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January 5-6, 1569 (Eiroku 12)
Honkokuji temple, Kyoto, Yamashiro Province (present-day Yamashina Ward, Kyoto)
About 12 min read
In the fifth month of 1565 (Eiroku 8), the thirteenth shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru was attacked at the Nijō residence by forces under Matsunaga Hisamichi allied with the Miyoshi Triumvirate—Miyoshi Nagayasu, Miyoshi Sōi, and Iwanari Tomomichi—and killed after a desperate fight (the Eiroku Incident). With the shogunate left headless, Yoshiteru's younger brother, the monk Ichijōin Kakukei, returned to lay life as Ashikaga Yoshiaki and put himself forward as the next shogun, but the Miyoshi Triumvirate blocked his entry into Kyoto, forcing him into years of wandering exile. Meanwhile, the Triumvirate installed Yoshiteru's cousin Ashikaga Yoshihide as the fourteenth shogun and ran their own administration.
After relying first on Asakura Yoshikage of Echizen, Yoshiaki eventually placed himself under the protection of Oda Nobunaga, who by then controlled Owari and Mino. In the ninth month of 1568 (Eiroku 11), Nobunaga marched on Kyoto at the head of a large army in Yoshiaki's name, brushing aside resistance from the Miyoshi Triumvirate and the Rokkaku clan and pacifying the capital region within a short campaign. On October 18 of that year, Yoshiaki received the imperial appointment as Sei'i Taishōgun, formally becoming the fifteenth shogun. Honkokuji, a Nichiren temple in Kyoto's Rokujō district, was chosen as his temporary residence. Having accomplished his aim, Nobunaga returned to his home province of Mino that November.
Seeing Nobunaga's departure from the capital region as an opportunity, the Miyoshi Triumvirate regrouped their forces around Kawachi and Awa provinces and prepared a counterattack aimed at retaking Kyoto and eliminating Yoshiaki. On January 4, 1569 (Eiroku 12), the Triumvirate's army moved to cut off Yoshiaki's escape routes, and in the early hours of January 5 they broke into the capital and surrounded and attacked Honkokuji. Their ranks were swelled by commanders with their own grudges against the Nobunaga-Yoshiaki regime—Saitō Tatsuoki, driven from Mino by the Oda, and Ogasawara Sadayasu (along with Ogasawara Nobusada), driven from Shinano by the Takeda—and the chronicle Ashikaga Kiseiki records their total strength at "over ten thousand."
Stationed at Honkokuji alongside Yoshiaki himself were Akechi Mitsuhide, who had guarded him since the march on Kyoto, along with the shogunal retainers Hosokawa Fujikata and Mitsubuchi Fujihide. This makes the Honkokuji Incident notable as one of the earliest reliably documented military actions of Akechi Mitsuhide's career. Though the temple's defenses were far from adequate, the small garrison fought fiercely and held out through a night of attack.
News of the assault on Honkokuji reached the allied commanders of the capital region almost immediately. On January 6, forces under Miyoshi Yoshitsugu of Kawachi (head of the main Miyoshi house, who had sided with Nobunaga), Hosokawa Fujitaka rushing in from Tanba, Ikeda Katsumasa of Settsu, and Araki Murashige converged one after another near the Katsura River, positioning themselves to strike the besieging Triumvirate forces from behind. Caught in this pincer, the Miyoshi Triumvirate's army collapsed entirely and fled back toward Shikoku; Ogasawara Nobusada, fighting on the Triumvirate side, is recorded as having died in the battle. Nobunaga himself, receiving word of the crisis while still in Mino, is said to have pushed his army through deep snow toward Kyoto, only to find upon arrival that the fighting was already over.
The Honkokuji Incident exposed the inadequacy of Yoshiaki's personal security, prompting Nobunaga to tighten his control over shogunal authority in its wake. On January 14 and 16, 1569, Nobunaga issued the Denchū Gohatto, a set of edicts prohibiting misconduct and unilateral action by shogunal retainers and placing a framework of restrictions on Yoshiaki's own exercise of authority, which he compelled the shogun to approve. This is generally regarded as the point at which the balance of power between Nobunaga and Yoshiaki tipped decisively toward Nobunaga.
Nobunaga further ordered the construction of a new, heavily fortified shogunal residence—the Nijō Palace—equipped with stone ramparts and moats, to replace the vulnerable Honkokuji. Mobilizing materials and labor from allied lords and temples, the palace was reportedly completed in under three months. That April, Yoshiaki relocated to the new Nijō Palace, where he continued for some time to hold the office of shogun under Nobunaga's overarching authority.
Although relatively small as a single military engagement, the Honkokuji Incident carries substantial historical weight from two angles: the power relationship between Oda Nobunaga and Ashikaga Yoshiaki, and the political rise of Akechi Mitsuhide. For Nobunaga, it provided a pretext to tighten control by exposing the shogun's military vulnerability; for Mitsuhide, it marked an early achievement that established his standing as a commander directly attached to Yoshiaki. In the incident's aftermath, diplomatic ties between the Nobunaga-Yoshiaki regime and the Mōri clan were strengthened, sustaining a framework for containing the Miyoshi in Shikoku that persisted until around 1576 (Tenshō 4).
The episode is recorded in multiple sources, including the Shinchō Kōki and the Ashikaga Kiseiki, with minor discrepancies between them regarding the exact composition and scale of the forces involved. Nevertheless, it remains an important touchstone in the study of Sengoku-period political history as a symbolic demonstration of both the fragility of Yoshiaki's regime and the speed of Nobunaga's consolidation of power.
The fighting at Honkokuji took place in the confined space of a temple compound and consisted primarily of close-quarters combat with tachi and uchigatana blades. Swords forged for practical combat use by smiths of the Mino and Yamashiro traditions were widely supplied to warrior households in the Kyoto region at this time, and the Honkokuji Incident stands as one example of how, even amid the broader shift toward pike and firearm warfare, the sword still frequently proved decisive in the defense of temples and palaces. That Akechi Mitsuhide—who would later stand at the pivotal turning point of the Honnō-ji Incident—first made his mark as a commander defending Honkokuji is also a striking episode in tracing the human history of the sword-bearing samurai class.