Battle of Akatsuka (or Akazuka, May 10, 1552) was the first recorded battle of the young

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period. He is regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. Nobunaga was head of the very powerful Oda clan, and launched a war against other ''daimyō'' to unify ...

in his struggle to unite the province of Owari, against one of the former vassals of his late father ( Oda Nobuhide, died in 1551), who switched his allegiance to the powerful Imagawa clan of

Suruga province was an old province in the area that is today the central part of Shizuoka Prefecture. Suruga bordered on Izu, Kai, Sagami, Shinano, and Tōtōmi provinces; and was bordered by the Pacific Ocean through Suruga Bay to the south. Its abbrevia ...

Background

Oda Nobuhide, a

daimyo were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominally ...

with significant influence in southern Owari, died on April 8, 1551, after a short contagious illness. His heir,

, who was barely 18 at the time, inherited a large feudal domain around

Nagoya Castle is a Japanese castle located in Nagoya, Japan. Nagoya Castle was constructed by the Owari Domain in 1612 during the Edo period on the site of an earlier castle of the Oda clan in the Sengoku period. Nagoya Castle was the heart of one of the ...

, but he enjoyed generally bad reputation amongst the people of Owari for his

eccentric Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off-center, in geometry * Eccentricity (graph theory) of a v ...

and rude public behavior. Nobunaga mostly spent his time between the age of 13 (age of maturity at the time) and 18 in hunting, riding, practicing archery and shooting arquebus (still a novelty in Japan at the time), but also wrestling, swimming, watching

sumo is a form of competitive full-contact wrestling where a ''rikishi'' (wrestler) attempts to force his opponent out of a circular ring (''dohyō'') or into touching the ground with any body part other than the soles of his feet (usually by thr ...

and visiting taverns and brothels with his friends. He also showed complete disdain for formal clothing and proper social behavior of a lord, wearing sleeveless bathrobe and short trousers tied with hemp rope in public, eating melons while riding backwards on his horse and often dancing in female clothing in taverns, gaining the nickname ''The Fool of Owari''. Many of his father's retainers presumed their new lord as too weak or immature to lead and protect them and their lands, and some even contemplated open rebellion and replacing Nobunaga with his younger brother, Oda Nobuyuki, or defecting to more powerful regional lords.

Battle

In early of 1552, barely several month after his father's death, one of Nobunaga's senior retainers, Yamaguchi Noritsugu, the

castellan A castellan is the title used in Medieval Europe for an appointed official, a governor of a castle and its surrounding territory referred to as the castellany. The title of ''governor'' is retained in the English prison system, as a remnant o ...

of Narumi Castle, and his son Yamaguchi Kurojiro (Noriyoshi) defected to the powerful Imagawa clan of Suruga (who controlled neighbor eastern provinces of Mikawa and Totomi) and invited their troops to Owari, who made several fortifications on Oda land. In response, on May 17 th ( Lunar calendar) Oda Nobunaga raised some 800 men in Nagoya Castle and advanced to Narumi: on the way, his force was intercepted about a mile north of the castle by some fifteen hundred men led by young Yamaguchi Kurojiro. Battle was fought on foot, in close quarters with cold steel and lasted from the Hour of the Serpent (around 10 a.m) to the Hour of the Horse (around noon). After two hours of intense fighting, Nobunaga lost some 30 men, and retreated the same day back to Nagoya, leaving contested lands in eastern Owari under Imagawa control.

Aftermath

Nobunaga's first display as a battlefield commander impressed none, and further rebellions and attacks against Nobunaga were soon to follow, as his neighbors and relatives were trying to exploit his youth and presumed weakness for their benefit.

References

Literature

* * {{Cite book , last=Ōta , first=Gyūichi , url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/743693801 , title=The chronicle of Lord Nobunaga , date=2011 , publisher=Brill , others=J. S. A. Elisonas, Jeroen Pieter Lamers , isbn=978-90-04-20456-0 , location=Leiden , pages=3 , oclc=743693801 Akatsuka Akatsuka