In the 1524 Siege of Edo, also known as the , the Hōjō, led by

Hōjō Ujitsuna was the son of Hōjō Sōun, founder of the Go-Hōjō clan. He continued his father's quest to gain control of the Kantō (the central area, today dominated by Tokyo, of Japan's main island). Biography In 1524, Ujitsuna took Edo Castle, whic ...

, besieged

Edo castle is a flatland castle that was built in 1457 by Ōta Dōkan in Edo, Toshima District, Musashi Province. In modern times it is part of the Tokyo Imperial Palace in Chiyoda, Tokyo and is therefore also known as . Tokugawa Ieyasu established the ...

, which was held by

Uesugi Tomooki was a lord of Edo Castle and enemy of the Hōjō clan, who seized the castle in 1524. He was the son of Uesugi Tomoyoshi, who was among the first to oppose the Hōjō's rise to power. Biography In 1516, Tomooki took part in the siege of Arai ...

. Though Edo has since become the Japanese metropolis of

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, it was then a more or less insignificant fishing village in the

Kantō region The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa. Slight ...

. Eager to repel the attackers, Uesugi Tomooki led his warriors out of the castle to meet the Hōjō in battle at the Takanawa river crossing. However, Ujitsuna led his men around the Uesugi force and attacked them from the rear. Retreating back to his castle, Tomooki found that the commander of his garrison,

Ōta Suketaka Ohta, Ōta, or Ota may refer to the following: People * Ota (wife of Arnulf of Carinthia), Queen of the East Franks 888-899, Empress of the Holy Roman Empire 896-899 * Ota (cartoonist), Brazilian cartoonist * Atsuya Ota, Japanese basketball pl ...

, had betrayed him and opened the gates to the Hōjō. This battle would mark the beginning of a seventeen-year struggle between the

Hōjō clan The was a Japanese samurai family who controlled the hereditary title of ''shikken'' (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate between 1203 and 1333. Despite the title, in practice the family wielded actual political power in Japan during this period ...

s and

Uesugi clan The is a Japanese samurai clan which was at its peak one of the most powerful during the Muromachi and Sengoku periods (14th to 17th centuries). Appert, Georges. (1888) ''Ancien Japon,'' p. 79./ref> At its height, the clan had three main branch ...

s for dominance of the Kantō.

References

*Turnbull, Stephen (2002). 'War in Japan: 1467-1615'. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. {{coord missing, Japan Edo 1524 1524 in Japan Conflicts in 1524 Edo 1524