Battle of Nagakute
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| Battle of Nagakute | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Sengoku period | |||||||
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| Combatants | |||||||
| forces of Toyotomi Hideyoshi | forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Ikeda Nobuteru, Hori Hidemasa | Mizuno Tadashige, Tokugawa Ieyasu | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Under 20,000 | 9000 | ||||||
| Campaigns of Toyotomi Hideyoshi |
|---|
| Kōzuki – Itami – Miki – Tottori – Takamatsu – Yamazaki – Uchide-hama – Shizugatake – Komaki – Nagakute – Kaganoi – Takehana – Kanie – Toyama – Negoroji – Ōta Castle – Shikoku & Ichinomiya – Takajō – Ganjaku – Akizuki – Sendaigawa – Kagoshima – Hachigata – Odawara – Shimoda – Korea |
| Campaigns of Tokugawa Ieyasu |
|---|
| Kakegawa - Anegawa - Futamata - Mikata ga Hara - Yoshida - Nagashino - Temmokuzan - Komaki - Nagakute - Sekigahara |
The battle of Nagakute (長久手の戦い Nagakute no tatakai?), along with the preceding battle of Komaki, represents the climax of the conflict between two of Japan's greatest warlords, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Following the battle of Komaki, Tokugawa fortified Komakiyama, creating a stalemate there. Thus, Ikeda Nobuteru, one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's chief commanders, decided to begin raids through neighboring Mikawa Province with an army numbering 20,000. Tokugawa expected this, and led a force to follow Hideyoshi's. Mizuno Tadashige led Tokugawa's rearguard against Ikeda's force, and the noise of the battle alerted Hori Hidemasa, the head of one of Hideyoshi's divisions.
Hori Hidemasa led his men to the defense of his comrades, taking up position in the village of Nagakute. He held off the initial Tokugawa attacks, but was forced to withdraw as the main body of the Tokugawa army, numbering some 9000 warriors, arrived.
The battle proper began as Ikeda's men opened fire with their arquebuses at the Ii family divisions of the Tokugawa force, and then charged at them. Mori Nagayoshi, another of Hideyoshi's commanders, waited until Tokugawa moved in to support the Ii, so that he could flank them.
However, Tokugawa charged forward, rather than swinging around, and so avoided the flanking maneuver. Mori Nagayoshi was shot off his horse, demoralizing Ikeda's force. Ikeda's head was taken soon afterwards, and despite Hideyoshi's arrival with reinforcements, both armies withdrew, unwilling to risk further casualties.
- Turnbull, Stephen (1998). 'The Samurai Sourcebook'. London: Cassell & Co.