Battle of Nagashino
The Battle of Nagashino (長篠の戦い, Nagashino no Tatakai) was a famous battle in Japanese history, fought in 1575 at Nagashino in Mikawa Province (present-day Nagashino, Shinshiro, Aichi Prefecture). The allied forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu (38,000) fought against Takeda Katsuyori's forces (15,000) and the allied forces won a crushing victory over the Takeda clan. As a result, Oda Nobunaga's unification of Japan was seen as certain.
| Battle of Nagashino | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Sengoku period | |||||||
Battle of Nagashino pictured on a Byōbu screen | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
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Oda clan Tokugawa clan | Takeda clan | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Oda Nobunaga Tokugawa Ieyasu Imagawa Ujizane Okudaira Sadamasa Sassa Narimasa Honda Tadakatsu Ikeda Tsuneoki Hashiba Hideyoshi Matsudaira Ietada Niwa Nagahide Ōkubo Tadayo Maeda Toshiie Sakuma Nobumori Kanamori Nagachika Matsudaira Nobuyasu Akechi Mitsuhide Ishikawa Kazumasa Takigawa Kazumasu Ōkubo Tadachika Shibata Katsuie Oda Nobutada Sakai Tadatsugu Sakakibara Yasumasa Watanabe Moritsuna Matsudaira Koretada † |
Takeda Katsuyori Ichijō Nobutatsu Anayama Nobutada Oyamada Nobushige Yamagata Masakage † Naitō Masatoyo † Baba Nobufusa † Sanada Nobutsuna † Takeda Nobuzane † Tsuchiya Masatsugu † Obata Masamori Sanada Masateru † Hara Masatane † Takeda Nobukado Sanada Masayuki Saegusa Moritomo † Takeda Nobutoyo Kōsaka Masanobu | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 38,000–72,000 | 15,000–20,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 6,000 killed | 10,000 killed | ||||||
Location within Aichi Prefecture Battle of Nagashino (Japan) | |||||||
In recent years, the battle has increasingly been referred to as the Battle of Nagashino and Shitaragahara (長篠・設楽原の戦い, Nagashino Shitaragahara no Tatakai). The battle started with an offensive over Nagashino Castle, followed by a battle at Shitaragahara, about 4 km to the west of the castle. Traditionally, the siege of Nagashino Castle by the Takeda forces and the decisive battle between the two main armies were regarded as a series of manoeuvres, and the battle was called the "Battle of Nagashino" after Nagashino, the name of a wide area in the region. However, if the emphasis is on the actual location of the battle (where the final battle took place), it is more appropriate to use "Battle of Shitara-gahara". Therefore, both place names are now listed together.
The battle is often cited as a turning point in Japanese warfare and as the first "modern" battle in Japan, as it was the battle in which Oda Nobunaga defeated the cavalry of the Takeda army with his powerful arquebusiers, using tanegashima.
The causes of victory for the allied forces used to be cited as the horse defensive fence (stockade) that prevented the advance of the Takeda cavalry, the three-stage shooting of 3,000 guns that fired in rapid succession in shifts of 1,000 guns each, and Katsuyori's reckless orders for a charge. However, recent research has led to the theory that the real cause of victory was something else. However, there is no doubt that matchlock guns played an active role, including in the sniping death of Yamagata Masakage, who was a famous general in the Takeda Army.