Source：http://kame2house.blog96.fc2.com/blog-entry-7075.html This memorial board lies inside the grounds of Noshizato Shrine in Kuwana City, Mie Prefecture. It describes the origins of the 'Sennin-zuka', or 'Mound of the Thousand Bodies', said to contain the victims of the destruction of the Ise Nagashima Monto, as well as defeated members of the western army fleeing from the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Anyone taking the Kintetsu train line from Nagoya down to Tsu or Ise in Mie Prefecture will eventually come to a series of railway bridges spanning a series of wide rivers. These rivers, the banks of which are either covered in grass or have been converted into exercise paths and playing grounds, are the Kiso, Nagara, and Ibi, all of which flow down from the north, from Shiga, Fukui and Ishikawa Prefectures. Today these rivers are fairly non-descript bodies of water, the islands in-between them dotted with houses, small-scale factories, as well as a sports complex and an amusement park.
Yet more than 400 years ago, this relatively benign, peaceful landscape was the scene of horror.
What took place there was, in many ways, the culmination of a campaign that the sixteenth century warlord Oda Nobunaga had waged against the religious power of Ishiyama Honganji for over a decade.
Having managed to escape encirclement by a myriad of forces arranged against him (those forces aided to a significant degree by the machinations of the last Ashikaga shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiaki), Nobunaga used his considerable military and economic power to gradually eliminate all those who stood against his rule in central Japan – both secular and religious alike. Foremost among these, with a following numbering in the hundreds of thousands (some theories putting it into the millions), was Ishiyama Honganji.
Honganji had arisen from a fairly minor sect of the Jōdō faith around the Kyoto region in the fourteenth century. Through the activities of its second leader, Rennyō, and his offspring (the Jōdō Shinshū sect having allowed its priests to marry), the influence of the sect gradually grew throughout central, eastern and western Japan until it became the most prevalent Buddhist sect in the entire nation. This influence, coupled with a concurrent growth in wealth and secular power, made Honganji a rival to the many military and aristocratic families that had traditionally exercised control over territory and administrative positions.
The fact that Honganji was able to manipulate the faith of its followers to engage in military conflict against its enemies made it a dangerous opponent for any ambitious daimyō attempting to unite the country under his rule. Yet this is precisely the situation that Oda Nobunaga found himself in at the outset of the 1570s. While campaigning against the Asai and Asakura families of Ōmi province, time and again Nobunaga had found himself having to put down uprisings (or ikki) inspired by followers of the Honganji faith (also known as the Monto).
The continued threat presented by the Honganji Monto to Nobunaga’s plans meant that they had to be dealt with in a far more brutal manner than was considered the norm in an already brutal age (by this time, the central provinces of Japan had been the scene of conflict for over a century). The fact that many of the Monto were of common stock, peasants and tradespeople, led by lower level samurai known as jizamurai, no doubt played a role in informing the methods Nobunaga deployed against them.
The following chapter translation comes from the historical novel “Leon Ujisato” by Abe Ryūtarō. The novel ostensibly tells the tale of Gamō Ujisato, a retainer of Nobunaga from Ōmi province who would eventually become lord of Aizu province and convert to Christianity, taking the Christian name of ‘Leon’. Without doubt, Ujisato bore witness to many battles and sieges while in Nobunaga’s service, the brutality of the fighting and their tragic aftermath going some way in influencing his decision to convert and become a student of the famous tea master Sen Rikyū.
All this lay in the future, however. In 1574 Ujisato was part of Nobunaga’s forces preparing to invade Ise province to eliminate the Honganji threat present there in the form of the Monto at Nagashima. It is at this point that the story commences.
Before launching into the translation, I should warn readers that it does describe some fairly horrific acts committed against the Monto. Readers are advised to use their own discretion.
“Leon Ujisato” by Abe Ryūtarō
Extract from Chapter Six - Tragedy
With the defeat of the Asai, Asakura, and Rokkaku families and the destruction of Enryakuji, Takeda Katsuyori of Kai province and the religious institution of Osaka Honganji were all that was left of the ‘net’ that had been cast to encircle Oda Nobunaga.
The Ikkō Ikki, which rose in revolt under the authority of directives from Honganji, still retained a considerable degree of power, made up as it was of low-level retainers and rural samurai drawn together from various regions. Among these, it was the Ikki forces gathered at Nagashima in Ise province (modern Mie Prefecture) that presented the greatest threat.
Ise Nagashima is an estuary at the point at which the Kiso, Nagara, and Ibi rivers flow into Ise Bay. Since time immemorial, people living in the area had depended on boats for their livelihood, with most affiliated with the river and sea transport industries. For the Oda family, whose authority in the region centred on Tsushima island in the lower Kiso river, they had maintained good relations with the people of the area in order to firm up their control over transport on Ise Bay.
However following the call from Honganji to raise forces in opposition to the armies of Nobunaga, the region would be transformed into a battleground punctuated by utterly merciless fighting.
The emergence of this formidable enemy began in the fourth month of Tenshō 2 (1574). Ikki forces from Echizen, Ōmi, Kawachi and Kishū began to gather together, ultimately forming an army of some 50,000 followers. Among the various forces, the contingent from Kishū were by far the strongest, with many members drawn from the musket companies maintained by the Negoro and Saika (Saiga) Monto (or group of followers).
Saika is a part of the Kinai region of central Japan and had long been subject to Nobunaga’s trade controls. The Ikki forces there relied on their boats to make a living, and were known to trade with Awa Island, Tosa and Satsuma provinces, and as far as the Kingdom of Ryūkyū (Okinawa) where they bought up large quantities of saltpetre and lead. They then sold this to the forces of the Takeda in Kai and the Hōjō in the Kantō region of eastern Japan, making themselves very wealthy in the process.
“If we don’t fight them now, it will have grave consequences for us”. So recommended Takigawa Kazumasu, who had been appointed as overseer of the northern Ise region by the Oda. And yet Nobunaga made no attempt to move against the Ikki.
The reason for this was not purely the Ikki’s own doing. By drawing the Oda forces into Nagashima, Takeda Katsuyori would be able to strike Nobunaga in the back. Examining the situation and its potential outcome, on the fifth day of the sixth month of Tenshō 2, Tokugawa Ieyasu sent an urgent message to Nobunaga from his base in Hamamatsu. “At present, around 20,000 Takeda personnel have surrounded Takatenjin castle”.
Ieyasu well knew that he would not be able to fend off such a large army with his forces alone, and so had asked for assistance from Nobunaga in the form of troops.
To this, Nobunaga grinned smugly to himself, thinking “The fool. It makes it look as though we can’t wait them out.”
To be sure, there were no provisions available in Ise Nagashima to support a 50,000 strong army. For the Ikki force, which would have no choice but to send its reinforcements back to where they came from, having Katsuyori launch an attack on Takatenjin castle would thus provide a welcome distraction.
“Tell him that we’re coming, and not to start anything until we get there”
This is what Nobunaga told Ieyasu’s messenger. However Nobunaga himself did not leave Gifu until the 14th of the sixth month. Such was the slow pace at which the army advanced that it did not reach Lake Hamana until the 19th, by which time Nobunaga was informed that Takatenjin castle had fallen into Katsuyori’s hands.
It was behaviour very out of character for the normally fleet footed Nobunaga. However so concerned was Nobunaga about being attacked in the rear by the Nagashima Ikki that he took every precaution possible.
After meeting with Ieyasu at Yoshida castle, Nobunaga explained the situation. As compensation for allowing the loss of Takatenjin castle, he handed over to Ieyasu two sacks filled with gold bullion. According to the “Shinchō Kōki” (Official Record of Nobunaga), each sack was so heavy it took two people to lift them.
Having thus placated Ieyasu, Nobunaga made preparations to head back to Mikawa. Just before riding off, he addressed Ieyasu, saying “take that gold and put a stop to the Takeda advance west”. Having thus dealt with one issue, from the 13th of the seventh month Nobunaga would begin his campaign against Ise Nagashima. Drawing together a huge army of roughly 100,000 troops from the provinces of Mino, Owari, Ise, and Ōmi, Nobunaga made his preparations for a final showdown with the Ikki force.
Gamō Ujisato (who at the time went by the name of Chūsaburō) and Shibata Katsuie led a contingent of mounted troops to the front. The Shibata force would be tasked with seizing the castle of Ōtorii, located at Katori in the northwest of Nagashima, one of five castles controlled by the Ikki force.
This presented an ideal opportunity. Chūsaburō was a keen student of Nobunaga’s tactics, and together with Wada Sanzemon and Hino Yajirō Gorō climbed up Mt. Tado. From the peak of the mountain, 400 metres above sea level, Chūsaburō was able to grasp the layout of the land in front of him at a glance.
The Kiso, Nagara, and Ibi rivers all converge at the point that the rivers meet the sea in the south, forming a wide river almost like a sea itself and which rolls on into Ise Bay. At the centre of the river’s mouth is a long island stretching out to the north-west by the name of Nagashima, while the west bank consists of three islands known as Ōtorii, Okunagashima, and Nakae. This is where the Ikki force had constructed five castles. The sides of the castles were protected by dual palisades which also permitted boats to enter and leave as necessary. The castles were also mutually reinforcing, allowing nothing to slip through without a challenge. They were, in other words, sea-borne castles that would prove very difficult to assault.
The Oda force, confronting this problem, decided to lay siege to the castles from four directions at once and arranged their camp accordingly. In the north-east Nobunaga made his camp at Hayao, while in the east at Ichie lay Nobutada. At Katori in the north-west lay the forces of Sakuma Nobumori and Shibata Katsuie, while in the west at Kuwana lay Nobunaga’s second son Nobukatsu, himself adopted from the aristocratic Kitabatake household.
In the south, floating on the sea, Takigawa Kazumasu and Kuki Yoshitaka had gathered together a small armada of around 100 boats made up of transport and fast boats. This enormous force, altogether over 100,000 personnel strong, thus appeared to smother both the river and sea in boats.
“That is our target”
Chūsaburō extended his whip, pointing at the castle at Ōtorii. At the same time he asked Sanzaemon how he would go about attacking it.
The island itself was of a circular shape upon which an Ikki force of around 10,000 followers had gathered. In the space between the palisades earth mounds had been raised for protection, thus showing that the defenders were prepared for a musketry duel. Throughout the island, large scale flags bearing the holy inscription “Namu Amida Butsu” had been raised, and which were now fluttering in the sea breeze .
“There’s little point in coming up with a plan to draw them out. We should attack them head-on with a full-scale assault”.
To make a landing on the island, Sanzaemon had gathered together an array of paddy boats that were both wide and shallow. The plan was to set up shields on the sides of the boats to provide protection for the crew. From there the crew could continue to shoot their muskets as they made landfall on the island.
“With this much arrayed against them, there’s no chance that the Ikki will succeed. Do you think that they’ll just give up?”
Jirō Gorō was a member of the Honganji Monto and so had a degree of sympathy with the Ikki force. The name Hino came from Hinomaki Gokadera, a subsidiary temple of Honganji. Its congregation, both retainers and residents, had many Monto members. Among the force arrayed against the Oda on the other side of the palisade were people who had forsaken their ties to the Gamō family to join the Ikki.
“While there’s no chance for the Ikki to succeed, we won’t permit them to surrender either”
Chūsaburō well understood just how mercilessly Nobunaga planned to wage this battle.
“What the hell does that mean? Are you saying that we’re going to kill them all?”
“Jirō Gorō, you forget your place”, Sanzaemon admonished in a low voice.
Nobody wanted such a thing to happen. Yet many of the warriors present began to realise that there was no other way of preventing this from turning into a long, drawn out conflict.
On the 15th of the seventh month, Nobunaga ordered an all-out attack.
The Oda forces launched their transport and fast boats from all four directions and proceeded to open fire with muskets and cannon on the five Ikki castles. The Ikki force responded with cannon and fire arrows of their own, yet the firepower arrayed against them by the Oda force was overwhelming and soon put them purely on the defensive.
It was at this point that Chūsaburō launched his attack on Ōtorii castle.
Paddy boats had a good degree of stability for the three musket companies that Chūsaburō had prepared for the assault, and wouldn’t tip over even if they ran over a sand bank. Chūsaburō divided up his 300 troops among the boats, and after floating them down river landed at Ōtorii.
The Ikki force proceeded to fire their muskets at this new threat from the top of their earth mound defences. In response, Chūsaburō peered out from between the gaps in the shields of the paddy boats. Judging when the enemy had expended its ammunition, he then sent his long spear squads in to attack the gaps in the palisades.
Hand-to-hand fighting around the palisades, with each side grabbing at the other’s spears, lasted for around an hour. Yet still the Oda force could not break the castle’s defences.
Chūsaburō decided to withdraw all of his troops. Taking them back to their landing place, they proceeded to construct earth mounds of their own and wait for reinforcements.
It was the same situation at all of the other castles. Despite landing on the islands, the Oda force had been unable to break through the dual palisades around each castle. And so the decision was made to set up camp and lay siege to the castles.
For the Ikki force, whose contact with the outside world had been completely cut off, a lack of fresh water began to have a more serious impact than the loss of troops. There were no wells in any of the five castles. If they dug into the earth, their proximity to the sea meant that all that came out was salt water. The thinking had been that since they were close to rivers, they could use that water and so there was no need to dig any wells. Yet the force surrounding them was so overwhelming and its security on such high alert that the Ikki force soon found that it couldn’t venture out to fetch any water.
It was clear to all how this was going to end. The Ikki force would eventually surrender only to rise again somewhere else. Yet Nobunaga would not allow this to happen. If he did permit the Ikki force to leave, they would only drift along to another province and once again revolt against his rule.
In order to force them to obey, Nobunaga would have to make them give up their beliefs. Yet given that the Monto’s only desire was to be reborn in the Pure Land (Jōdō), they would rather die than go against Honganji’s teachings.
(“Well, that’s that then. They will have to be cut off at the roots”)
Having made his fateful decision, Nobunaga gave the order for security around each castle to be increased.
The siege of Ise Nagashima went on for three months. Within the castles, starvation and thirst soon began to take their toll. According to the ‘Shinchō Kōki’… “As the siege went on for three months, the number of dead reached half (of the Ikki force)”.
This was a tragedy for the Ikki force, yet the burden on the Oda force, which had mobilised a large army and which now had to maintain a siege, was also significant. Criticism of Nobunaga’s methods among society in general began to grow, gradually putting the Oda force in a difficult position.
The 19th of the ninth month proved to be a fateful day. While promising the Ikki force that it would be able to surrender, Nobunaga planned to train his muskets on the Ikki force when it tried to leave by boat and ensure that none got out alive.
Having been forced into such dire circumstances, the Ikki force decided to make a desperate counter-attack. Seven or eight hundred members of their force stripped off, sank into the water, and made their way towards the Oda camp to assault them.
The Oda force, unaware from which direction the enemy had suddenly appeared to launch their attack, were cut down in great numbers by the Monto and their leaders and disgraced themselves by allowing the Monto to escape. Enraged that this had been allowed to happen, Nobunaga ordered that some 20,000 people, old and young, male and female, who had fled to Yanagashima and Nakae to escape the worst of the fighting, be herded into one corner of the same area, attacked with flames from all four directions and burned to death.
For those who had been hiding in ditches and small shacks and shanties, the approach of flames driven from dwellings that had already been set on fire soon forced many to abandon their places of shelter. The groups of musketeers and archers surrounding them then cut them down mercilessly in a shower of bullets and arrows.
Those who could no longer escape were engulfed in flames, and they screamed and wailed hideously as they burned.
The leaders of the Ikki soon found the building that they had retreated into was on fire. The enormous thatched roof proceeded to slowly burn. The gates of the castle, which until this time had remained firmly closed, finally opened. Out came around 100 young women, all of them almost completely naked, holding infants that were still teething and others only months old. It seems the leaders had chosen to play the only hand they had left, pleading that the Oda force spare the children.
Observing all this from the other side of the palisade, a roar like a beast starved of its share of blood went up among the Oda force. The gates to the palisade were flung open and men rushed forward, jostling with one another to seize hold of one of the women. No one made any effort to save the children.
Those children that tried to get away were surrounded and impaled on cross shaped and single bladed spears. They were then hoisted into the air and placed in the gaps between the palisades. Any children who had not already succumbed to their wounds became targets for the musketeers to practice their skills and were shot through the head.
Chūsaburō witnessed all this from his vantage point at Ōtorii.
Piercing screams that assailed the ears, roaring flames sending ash and smoke up into the heavens, the smell of burning flesh mixed in with the passing breeze. All this Chūsaburō took in with all of his senses, the horror of war rendered so vividly that he found himself unable to move.
“This can’t be happening. This isn’t something that humans do”.
So sobbed Jirō Gorō as he crouched down, and unable to take any more proceeded to throw up.
The musket companies under Sanzemon’s command also stood up, astonished at the tragedy unfolding before them.
(“Is this…is this what idealistic people do?”)
No, it can’t be, Chūsaburō thought for a moment before dismissing it from his mind.
And yet, Chūsaburō well understood Nobunaga’s feelings, that if Nobunaga did not do this and go this far, then the country would never change. Chūsaburō knew that there was no other way for a warrior to live than to obey commands.
(“Yet is this really the way it should be?”)
Amid a shocking scene that could rend heaven from earth, Chūsaburō asked himself this question again and again, cursing himself that he had lived this long without ever having held a set of beliefs.
Yet more than 400 years ago, this relatively benign, peaceful landscape was the scene of horror.
What took place there was, in many ways, the culmination of a campaign that the sixteenth century warlord Oda Nobunaga had waged against the religious power of Ishiyama Honganji for over a decade.
Having managed to escape encirclement by a myriad of forces arranged against him (those forces aided to a significant degree by the machinations of the last Ashikaga shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiaki), Nobunaga used his considerable military and economic power to gradually eliminate all those who stood against his rule in central Japan – both secular and religious alike. Foremost among these, with a following numbering in the hundreds of thousands (some theories putting it into the millions), was Ishiyama Honganji.
Honganji had arisen from a fairly minor sect of the Jōdō faith around the Kyoto region in the fourteenth century. Through the activities of its second leader, Rennyō, and his offspring (the Jōdō Shinshū sect having allowed its priests to marry), the influence of the sect gradually grew throughout central, eastern and western Japan until it became the most prevalent Buddhist sect in the entire nation. This influence, coupled with a concurrent growth in wealth and secular power, made Honganji a rival to the many military and aristocratic families that had traditionally exercised control over territory and administrative positions.
The fact that Honganji was able to manipulate the faith of its followers to engage in military conflict against its enemies made it a dangerous opponent for any ambitious daimyō attempting to unite the country under his rule. Yet this is precisely the situation that Oda Nobunaga found himself in at the outset of the 1570s. While campaigning against the Asai and Asakura families of Ōmi province, time and again Nobunaga had found himself having to put down uprisings (or ikki) inspired by followers of the Honganji faith (also known as the Monto).
The continued threat presented by the Honganji Monto to Nobunaga’s plans meant that they had to be dealt with in a far more brutal manner than was considered the norm in an already brutal age (by this time, the central provinces of Japan had been the scene of conflict for over a century). The fact that many of the Monto were of common stock, peasants and tradespeople, led by lower level samurai known as jizamurai, no doubt played a role in informing the methods Nobunaga deployed against them.
The following chapter translation comes from the historical novel “Leon Ujisato” by Abe Ryūtarō. The novel ostensibly tells the tale of Gamō Ujisato, a retainer of Nobunaga from Ōmi province who would eventually become lord of Aizu province and convert to Christianity, taking the Christian name of ‘Leon’. Without doubt, Ujisato bore witness to many battles and sieges while in Nobunaga’s service, the brutality of the fighting and their tragic aftermath going some way in influencing his decision to convert and become a student of the famous tea master Sen Rikyū.
All this lay in the future, however. In 1574 Ujisato was part of Nobunaga’s forces preparing to invade Ise province to eliminate the Honganji threat present there in the form of the Monto at Nagashima. It is at this point that the story commences.
Before launching into the translation, I should warn readers that it does describe some fairly horrific acts committed against the Monto. Readers are advised to use their own discretion.
“Leon Ujisato” by Abe Ryūtarō
Extract from Chapter Six - Tragedy
With the defeat of the Asai, Asakura, and Rokkaku families and the destruction of Enryakuji, Takeda Katsuyori of Kai province and the religious institution of Osaka Honganji were all that was left of the ‘net’ that had been cast to encircle Oda Nobunaga.
The Ikkō Ikki, which rose in revolt under the authority of directives from Honganji, still retained a considerable degree of power, made up as it was of low-level retainers and rural samurai drawn together from various regions. Among these, it was the Ikki forces gathered at Nagashima in Ise province (modern Mie Prefecture) that presented the greatest threat.
Ise Nagashima is an estuary at the point at which the Kiso, Nagara, and Ibi rivers flow into Ise Bay. Since time immemorial, people living in the area had depended on boats for their livelihood, with most affiliated with the river and sea transport industries. For the Oda family, whose authority in the region centred on Tsushima island in the lower Kiso river, they had maintained good relations with the people of the area in order to firm up their control over transport on Ise Bay.
However following the call from Honganji to raise forces in opposition to the armies of Nobunaga, the region would be transformed into a battleground punctuated by utterly merciless fighting.
The emergence of this formidable enemy began in the fourth month of Tenshō 2 (1574). Ikki forces from Echizen, Ōmi, Kawachi and Kishū began to gather together, ultimately forming an army of some 50,000 followers. Among the various forces, the contingent from Kishū were by far the strongest, with many members drawn from the musket companies maintained by the Negoro and Saika (Saiga) Monto (or group of followers).
Saika is a part of the Kinai region of central Japan and had long been subject to Nobunaga’s trade controls. The Ikki forces there relied on their boats to make a living, and were known to trade with Awa Island, Tosa and Satsuma provinces, and as far as the Kingdom of Ryūkyū (Okinawa) where they bought up large quantities of saltpetre and lead. They then sold this to the forces of the Takeda in Kai and the Hōjō in the Kantō region of eastern Japan, making themselves very wealthy in the process.
“If we don’t fight them now, it will have grave consequences for us”. So recommended Takigawa Kazumasu, who had been appointed as overseer of the northern Ise region by the Oda. And yet Nobunaga made no attempt to move against the Ikki.
The reason for this was not purely the Ikki’s own doing. By drawing the Oda forces into Nagashima, Takeda Katsuyori would be able to strike Nobunaga in the back. Examining the situation and its potential outcome, on the fifth day of the sixth month of Tenshō 2, Tokugawa Ieyasu sent an urgent message to Nobunaga from his base in Hamamatsu. “At present, around 20,000 Takeda personnel have surrounded Takatenjin castle”.
Ieyasu well knew that he would not be able to fend off such a large army with his forces alone, and so had asked for assistance from Nobunaga in the form of troops.
To this, Nobunaga grinned smugly to himself, thinking “The fool. It makes it look as though we can’t wait them out.”
To be sure, there were no provisions available in Ise Nagashima to support a 50,000 strong army. For the Ikki force, which would have no choice but to send its reinforcements back to where they came from, having Katsuyori launch an attack on Takatenjin castle would thus provide a welcome distraction.
“Tell him that we’re coming, and not to start anything until we get there”
This is what Nobunaga told Ieyasu’s messenger. However Nobunaga himself did not leave Gifu until the 14th of the sixth month. Such was the slow pace at which the army advanced that it did not reach Lake Hamana until the 19th, by which time Nobunaga was informed that Takatenjin castle had fallen into Katsuyori’s hands.
It was behaviour very out of character for the normally fleet footed Nobunaga. However so concerned was Nobunaga about being attacked in the rear by the Nagashima Ikki that he took every precaution possible.
After meeting with Ieyasu at Yoshida castle, Nobunaga explained the situation. As compensation for allowing the loss of Takatenjin castle, he handed over to Ieyasu two sacks filled with gold bullion. According to the “Shinchō Kōki” (Official Record of Nobunaga), each sack was so heavy it took two people to lift them.
Having thus placated Ieyasu, Nobunaga made preparations to head back to Mikawa. Just before riding off, he addressed Ieyasu, saying “take that gold and put a stop to the Takeda advance west”. Having thus dealt with one issue, from the 13th of the seventh month Nobunaga would begin his campaign against Ise Nagashima. Drawing together a huge army of roughly 100,000 troops from the provinces of Mino, Owari, Ise, and Ōmi, Nobunaga made his preparations for a final showdown with the Ikki force.
Gamō Ujisato (who at the time went by the name of Chūsaburō) and Shibata Katsuie led a contingent of mounted troops to the front. The Shibata force would be tasked with seizing the castle of Ōtorii, located at Katori in the northwest of Nagashima, one of five castles controlled by the Ikki force.
This presented an ideal opportunity. Chūsaburō was a keen student of Nobunaga’s tactics, and together with Wada Sanzemon and Hino Yajirō Gorō climbed up Mt. Tado. From the peak of the mountain, 400 metres above sea level, Chūsaburō was able to grasp the layout of the land in front of him at a glance.
The Kiso, Nagara, and Ibi rivers all converge at the point that the rivers meet the sea in the south, forming a wide river almost like a sea itself and which rolls on into Ise Bay. At the centre of the river’s mouth is a long island stretching out to the north-west by the name of Nagashima, while the west bank consists of three islands known as Ōtorii, Okunagashima, and Nakae. This is where the Ikki force had constructed five castles. The sides of the castles were protected by dual palisades which also permitted boats to enter and leave as necessary. The castles were also mutually reinforcing, allowing nothing to slip through without a challenge. They were, in other words, sea-borne castles that would prove very difficult to assault.
The Oda force, confronting this problem, decided to lay siege to the castles from four directions at once and arranged their camp accordingly. In the north-east Nobunaga made his camp at Hayao, while in the east at Ichie lay Nobutada. At Katori in the north-west lay the forces of Sakuma Nobumori and Shibata Katsuie, while in the west at Kuwana lay Nobunaga’s second son Nobukatsu, himself adopted from the aristocratic Kitabatake household.
In the south, floating on the sea, Takigawa Kazumasu and Kuki Yoshitaka had gathered together a small armada of around 100 boats made up of transport and fast boats. This enormous force, altogether over 100,000 personnel strong, thus appeared to smother both the river and sea in boats.
“That is our target”
Chūsaburō extended his whip, pointing at the castle at Ōtorii. At the same time he asked Sanzaemon how he would go about attacking it.
The island itself was of a circular shape upon which an Ikki force of around 10,000 followers had gathered. In the space between the palisades earth mounds had been raised for protection, thus showing that the defenders were prepared for a musketry duel. Throughout the island, large scale flags bearing the holy inscription “Namu Amida Butsu” had been raised, and which were now fluttering in the sea breeze .
“There’s little point in coming up with a plan to draw them out. We should attack them head-on with a full-scale assault”.
To make a landing on the island, Sanzaemon had gathered together an array of paddy boats that were both wide and shallow. The plan was to set up shields on the sides of the boats to provide protection for the crew. From there the crew could continue to shoot their muskets as they made landfall on the island.
“With this much arrayed against them, there’s no chance that the Ikki will succeed. Do you think that they’ll just give up?”
Jirō Gorō was a member of the Honganji Monto and so had a degree of sympathy with the Ikki force. The name Hino came from Hinomaki Gokadera, a subsidiary temple of Honganji. Its congregation, both retainers and residents, had many Monto members. Among the force arrayed against the Oda on the other side of the palisade were people who had forsaken their ties to the Gamō family to join the Ikki.
“While there’s no chance for the Ikki to succeed, we won’t permit them to surrender either”
Chūsaburō well understood just how mercilessly Nobunaga planned to wage this battle.
“What the hell does that mean? Are you saying that we’re going to kill them all?”
“Jirō Gorō, you forget your place”, Sanzaemon admonished in a low voice.
Nobody wanted such a thing to happen. Yet many of the warriors present began to realise that there was no other way of preventing this from turning into a long, drawn out conflict.
On the 15th of the seventh month, Nobunaga ordered an all-out attack.
The Oda forces launched their transport and fast boats from all four directions and proceeded to open fire with muskets and cannon on the five Ikki castles. The Ikki force responded with cannon and fire arrows of their own, yet the firepower arrayed against them by the Oda force was overwhelming and soon put them purely on the defensive.
It was at this point that Chūsaburō launched his attack on Ōtorii castle.
Paddy boats had a good degree of stability for the three musket companies that Chūsaburō had prepared for the assault, and wouldn’t tip over even if they ran over a sand bank. Chūsaburō divided up his 300 troops among the boats, and after floating them down river landed at Ōtorii.
The Ikki force proceeded to fire their muskets at this new threat from the top of their earth mound defences. In response, Chūsaburō peered out from between the gaps in the shields of the paddy boats. Judging when the enemy had expended its ammunition, he then sent his long spear squads in to attack the gaps in the palisades.
Hand-to-hand fighting around the palisades, with each side grabbing at the other’s spears, lasted for around an hour. Yet still the Oda force could not break the castle’s defences.
Chūsaburō decided to withdraw all of his troops. Taking them back to their landing place, they proceeded to construct earth mounds of their own and wait for reinforcements.
It was the same situation at all of the other castles. Despite landing on the islands, the Oda force had been unable to break through the dual palisades around each castle. And so the decision was made to set up camp and lay siege to the castles.
For the Ikki force, whose contact with the outside world had been completely cut off, a lack of fresh water began to have a more serious impact than the loss of troops. There were no wells in any of the five castles. If they dug into the earth, their proximity to the sea meant that all that came out was salt water. The thinking had been that since they were close to rivers, they could use that water and so there was no need to dig any wells. Yet the force surrounding them was so overwhelming and its security on such high alert that the Ikki force soon found that it couldn’t venture out to fetch any water.
It was clear to all how this was going to end. The Ikki force would eventually surrender only to rise again somewhere else. Yet Nobunaga would not allow this to happen. If he did permit the Ikki force to leave, they would only drift along to another province and once again revolt against his rule.
In order to force them to obey, Nobunaga would have to make them give up their beliefs. Yet given that the Monto’s only desire was to be reborn in the Pure Land (Jōdō), they would rather die than go against Honganji’s teachings.
(“Well, that’s that then. They will have to be cut off at the roots”)
Having made his fateful decision, Nobunaga gave the order for security around each castle to be increased.
The siege of Ise Nagashima went on for three months. Within the castles, starvation and thirst soon began to take their toll. According to the ‘Shinchō Kōki’… “As the siege went on for three months, the number of dead reached half (of the Ikki force)”.
This was a tragedy for the Ikki force, yet the burden on the Oda force, which had mobilised a large army and which now had to maintain a siege, was also significant. Criticism of Nobunaga’s methods among society in general began to grow, gradually putting the Oda force in a difficult position.
The 19th of the ninth month proved to be a fateful day. While promising the Ikki force that it would be able to surrender, Nobunaga planned to train his muskets on the Ikki force when it tried to leave by boat and ensure that none got out alive.
Having been forced into such dire circumstances, the Ikki force decided to make a desperate counter-attack. Seven or eight hundred members of their force stripped off, sank into the water, and made their way towards the Oda camp to assault them.
The Oda force, unaware from which direction the enemy had suddenly appeared to launch their attack, were cut down in great numbers by the Monto and their leaders and disgraced themselves by allowing the Monto to escape. Enraged that this had been allowed to happen, Nobunaga ordered that some 20,000 people, old and young, male and female, who had fled to Yanagashima and Nakae to escape the worst of the fighting, be herded into one corner of the same area, attacked with flames from all four directions and burned to death.
For those who had been hiding in ditches and small shacks and shanties, the approach of flames driven from dwellings that had already been set on fire soon forced many to abandon their places of shelter. The groups of musketeers and archers surrounding them then cut them down mercilessly in a shower of bullets and arrows.
Those who could no longer escape were engulfed in flames, and they screamed and wailed hideously as they burned.
The leaders of the Ikki soon found the building that they had retreated into was on fire. The enormous thatched roof proceeded to slowly burn. The gates of the castle, which until this time had remained firmly closed, finally opened. Out came around 100 young women, all of them almost completely naked, holding infants that were still teething and others only months old. It seems the leaders had chosen to play the only hand they had left, pleading that the Oda force spare the children.
Observing all this from the other side of the palisade, a roar like a beast starved of its share of blood went up among the Oda force. The gates to the palisade were flung open and men rushed forward, jostling with one another to seize hold of one of the women. No one made any effort to save the children.
Those children that tried to get away were surrounded and impaled on cross shaped and single bladed spears. They were then hoisted into the air and placed in the gaps between the palisades. Any children who had not already succumbed to their wounds became targets for the musketeers to practice their skills and were shot through the head.
Chūsaburō witnessed all this from his vantage point at Ōtorii.
Piercing screams that assailed the ears, roaring flames sending ash and smoke up into the heavens, the smell of burning flesh mixed in with the passing breeze. All this Chūsaburō took in with all of his senses, the horror of war rendered so vividly that he found himself unable to move.
“This can’t be happening. This isn’t something that humans do”.
So sobbed Jirō Gorō as he crouched down, and unable to take any more proceeded to throw up.
The musket companies under Sanzemon’s command also stood up, astonished at the tragedy unfolding before them.
(“Is this…is this what idealistic people do?”)
No, it can’t be, Chūsaburō thought for a moment before dismissing it from his mind.
And yet, Chūsaburō well understood Nobunaga’s feelings, that if Nobunaga did not do this and go this far, then the country would never change. Chūsaburō knew that there was no other way for a warrior to live than to obey commands.
(“Yet is this really the way it should be?”)
Amid a shocking scene that could rend heaven from earth, Chūsaburō asked himself this question again and again, cursing himself that he had lived this long without ever having held a set of beliefs.
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