama Castle while working to flip Lord Tasuoki’s key followers.
What follows is yet another historical controversy.
The traditional accounts hold that Tatsuoki gained a reputation for arrogance and revelry. Taking his key lieutenants for granted, showing attitudes of ungratefulness for their support, and spending his time with his concubines and drinking rather than conducting politics or warfare, Tatsuoki gradually lost the support of his subordinates and they began flipping to the Oda Clan one by one.
However, some historians dispute this narrative. Luís Fróis, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, is well known for his detailed and largely accurate Historia de Japam (History of Japan) detailing his first-hand account of his encounters with various Japanese lords, and the stories he collected to form a history.
Fróis’ “Historia de Japam” is not without problems, showing overt hostility to lords who opposed Christianity, and strong favoritism for lords who showed an interest in Christianity. However, many of the historical events laid out in Historia (particularly those Fróis witnessed in person) tend to have a high degree of accuracy.
Fróis came to Japan in 1579, so the events here took place over a decade before Fróis arrived in Japan. However, Fróis does meet with Saito Tatsuoki during his exile and rated his abilities very highly, calling Tatsuoki remarkably intelligent, highly able, and diligent. Fróis provides a favorable account of Tatsuoki’s defeat, casting it as more military in nature, and suggesting that Tatsuoki was betrayed by mercenary interests.
In this view, Tatsuoki is abandoned by greedy lieutenants who took an easier path to ascendancy by abandoning a teenager and then justified their actions after the fact by casting the teen as an “unworthy lord.”
Critics of Fróis’ viewpoint note that Tatsuoki is mentioned as showing a deep interest in Christianity, asking questions, and attending Jesuit religious services, and Fróis’ viewpoint may be subject to his bias towards Christians and those who show an interest in Christianity.
Whatever the case may be, what is not disputed is that Hideyoshi, the peasant who later rules Japan, first emerges during these intrigues. For reasons that are not known, Nobunaga provided Hideyoshi with opportunities to be a negotiator Nobunaga dispatched to persuade enemy generals to switch sides. Hideyoshi’s successes led to his rapid advancement.
It is not known, but it is speculated that Hideyoshi may have had a hand in the biggest “flip” of them all.
On August 1st, 1567, an emissary from the 3 powerful generals in service of the Saito Family that jointly ruled Western Mino suddenly arrived at Nobunaga’s court. The emissary stated the 3 generals would like to surrender and enter Nobunaga’s service. These 3 men were jointly called the “Mino Triumvirate”—a powerful group of regional lords who had served the Saito Family for 3 generations.
The 3 generals had been instrumental in blocking Nobunaga’s attempts to conquer Western Mino and represented the backbone of the Saito Clan’s army.
As was customary for such a transaction, Nobunaga sent a messenger demanding that the 3 generals send close family members as hostages to demonstrate their intention to switch sides.
The 3 generals agreed to this demand, but before the hostages even arrived, Nobunaga was already on the march with his army. By August 2nd, Nobunaga’s army suddenly appeared outside the Saito capitol of Inabayama Castle and set fire to the castle town outside the walls.
Confident that no major relief army would arrive to challenge him, Nobunaga began constructing siege works outside the castle. On August 14th, the Mino Triumvirate arrived in person to offer their services to Nobunaga, and their appearance on the Oda side demoralized the Saito clan defenders.
Within a few days, Saito Tatsuoki escaped and fled with just a handful of loyal retainers into exile.
After nearly a decade of conflict, the sudden shift in loyalties of key lieutenants had led to Nobunaga bringing all of Mino Province under his control in a matter of weeks. Hideyoshi was rewarded for his contributions in intrigues with a small amount of territory sufficient to maintain his band of a few dozen soldiers.
Nobunaga moved his capital to the newly captured Inabayama Castle, and renamed the castle and city “Gifu.” The name by which the city is known today.
[END]
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