Futamata fortress was

Takeda Shingen , of Kai Province, was a pre-eminent ''daimyō'' in feudal Japan. Known as the "Tiger of Kai", he was one of the most powerful daimyō with exceptional military prestige in the late stage of the Sengoku period. Shingen was a warlord of great ...

's first objective in his campaign against

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

. In 1572 he left the siege of Futamata in the hands of his son and heir

Takeda Katsuyori was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku period, who was famed as the head of the Takeda clan and the successor to the legendary warlord Takeda Shingen. He was son in law of Hojo Ujiyasu. Early life He was the son of Shingen by the daughter ...

. The fortress was built on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the Tenryū river; Katsuyori noticed that the garrison's water supply was obtained via a complex system of dropping wooden buckets to the river and pulling them back up. He decided to send unmanned rafts down the river; these smashed into the well-tower and toppled it. Deprived of their water supply, the Tokugawa garrison quickly surrendered. The Takeda would press on past Futamata towards the major Tokugawa fortress at Hamamatsu, where they would fight the

Battle of Mikatagahara The was a battle of the Sengoku period of Japan fought between Takeda Shingen and Tokugawa Ieyasu in Mikatagahara, Tōtōmi Province on 25 January 1573. Shingen attacked Ieyasu at the plain of Mikatagahara north of Hamamatsu during his cam ...

two months later.

References

*Turnbull, Stephen (1998). 'The Samurai Sourcebook'. London: Cassell & Co. *Turnbull, Stephen (2002). 'War in Japan: 1467-1615'. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. * Futamata 1572 1572 in Japan Conflicts in 1572 Futamata 1572 {{Japan-battle-stub