Page 148 - (DK) Smithsinian - Military History: The Definitive Visual Guide to the Objects of Warfare

146 SAMURAI AND FOOT SOLDIERS

WDER 1500–1680 THE SIEGE OF

OSAKA CASTLE

The Sengoku period in Japan was a 150-year era of civil
conflict when rival daimyo (feudal lords) and their samurai

AND GUNPO vied for power. The Siege of Osaka castle in 1614–15 was the
climax and conclusion of this turbulent era.

The daimyo Tokugawa Ieyasu, effective of inner defenses and fired down upon
ruler of Japan from 1600, took the
from all sides. The Tokugawa, suffering
heavy losses, abandoned their assault
title of shogun (military dictator) for
PIKES the Tokugawa family. The impressive and retreated to siege lines, where
castle at Osaka was the power base of they camped in the bitter winter
the rival Toyotomi clan, whose leader, cold. The defenders nestled inside the
castle, living off plentiful food stores.
Toyotomi Hideyori, had a better
hereditary claim to the shogunate
than the Tokugawa. In 1614, Ieyasu A TREACHEROUS TREATY
invented a pretext to attack the Toyotomi Hideyori then made the
Toyotomi, assembling an army possibly fatal error of negotiating a peace deal
190,000-strong. Daimyo and samurai with the Tokugawa. He was tricked.
discontented with Tokugawa rule As soon as the armies dispersed, the
flocked to join Hideyori in Osaka. Tokugawa ordered the Osaka moats
They included many masterless filled in and the earthworks leveled.
samurai, the ronin. An experienced By the time fighting resumed in the
warrior, Sanada Yukimura, oversaw spring of 1615—after Ieyasu pressed
the strengthening of the castle’s another spurious cause for war—
defenses, ordering the digging of Osaka castle was no longer defensible.
moats and the building of an earthwork The reassembled Toyotomi forces
barbican outside the tall stone walls. instead sought to preempt a siege
The siege began in November 1614. by winning victory in the open field.
First the Tokugawa captured various The climactic encounter, known as
strongpoints in the country around the Battle of Tennoji, came in early
Osaka. They then confronted June. The Toyotomi adopted a plan in
Sanada’s earthworks, but their siege which part of their forces would use
weapons—a handful of imported a flanking movement to take the enemy
European culverins and several from the rear, and then a reserve
hundred Japanese or Chinese artillery would enter the battle at the crucial
pieces—were powerless against thick moment. But this strategy was too
earth walls. The Tokugawa decided to complex for their loosely coordinated
attack. They surged forward in their army. Many of the ronin attacked at
thousands, the ashigaru (peasant foot will, and arquebusiers assigned to the
soldiers) armed with long pikes or reserve opened fire without waiting
arquebuses, the samurai, dismounting, for orders. In the midst of a chaotic
wielding spears and swords. It was an struggle Sanada was killed and
impressive sight, the samurai arrayed his severed head displayed to the
in elaborate armor, the foot soldiers demoralized troops. A belated sortie
displaying a mass of fluttering flags by the garrison from the castle, led by
attached to their backs by poles. But Hideyori himself, was driven back
when they mounted ladders to scale through the gates. As Tokugawa cannon
the walls, the attackers were cut down battered the stone walls and parts
by arquebuses fired through loopholes of the castle caught fire, Hideyori
at the top of the fortifications. Where committed seppuku (ritual suicide).
they breached the outer wall they The Tokugawa shogunate was destined
found themselves trapped in front to last another 250 years.