Size of Engagements

[g. agalder]

We often hear about the large battles, but how typical were these in comparison to fights between small groups? Dozens? Hundreds? What size were the most common battles?

(Sorry, old computer at work. If this has already been answered, I apologize. I did a search, but the screen went all funhouse on me.)

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

At the start of the Sengoku Jidai most battles did not exceed 5,000 on either side. In fact during the reign of Oda Nobuhide in Owari the Oda army did not exceed 4,000 or so and the Matsudaira (Tokugawa) army did not exceed 3,000, the Takeda army in the 1540s did not exceed 5,000. Larger clans however like the Uesugi, could seemingly field large 80,000 man armies for sieges against their rivals in Kanto like the Hojo. Supposedly at kawagoe 1545 and at Odawara 1561 the Uesugi called upon their vassals (on a regional basis all across the North and Kanto as the Uesugi head was the Kanto Kanrei or Viceroy of that whole area, that includes all Kanto clans, Satake, Satomi, Mogami, Date etc) and gathered Kanto clans as well as the Satomi and Satake to besiege those castles.

As farming and economic models by various clans improved (such as the Oda in Owari, the Takeda in Kai, the Nagao-Uesugi in Echigo, the Matsudaira/Tokugawa in Mikawa and the Saito in Mino) and more and more were willing to trade (on a provincial basis and Nanban trade) and recruit Ashigaru from the peasantry, they were able to raise much larger armies with decent training. By the death of Oda Nobunaga for instance most of the army was made up by Ashigaru and yet they were all professional soldiers with nation wide workshops for the creation of weapons and armour. Compare this to the army of Oda Nobuhide in the 1540s and 1550s which was composed of a very small elite group of samurai and then supplemented by poor quality Ashigaru, a hundred or less muskets and an elite core of cavalrymen. In the islands like Kyushu and Shikoku the armies were smaller and for the most part not professional. This has to do with smaller population to farm land ratio and the overall poverty of the ares when compared to say the Home Provinces (the provinces immediately surrounding Kyoto, desnely populated, lots of farm land, controls main ports and roads and has a big economy).

So while there were some large battles and sieges such as:

Battle of Kawanakajima 1561 (13,000 vs 20,000)

Siege of Kannonji 1568 (20,000 vs 12,000)

Mimasetoge 1569 (20,000 vs 20,000)

Anegawa 1570 (24,000 vs 20,000)

Siege of Ishiyama Honganji 1570-1580 (40,000 or 60,000 vs 30,000)

Mikatagahara 1573 (12,000 vs 28,000)

Siege of Nagashima 1574 (30,000 vs 20,000)

Nagashino 1575 (38,000 vs 30,000)

Tedorigawa 1577 (30,000 vs 30,000, but some claim the Oda forces to be as high as 48,000)

Siege of Takamatsu 1582 (30,000 vs 45,000)

Yamazaki 1582 (30,000 vs 16,000)

Shizugatake 1583 (40,000 vs 30,000)

Komaki-Nagakute 1590 (40,000 vs 20,000)

Siege of Odawara 1590 (220,000 vs 90,000)

Battle of Sekigahara 1600 (80,000 vs 80,000)

Siege of Osaka 1614-1615 (160,000 vs 120,000)

It must be said though that many of these battles are isolated incidents. While pitched battles increased from around the 1530s campaigns would be conducted with the goal to destroy an enemy's army and to conquer their provinces. As such it did occur that an enemy would be more likely to avoid combat and to fortify their positions in castles and forts. Even a single pitched battle did not ensure victory as battles like Kawanakajima, Anegawa, Nagashino prove as the war did not end. Although Anegawa in 1570 greatly deprived the enemy of a victory and increased the chances of an Oda victory when the Azai and Asakura were finally defeated in 1573. Likewise Nagashino in 1575 greatly decimated the Takeda and they were ultimatley wiped out in 1582.

Of note should be that most of these pitched battles coincided with a siege of some sort, Anegawa for instance involved the siege of three Azai forts but the Oda were unable to besiege the Azai capital at Odani (the battle itself being fought right in front of the castle). Indeed these wars were fought as wars of attrition, the Oda triumphed due to their ability to reinforce untis that had slowed down in sieges or suffered high casualties as well as the superior training. Due to this factors such as economy, population and farming were highly important to the overall success of a clan and their ability to wage wars (most of which became very long conflicts, in fact it is practically a miracle that the Oda made so many successes prior to 1570 when their wars were larger in scope and much longer).

The increasing size of armies for campaigns were also rarely used to siege only a single castle, there are few exceptions of this. These massive armies would usually be used to reduce multiple fortresses in an area of operations at one time. Key examples of this are Oda Nobunaga's advance on Kyoto where the army split into more mobile divisions in order to besiege multiple forts (the attack on Kannonji is actually made up of attacks on multiple forts within some proximity at once).

The other major example that I will give was the very slow war in Harima and Settsu (in the Chugoku region the war in Chugoku lasted from 1576 until 1582 when Nobunaga was killed, Hashiba Hideyoshi accepted Mori's surrender) which went along like the previously mentioned war to take Kyoto but much longer and slower (which technically destroys one of the main myths that Hideyoshi somehow constantly rofl stomped everyone). The Mori simply did not want to commit their main forces into the uncertain results of a pitched battle. As they lost their naval superiority at Kizugawaguchi 1578, they decided to take even less risks and the war was mostly the Oda forces then pushing southward rather than the back and forth movements in Harima and Settsu. This resulted in the fall of Harima and Settsu (the fall itself lasting over an entire year from 1578 to 1580), the quick fall of Tottori and the Oda advance into Bichu province.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Yes now I did the final update.