Battle of Nagashino (1575): Guns Against the Takeda Cavalry

The Battle of Nagashino was fought on 28 June 1575 near Nagashino Castle in Mikawa Province, central Japan. The allied armies of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu, sheltered behind wooden palisades and armed with large numbers of arquebuses, defeated the army of Takeda Katsuyori. The battle is famous as a turning point in the use of firearms in Japanese warfare, although many details of the traditional story are now debated.

Background: the Takeda and the Tokugawa

Takeda Shingen of Kai province had been one of the most feared warlords of the Sengoku (“Warring States”) period. In early 1573 he defeated Tokugawa Ieyasu, but he died that spring. His son Takeda Katsuyori inherited a strong army and continued to push into the Tokugawa lands of Mikawa and Totomi.

Nagashino Castle stood at the meeting of two rivers on the route between Takeda territory and the Tokugawa heartland. In 1573 its commander, Okudaira Sadamasa, had defected from the Takeda to Ieyasu. In June 1575 Katsuyori besieged the castle with an army usually estimated at about 15,000 men. Okudaira had around 500 defenders.

Nobunaga, by contrast, had the means to arm his troops on a large scale. He controlled the wealthy port of Sakai, a centre of the gun trade, and the gunsmiths of Kunitomo in Omi province. He could also buy the lead and saltpetre needed for ammunition, much of which was imported. Few rivals could match this supply.

The siege and Torii Suneemon

The garrison held out against repeated assaults but was running short of food. A soldier named Torii Suneemon slipped out of the castle, swam the river and reached Ieyasu’s camp, where he learned that a relief army was coming. On his way back he was captured by the Takeda.

According to the traditional account, his captors ordered him to call out that no help was coming. Instead he shouted to the garrison that relief was near, and was put to death for it. His story became one of the best-known examples of loyalty in Japanese history.

What happened

Nobunaga and Ieyasu marched to the rescue with a combined army commonly estimated at about 38,000 men, of whom around 30,000 were Oda troops. Rather than attacking the castle’s besiegers directly, they took up position on the plain of Shitaragahara, a few kilometres to the west, behind a small stream called the Rengogawa.

There they built a long line of wooden palisades with gaps through which troops could advance or withdraw. Behind it stood the Oda-Tokugawa arquebusiers. The arquebus, a matchlock gun, had reached Japan in 1543 and was now produced in large numbers.

Before dawn on 28 June, a detachment led by the Tokugawa general Sakai Tadatsugu attacked the Takeda fort on Tobigasuyama, which overlooked the castle, and burned it. With his rear threatened, Katsuyori chose to attack the main allied position.

From early morning until early afternoon, Takeda units advanced in waves against the palisades. Each attack was met by gunfire and then by spearmen and archers. The Takeda broke through in places but could not carry the line. By the afternoon their army was retreating in disorder, and allied troops pursued them.

Why Katsuyori chose to fight

Katsuyori’s decision to attack a fortified position has puzzled historians. According to later Takeda traditions, several of his father’s veteran generals urged him to withdraw, but he overruled them. Some accounts blame overconfidence after his capture of the Tokugawa fortress of Takatenjin in 1574.

Other historians point to the military situation. With Tobigasuyama lost and Nagashino Castle still holding out, the Takeda risked being trapped between the castle and the relief army. Katsuyori may also have underestimated the size of the allied force, much of which was hidden by the uneven ground, and believed a quick, decisive blow was his best chance.

Key people

• Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582): the most powerful warlord in central Japan, who supplied the bulk of the army and its firearms.
• Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616): Nobunaga’s ally, whose lands were under attack. He later founded the Tokugawa shogunate.
• Takeda Katsuyori (1546–1582): the son of Takeda Shingen, who chose to fight rather than withdraw.
• Okudaira Sadamasa: the young commander of Nagashino Castle, whose defence made the battle possible.

Losses and numbers

Casualty figures come from later sources and are uncertain. Takeda losses are commonly given in the thousands, with some accounts claiming as many as 10,000 dead, which most historians consider too high.

What is certain is the toll among Takeda commanders. Several of Shingen’s most famous generals were killed, including Baba Nobuharu, Yamagata Masakage, Naito Masatoyo and Sanada Nobutsuna. This loss of experienced leadership was even more damaging than the loss of men.

All of these figures come from chronicles written by the victors or decades later, and should be treated as approximations.

Myths and facts

“3,000 guns in three ranks.” The best-known image of Nagashino shows 3,000 gunners firing in three rotating ranks to keep up continuous fire. The earliest version of Ota Gyuichi’s chronicle mentions around 1,000 arquebusiers for a selected force, while later copies give 3,000. The three-rank rotation appears in accounts written decades later. Many historians now see it as a simplification, though heavy, coordinated fire clearly played the main role.

“Cavalry against guns.” The Takeda army was not a European-style cavalry force. Most of its soldiers fought on foot, and mounted samurai often dismounted to fight. The battle was less a contest of horse against gun than of attackers against a well-prepared field fortification.

“The first use of guns.” Firearms had been used in Japanese battles for some 20 years before 1575. Nagashino was remarkable for their concentration and for the defensive position that made them so effective.

Consequences

The Takeda clan survived Nagashino, but it never regained its earlier strength. In 1582 Oda and Tokugawa forces invaded Takeda territory, and Katsuyori killed himself at Tenmokuzan. Nobunaga’s position as the leading power in central Japan was confirmed, and in 1576 he began building Azuchi Castle on Lake Biwa.

The battle encouraged armies to employ more firearms and field fortifications. In the following decades Japanese commanders fielded arquebusiers in ever larger numbers, and by the 1590s gunners formed a substantial part of the armies that invaded Korea. It also became a favourite subject for painters, and later for film, most famously in Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha (1980).

Today the ruins of Nagashino Castle are a National Historic Site of Japan, and a short stretch of wooden palisade has been reconstructed on the battlefield at Shitaragahara, in the city of Shinshiro. Local museums display arms, armour and copies of the painted screens of the battle, and re-enactments with matchlock guns are held at commemorative events.

Timeline

• 1543: Portuguese traders bring arquebuses to Tanegashima.
• 1573: Takeda Shingen dies; Okudaira Sadamasa joins Tokugawa Ieyasu.
• 1575, June: Takeda Katsuyori besieges Nagashino Castle.
• 1575, 28 June, before dawn: Sakai Tadatsugu takes the Takeda fort at Tobigasuyama.
• 1575, 28 June: The main battle is fought at Shitaragahara.
• 1582, April: Katsuyori dies at Tenmokuzan as the Takeda domain falls.

Why it matters

Nagashino showed that disciplined infantry with firearms, protected by simple field works, could defeat even the most famous warriors of the age. Whatever the exact details, it marked a shift in Japanese warfare that helped Nobunaga, and later Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, unify the country.