The lasted from 1578 to 1580.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

took

Miki Castle was a Japanese castle in Miki, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. It was built by Bessho Nagaharu in the Sengoku period. Today some ruins and a partial reconstruction remain at the castle site, and its ruins have been protected as a National Historic ...

Harima Province or Banshū (播州) was a province of Japan in the part of Honshū that is the southwestern part of present-day Hyōgo Prefecture. Harima bordered on Tajima, Tanba, Settsu, Bizen, and Mimasaka Provinces. Its capital was Himeji. During the ...

, located in what is now

Miki Miki may refer to: Places *Miki, Hyōgo, a city in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan *Miki, Kagawa, a town in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan *Miki, Azerbaijan, a village in Astara Rayon, Azerbaijan People *Miki (given name) *Miki (surname) *Miki Núñez (born ...

, Hyōgo,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, from

Bessho Nagaharu was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku period. He was the eldest son of Bessho Yasuharu. In 1578 Oda Nobunaga called on his retainers to attack the Mōri clan. Nagaharu almost decided to allied with the Oda clan, but after hearing that the ...

, an ally of the

Mōri clan The Mōri clan (毛利氏 ''Mōri-shi'') was a Japanese samurai clan descended from Ōe no Hiromoto. Ōe no Hiromoto was descended from the Fujiwara clan. The family's most illustrious member, Mōri Motonari, greatly expanded the clan's power ...

Situation in Harima

The original

Shugo , commonly translated as “(military) governor,” “protector,” or “constable,” was a title given to certain officials in feudal Japan. They were each appointed by the ''shōgun'' to oversee one or more of the provinces of Japan. The pos ...

(governor) of the Harima province was the

Akamatsu clan is a Japanese samurai family of direct descent from Minamoto no Morifusa of the Murakami-Genji. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Akamatsu" at ''Nobiliare du Japon' ...

, with the ''Bessho clan'' and ''Kodera clan'' as

Shugodai were officials during feudal Japan. Shugodai were representatives of provincial shugo when the shugo could not exercise his power, being often away from his province. Unlike shugo, who were appointed from the central power, shugodai were locally ...

(deputy governor). The Akamatsu clan were one of the most powerful shugo of the previous Shogunate having at one point being the shugo of 4 separate provinces. However, by this time they had already greatly decreased in power and only nominal leaders holding together make coalition of collapsing clans in Harima. When

Hashiba Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' ( feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Co ...

entered the province on the order of

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 late 1576, the Akamatsu clan leader

Akamatsu Norifusa (1559 – August 18, 1598) was a Japanese samurai of the Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. Akamastu clan was the ''shugo daimyō'' of Harima Province. His father was Akamatsu Yoshisuke. Norifusa was defeated during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Ch ...

decided to simply surrender to the Oda, while he still had a decent deal on harima coalition, and soon after the Bessho clan and Kodera clan also submitted.

Bessho rebellion

Having apparently taken all of Harima without bloodshed, Hideyoshi proceeded to move his base of operations to

Himeji 260px, Himeji City Hall is a city located in Hyōgo Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 525,682 in 227,099 households and a population density of 980 persons per km². The total area of the city is ...

, the former residential castle of the Akamatsu, and began preparing for a showdown with the

. However, during this time, Bessho Nagaharu's uncle, Bessho Yoshichika, was reported to have felt insulted over having to submit to Hideyoshi, who was born a commoner. He managed to convince his nephew to rebel, and also set up a secret alliance with the Mori clan. Soon, after his rebellion, the Kodera clan joined in. Once the first shot was fired, Hideyoshi was suddenly in a dangerous position, trapped between the powerful Mori clan in the front and rebelling clans behind him. Later, Hideyoshi decided to lay siege to Miki castle, hoping to destroy the source of the rebellion.

The siege

In 1578, Hideyoshi's force gradually took out the Bessho clan's outlying castles and eventually surrounded them in Miki Castle. However, the Bessho held out for an extraordinarily long time, at first due to a large stock of food, and then secret resupply missions by the Mori navy, though these ended long before the siege would. They attempted to break the siege on a few occasions. During one of these attacks on the much larger Oda forces, Bessho Harusada, the younger brother of Nagaharu, was killed. After nearly three years since the beginning of the rebellion, Miki castle finally surrendered. Bessho Nagaharu committed

seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...

and his uncle

Bessho Yoshichika Bessho may refer to; Places * Bessho, a mountain in Norway *Bessho Station (Shiga), Japanese railway station *Ueda Electric Railway Bessho Line, Japanese railway line *Himeji-Bessho Station, Japanese railway station *Bessho Station (Hyōgo) ...

, the instigator of this rebellion, was killed by his own soldiers. In the meantime, during the siege,

Araki Murashige was a retainer of Ikeda Katsumasa, head of the powerful "Setssu-Ikeda clan" of Settsu Province. Under Katsumasa, Murashige sided with Oda Nobunaga following Nobunaga's successful campaign to establish power in Kyoto. Military life Murashige bec ...

suddenly left the battle front and returned to his home base at Arioka Castle (also known as

Itami Castle 270px, Map of Itami Castle. was a Muromachi period Japanese castle located in Kawabe District of northern Settsu Province (what is now the city of Itami, Hyōgo Prefecture), Japan. It is also called .Its ruins have been protected as a Nat ...

). This was a rebellion against Oda Nobunaga. The reason for his rebellion may have owed to Nobunaga's severe attitude toward his subordinates. Later, Nobunaga launch

Siege of Itami (1579) The second , also called the during the Sengoku period of Japanese history, occurred in 1579, five years after it was seized by Oda Nobunaga in Siege of Itami (1574) from Itami clan, and entrusted the Castle to Araki Murashige. Background In ...

against Murashige.

References

1578 in Japan Conflicts in 1578 Miki 1578 Miki 1578 {{Japan-battle-stub