History of Asia

How could Nobunaga Oda defeat Yoshimoto Imagawa in the Battle of Okehazama?

In 1560, Suruga's daimyo Imagawa Yoshimoto began invading Owari, the territory of Oda Nobunaga, in order to aim for Joraku.

The Imagawa family is a guardian daimyo of the Muromachi Shogunate. It is a prestigious family.

Nobunaga had just unified Owari Ichikoku against Yoshimoto, who governs the three countries of Suruga, Totomi, and Mikawa. At this point, the difference in troop strength is that the Oda clan is in danger of being destroyed, with the Oda clan having 5,000 while the Imakawa army has 25,000.

Outpost Battle of Okehazama

At that time, Motoyasu Matsudaira was the forerunner of the Imagawa army, and later Ieyasu Tokugawa . is.

Motoyasu, a young warrior who was only 17 years old, carried out a mission to break through the enemy and carry supplies to Odaka Castle, which was short of troops. After that, the Imagawa clan wins the outpost of the Battle of Okehazama, such as conquering the front fort of the Oda clan.

On the other hand, the Oda clan was discussing the response of the Imagawa clan at Kiyosu Castle, the home of the Oda clan.

Since we are welcoming more than five times as many troops as ourselves, only time has passed without a conclusion as to whether to siege or sortie.

However, Nobunaga, who was informed when Motoyasu dropped the fort on the front line, goes out with 2000 elite people.

The overwhelming disadvantage is that if it doesn't change whether you're in a siege or in a siege, you may have intended to sortie out and find a win.

The Imagawa family is the Takeda family and the Hojo family that border on the border. The Imagawa clan, who is invading other countries with a large army, will not be attacked because they have formed an alliance with. In that case, Nobunaga's option might have been to hit the castle and find the possibility of winning there.

This calm judgment will lead Nobunaga to victory.

Battle of Okehazama

At this time, due to bad weather, Yoshimoto Imagawa's body was taking a break in the Okehazama of Owari.

Probably because of the heavy rain that robbed us of our visibility, we avoided an unreasonable march.

Taking advantage of this heavy rain, the Oda army will assault the Imagawa headquarters without being detected by the Imagawa army. In terms of numbers, the Imagawa army had more than double the number of soldiers, but it must have been lifted by Nobunaga's assault.

If this happens, the Oda army will have the upper hand in the large army as well.

Nobunaga and Yoshimoto themselves fought with their spears in a fierce battle in heavy rain. After a fierce battle, Hatamoto's corps was destroyed and Yoshimoto was finally detained.

In this way, Nobunaga was able to win a vivid reversal victory in the Battle of Okehazama.

In the battle between Okehazama, Yoshimoto Imagawa was defeated while having a large army of more than 20,000.

No matter how much you have a large army, you cannot win unless that large army works well. Shingen Takeda has also made a mistake of being chased by Kenshin Uesugi of 13,000 because he divided the 20,000 troops in half at the Battle of Kawanakajima.

Yoshimoto might not have been defeated in this battle if he could always move the 10,000th army. When that happened, Nobunaga Oda was to be defeated, so what happened to history?

Nobunaga Oda has a very high ability to take in information, and seems to have known the location of Yoshimoto Imagawa's headquarters in advance, and as a result, he was able to defeat Yoshimoto Imagawa.

It goes without saying that this battle led to the spread of Oda Nobunaga's name throughout the country.