Sengoku Jidai:
The Warring States Period (1467 – 1600)
by Damian Gomez
The Warring States Period is
considered by many historians to be the most violent, turbulent, interesting, and
exciting time period in Japanese history. It is a time period that is characterized
by the rise of rivaling warlords, bushi warriors, and siege warfare. What began
as a bitter dispute between two samurai clans quickly spiraled out of control
and resulted in over one hundred years of civil war, a military and political
disaster which eventually undermined the unified public authority that had been
established by the Ashikaga bakufu during the Muromachi period. Sporadic
warfare would plague Japan for the next century until a series of conquerors
managed to bring stability and order to the land.
Although there was plenty of
fighting between samurai armies during the 15th century, they were
often local disputes and respect for the shogunate was always maintained. It
wasn’t until the Yamana clan and the Hosokawa clan began feuding with each
other that the situation became volatile and the underlying respect for the
shogunate began to deteriorate. The two main protagonists were Hosokawa
Katsumoto, who was the prime minister for the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, and
Yamana Mochitoyo, whose family were powerful landowners. Ashikaga Yoshimasa’s
wife gave birth to a son in 1465 but the position of shogun had already been
given to Yoshimi, Ashikaga Yoshimasa’s brother. Yoshimasa’s wife then turned to the Yamana
clan in hopes that they would help her son commandeer his rightful position. The
rivalry between the Yamana clan and the Hosokawa clan erupted into arson and
archery attacks that eventually poured into the streets of the capital. This
escalation in warfare ushered in what we now refer to as the Ōnin War of 1467. British
academic and historian, Stephen Turnbull, writes in his book titled War in Japan: 1467-1615, “Local
landowners remote from the capital, all of whom had once pledged loyalty to the
shogun, had almost been forced into taking sides with one of the two families
whose initial differences of opinion had already brought tragedy to Kyoto. (Turnbull) ” Attempts were made
by some provincial shugo to acknowledge the shogun’s authority but a growing
sense of dissent amongst the locals stifled their attempts. Shugo families also
became casualties of war as brothers disputed over titles and landholdings.
As a result of these conflicts, a
power vacuum was created that provided opportunities for warlords and locally
based leagues to develop their own local autonomy. One such league that thrived
in these circumstances was the hokke ikki or Lotus League who provided
institutional support independent of the traditional aristocracy. In an excerpt
taken from our textbook, East Asia: A
Cultural, Social, and Political History, Patricia Ebrey and Anne Walthall
write “With the shogun on the run after 1521, believers in the Lotus Sutra
massed in tens of thousands not only to defend the city but also to attack
warlords and supporters of different Buddhists sects. They withheld rents,
collected taxes, and settled disputes, in effect setting up a commoner-run city
government. (Walthall) ”
At the same time, warlords were
scrambling for territory and seizing it through military conquest, alliances,
or marriage. These warlords, called daimyo, constructed their domains from the
inside out and ignored provincial boundaries. Daimyo were militaristic and
therefore sought to acquire naturally fortified territories because they were
constantly being challenged by their neighbors. Rivaling daimyos battled each
other for land and the men who fought in these battles ranged from elite
samurai warriors to lowly ranked foot soldiers called ashigaru. “Although the
structure of a daimyo’s army changed greatly over time, there was always a
basic distinction between the samurai and the foot soldier. At the time of the Ōnin
War, the samurai were still the elite troops, the officer corps, the
aristocracy, while the foot soldiers were lower class warriors recruited from
the daimyo’s estate workers. (Turnbull) ” Although there was
a distinction between professional samurai warriors and foot soldiers, daimyo
retained only a small core of men who could actually be considered “regular
soldiers”. This small core of men consisted of the daimyo’s family members and
hereditary retainers known as fudai while the rest of the army was made of
part-time soldiers who did agricultural work in the paddy fields when they
weren’t fighting in battles. Turnbull writes in his book Samurai: The Story of Japan’s Great Warriors, “Part-time soldiering
was a very common feature in the period of Warring States, …For much of samurai
history, most armies were disbanded at the end of a campaign and their members
sent back to work in the fields, so that some samurai, and virtually all the
ashigaru, would return to their lands to be summoned again when the need arose. (Turnbull,
Samurai: The Story of Japan's Great Warriors) ” The Ōnin War came
to an end around 1477 but many different battles would be fought in the
following years to come. Some daimyos fought protracted wars with each other
that lasted for many years such as the conflict between the Takeda and Uesugi
families who fought with each other for over half a century.
During this age of violence and
turmoil, battle hardened warlords were forged into great conquerors whose
political experiments laid the groundwork for Japan’s new central authority and
unification via military conquest. There was a shogun in Kyoto during this time
however, he was of little significance and only provided the legitimation for a
potential power struggle. In 1560, a daimyo by the name of Imagawa Yoshimoto
attempted to march on the capital but his campaign was obstructed by Oda
Nobunaga, a minor daimyo from Owari province that had risen to power from an
obscure lineage. After decimating Yoshimoto’s forces and aligning himself with
local samurai families, Oda Nobunaga captured the capital in 1568 and deposed
the shogun. He gave himself powers of regency and focused his sights on the
Buddhist temples’ military, economic, and political power. His assault began
with a place called Enryakuji where in 1571, “…he burned three thousand
buildings in its temple complex on Mount Hiei and massacred the monks. (Walthall) ” In 1580, Oda turned
his sights on the Ikko ikki and their fortified headquarters in Ishiyama
Honganji. After the fall of the headquarters at Ishiyama Honganji, Oda began to
extend his influence westwards with the assistance of two of Oda’s most skilled
and experienced generals, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Akechi Mitsuhide. Oda Nobunaga
defeated all of his rivals and was considered a military genius. He also
promoted trade with European merchants and trained his ashigaru to use firearms
which had been introduced to Feudal Japan by Portuguese and Dutch traders. Oda
Nobunaga was the victim of an assassination attempt in 1582 in which the temple
he was staying was set on fire by Akechi Mitsuhide and his army. Oda is said to
have committed suicide and was consumed by the blaze. Akechi Mitsuhide
proclaimed himself as shogun but this wouldn’t last long because Oda’s death
would soon be avenged by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi , a
farmer that had risen through the ranks via his own efforts, was now presented
with an opportunity to respond swiftly to the unfolding events that were
occurring miles away. “Nobunaga’s ablest general, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was
campaigning many miles away when the coup happened. On hearing the awful news,
Hideyoshi rushed back to Kyoto and defeated the usurper at the battle of
Yamazaki. (Turnbull, Samurai: The Story of
Japan's Great Warriors) ” In the following years, Hideyoshi and
his forces subdued and intimidated powerful warlords in Northern Japan that had
remained untouched during the rule of Oda Nobunaga. Hideyoshi rebuilt Kyoto and commandeered
enormous resources throughout the land. He sought to stabilize Japan and instituted
a nationwide land survey in an attempt to quantify landholdings and estimate
tax revenues. In 1588, Hideyoshi enacted the first of two ordinances that would
create a rigid distinction between samurai and commoners. The “Sword Hunt” was
an ordinance in which all weapons were confiscated from the peasantry. The
“Sword Hunt” was a also means of disarming any minor daimyo, religious
institutions, or obstinate village headman that may be in opposition to
Hideyoshi and had the capacity for armed rebellion. “The victims were told that
the swords, spears, and guns thus collected would not be wasted, but would be
melted down to make nails for the enormous Buddha that Hideyoshi was erecting
in Kyoto. (Turnbull, Samurai: The Story of
Japan's Great Warriors) ” The second ordinance enacted by
Hideyoshi was the Seperation Edict of 1591 which created a total separation
between the military function and the agricultural function. In other words, no
samurai was to be a farmer, and no farmer was to behave as a samurai. The
Separation Edict was form of social stratification that changed the nature of
recruitment because farmers and peasants would no longer be able to rise
through military ranks and become samurai. Hideyoshi would later launch two
military campaigns against Korea which were both unsuccessful. He died shortly
after launching the second campaign and left his five year old son to inherit
his domains. Hideyoshi hoped that his son would succeed him but a member of
Hideyoshi’s five-man advisory council, Tokugawa Ieyasu, had other plans. Ieyasu
began setting up shop in the village of Edo and built an administrative and
personal system as other warlords had done before him. The advisory council
eventually fell apart in 1600 and once again, civil war broke out. The
situation climaxed at the Battle of Sekigahara in which a fierce battle was
fought between Hideyoshi’s son and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Tokugawa emerged as the
victor and became the country’s new shogun in 1603. All daimyo were now to report
to Tokugawa Ieyasu and the warring ceased. The position of shogun had finally
been secured by the Tokugawa family and it ushered in a period referred to as
the “Tokugawa Peace”.
REFERENCES
11. Turnbull,
Stephen Richard. War in Japan: 1476 – 1615, Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002. Print.
22. Walthall,
Patricia Ebrey & Anne. East Asia: A
Cultural, Social, and Political History, Boston, Wadsworth. 2014. Print.
33. Turnbull, Stephen Richard. , Samurai: The Story of Japan's Great Warriors, New York: Metro Books. 2014.
Print.
