The Road Out of Kanegasaki

Oda Nobunaga ran — and the man who held the road open for him would one day rule Japan.

The message arrived while Nobunaga was still counting his victories.

In the spring of 1570, Oda Nobunaga (織田信長, Oda Nobunaga) marched into Echizen Province at the order of the shogun 足利義昭 (Ashikaga Yoshiaki, Ashikaga Yoshiaki), who demanded punishment for the Asakura clan's repeated refusals to come to the capital. Nobunaga captured Kanegasaki Castle and seemed to have the initiative. Then the news came: his brother-in-law, Azai Nagamasa (浅井長政, Azai Nagamasa) — bound to Nobunaga by a marriage alliance cemented when Nobunaga gave his sister 市 (Oichi, Oichi) to Nagamasa three years earlier — had broken ranks. The Azai had a generations-old loyalty to the Asakura that predated any arrangement with the Oda. Nagamasa chose the old bond. His army was moving to seal off the mountain passes south, cutting off Nobunaga's retreat.

Nobunaga was caught in the worst tactical position imaginable: enemy forces pressing from the north (Asakura) and from the south and east (Azai), in a narrow coastal corridor where the mountains met the sea and there was no room to maneuver. The correct word for his situation was not 'outnumbered.' It was 'surrounded.'

He ordered an immediate withdrawal toward Kyoto. The rearguard command — the most dangerous assignment in any retreat, the men who absorb the enemy's full pressure so everyone else can escape — fell to Kinoshita Tokichiro (木下藤吉郎, Kinoshita Tokichiro). He was not a great lord. He had no lineage, no castle, no family name worth recording. Born a peasant, he had attached himself to Nobunaga's service young, carried his sandals, showed such unusual intelligence that he was given command of a small unit, and rose from there by the force of his own will. His nickname among the troops was 猿 (saru) — 'monkey' — given for his quick, wiry looks. He was not the sort of man you would entrust with your life.

Akechi Mitsuhide (明智光秀, Akechi Mitsuhide) and Ikeda Katsumasa (池田勝正, Ikeda Katsumasa) shared the rearguard command. Roughly three thousand men against the pursuing Asakura. Their instructions were simple: hold the road long enough for Nobunaga's main column to reach safety. The distance they needed to buy was miles through mountain passes. The time they needed to buy was hours they might not have.

They used what they had: the arquebus, terrain, and deception. Feigned retreats that drew Asakura cavalry into killing grounds. Volleys timed to hit as the enemy closed. The rear guard did not rout. They delayed — which is harder, and costs more.

Nobunaga reached Kyoto.

There is a legend that Nobunaga received one other warning before the Azai turned: his own sister Oichi (お市, Oichi) sent him a small sack of beans, tied at both ends, before the campaign began. The message, if message it was, went unread. A sack tied at both ends means: you will be attacked from both directions. According to some accounts, she was trying to warn her brother even as she remained loyal to her husband. The story is repeated in popular tradition, though primary sources do not confirm it — it comes from later historical chronicles rather than contemporary records. What is confirmed is that when Azai Nagamasa eventually died — committing seppuku (切腹, seppuku) after the fall of Odani Castle in 1573 — he let Oichi and their daughters leave safely before the end.

Those daughters became consequential. The eldest, Yodo-dono (淀殿, Yodo-dono), would become Toyotomi Hideyoshi's consort and the mother of his heir. The youngest, Oeyo (お江, Oeyo), would marry Tokugawa Hidetada (徳川秀忠, Tokugawa Hidetada), the second Tokugawa shogun. The children born from Nagamasa's betrayal bloodline shaped two successive dynasties.

As for Kinoshita Tokichiro: Kanegasaki was his proof. After this, Nobunaga knew exactly who he was dealing with. He gave his 'monkey' greater commands, then greater still. By 1573 Tokichiro had been given a castle and a new name: Hashiba Hideyoshi (羽柴秀吉, Hashiba Hideyoshi). By 1582 he had become Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉, Toyotomi Hideyoshi), ruler of Japan in all but title. The retreat at Kanegasaki was not a footnote. It was the audition.

And the other rearguard commander — Akechi Mitsuhide? He held the road open at Kanegasaki in 1570. In June 1582, twelve years later, he sent a dawn assault against Nobunaga's lodgings at the Honnoji (本能寺, Honnoji) temple in Kyoto and killed him. The man who saved Nobunaga became the man who ended him. The 金ヶ崎の退き口 (Kanegasaki no nokikuchi) set both of their fates in motion.

The Ripple

Nobunaga regrouped immediately. Within three months he allied with Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康, Tokugawa Ieyasu) and crushed the Azai-Asakura forces at the Battle of Anegawa (姉川の戦い, Anegawa no Tatakai) in July 1570. Both clans were destroyed by 1573. The Azai's betrayal delayed Nobunaga's unification campaign but did not stop it — and Hideyoshi's heroics at Kanegasaki accelerated his rise so dramatically that within fifteen years this sandal-carrier of peasant origin had become the de facto ruler of Japan. Without the crisis at Kanegasaki, there is no Hideyoshi as Nobunaga's successor, and arguably no unified Japan.

Spotlight

殿軍 (dengon)

dengon

殿軍 (dengon) — 'the rear army,' or rearguard — describes the soldiers assigned to face the enemy's full force while the main army escapes. In Sengoku warfare, accepting the rearguard post was understood to be a near-death sentence: you fought outnumbered, unsupported, with no reinforcement coming. At Kanegasaki, Hideyoshi accepted the assignment without hesitation. The word carries a weight that 'rearguard' in English does not quite convey — to serve the 殿軍 (dengon) was to place your body between your lord and destruction, asking for nothing in return.

Did You Know?

Kanegasaki Castle sat at the edge of a narrow coastal corridor where the mountains pressed almost to the sea — beautiful terrain for an ambush, catastrophic terrain for a retreat. When the news of Azai's betrayal arrived, Nobunaga was estimated to have a day, perhaps less, before the trap closed. Hideyoshi at this point was still known to most as 'monkey' — small, restless, of no account by birth — a man who had started his career carrying Nobunaga's sandals. The arquebus volleys his rearguard fired into the mountain passes that afternoon bought the main army the hours it needed. Twelve years later, Akechi Mitsuhide — Hideyoshi's co-commander in that same rear guard — marched his army against Nobunaga at Honnoji and ended his life.

Also on This Day

1689: On or around this date in 1689, the haiku master Matsuo Bashō (松尾芭蕉, Matsuo Bashō) departed Edo on foot, beginning the journey that would become 奥の細道 (Oku no Hosomichi, Oku no Hosomichi) — 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North.' He was 45 years old, had given away most of his possessions, and expected he might not return alive. The resulting travel diary, completed and published by 1702, is widely considered the greatest work of Japanese prose poetry ever written.