The Battle of Takato Castle — Nishina Morinobu's Last Stand for the Honor of the Takeda Clan

The Battle of Takato Castle — The Last Line of Defense in the Kōshū Campaign

In the 2nd month of Tenshō 10 (1582), Kiso Yoshimasa, a local lord of the Kiso Valley, broke with the Takeda house and defected to the Oda side. This prompted Oda Nobunaga to launch an all-out assault, together with his allies Tokugawa Ieyasu and Hōjō Ujimasa, on Takeda Katsuyori's domains of Kai, Shinano, Suruga, and Kōzuke. Those domains had weakened rapidly since the Battle of Nagashino. This is known as the Kōshū Campaign. Nobunaga entrusted command of the main army advancing along the Ina route to his eldest son, Oda Nobutada. Ieyasu advanced from the Suruga route, and Hōjō Ujimasa advanced from the Kantō. Beginning with Yoshimasa's defection, the Takeda garrison castles defected or surrendered one after another, and Nobutada's army, entering Shinano, took castle after castle with little resistance. As the local lords from the Kiso Valley to the Ina Valley turned in a rush to the Oda side, on the 1st day of the 3rd month of Tenshō 10 (1582), Nobutada's army surrounded Takato Castle, a key stronghold in Ina District of Shinano Province. Takato Castle was the final line of defense of the Takeda house in the Ina Valley. The battle for this castle became, in effect, the battle that sounded the countdown to the destruction of the illustrious Takeda clan.

Nishina Morinobu's Desperate Defense

Nishina Morinobu, lord of Takato Castle, is said to have been the fifth son of Takeda Shingen and the half-brother of Katsuyori. Takato Castle was originally the seat of the Takato clan, a branch of the Suwa clan. In Tenbun 14 (1545), however, Shingen defeated Takato Yoritsugu and brought the castle into Takeda territory, after which he developed it as the linchpin of control over the Ina Valley. This hirayama-style castle, built on a river terrace between the Mibu River and the Fujisawa River, was a sturdy structure that relied on cliffs as its natural defenses. In Tenshō 9 (1581), as pressure from Oda and Tokugawa intensified, Katsuyori placed Morinobu in charge of defending the castle as the key to the defense of the Ina Valley. Before the attack, Oda Nobutada sent a local monk as an envoy into the castle, bearing gold and a letter urging surrender. Morinobu firmly refused, and it is said that he cut off the envoy's ears and nose and sent him back. At a time when the surrounding castles were surrendering to the Oda side in a rush, this act showed Morinobu's resolve to uphold the Takeda pride to the very end. Katsuyori's main force had already retreated to Shinpu Castle, and Takato Castle had no hope of reinforcements. Even so, Morinobu chose to fight to the end with fewer than 3,000 troops, together with retainers including Oyamada Masanari and Oyamada Daigaku-no-suke. At that time, Anayama Nobukimi (Baisetsu), a senior Takeda retainer, had secretly sided with the Tokugawa and defected. Morinobu's siege was a rare exception amid retainers who abandoned their lords one after another.

The Pride of Three Thousand, Lost in a Single Day

On the 2nd day of the 3rd month of Tenshō 10 (1582), the Oda army launched a full-scale assault on Takato Castle. Nobutada's main force alone numbered more than 30,000, and the whole Kōshū Campaign is said to have exceeded 50,000. The defenders fought fiercely against overwhelming odds and are said to have inflicted considerable losses on the Oda side for a time. However, a battle of few against many could not be reversed, and the castle fell after only a single day of fighting. Nishina Morinobu took his own life after a valiant fight. He was 26. Oyamada Masanari, Oyamada Daigaku-no-suke, and some 500 retainers followed their lord in death. Morinobu's severed head was delivered to Nobutada. It was later displayed by Hasegawa Sōnin at the crossroads of Ichijō-dōri in Kyoto, along with the heads of Takeda Katsuyori, Nobukatsu, and others. Just nine days after the fall of Takato Castle, Katsuyori took his own life at Tenmokuzan, and the illustrious Takeda clan, a Kai Genji house, was destroyed. The fierce fighting at Takato Castle has been passed down as the last organized resistance of the Takeda house. As the only case in which a siege was fought to the death while surrounding castles surrendered one after another without bloodshed, it has been repeatedly taken up in Edo-period military chronicles and similar works. Given the successive defections of the Takeda retainers, Morinobu's fight to the end was both a last stand that showed the pride of a clan and an event that brought to light how the governing system of the Sengoku daimyō Takeda house was already collapsing from within. For Nobutada as well, this battle became a great feat of arms, reported to Nobunaga as a result that sealed the Oda victory in the Kōshū Campaign.

Takato Castle After Its Fall

After the fall of the Takeda house, Takato Castle came under Hoshina Masanao of the Tokugawa side, following the Tenshō-Jingo War. In the Edo period, it became the seat of Takato Domain, and Hoshina Masayuki later became its lord. Masayuki was a half-brother of the third shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, and is known as a renowned wise lord who moved from lord of Takato Domain through lord of Yamagata Domain to lord of Aizu Domain. Today, the Ina City Takato Town History Museum, located near the castle ruins, presents the history of Takato Castle and the castle town of Takato by theme. Its exhibits include a helmet by Myōchin and the armor of the Naitō family, lords of Takato Domain.

The Battle as Recorded in the Shinchō Kōki

The siege of Takato Castle is also recorded in detail in Shinchō Kōki, a primary source written by Ōta Gyūichi, a yūhitsu (secretary) of Nobunaga. This work chronicles the entire course of the Kōshū Campaign with meticulous care. It is a valuable source that conveys the all-out assault by an army of 30,000, the valiant fighting of the defenders, and the course of events up to the delivery of Morinobu's head to Nobunaga after the castle fell. From the Edo period onward, the battle of Takato Castle was repeatedly told in military chronicles and kōdan storytelling as an anecdote symbolizing the loyalty of the Takeda retainers. The name Nishina Morinobu became widely known as a representative example of a warrior who died for his lord's house.

The Kōshū Campaign as a Turning Point of the Era

The Kōshū Campaign was a blitzkrieg-like military operation that subjugated the Takeda domains of Kai, Shinano, Suruga, and Kōzuke in a period of only about a month. The Takeda house had, under Shingen and Katsuyori, possessed the most formidable military power in the east for two generations. Its collapse so quickly was the result of multiple factors: the annihilation of its cavalry at the Battle of Nagashino, Katsuyori's declining authority, and the successive defections of its retainers. The Battle of Takato Castle was almost the only organized and fierce resistance in this blitzkrieg-style conquest. In that sense, it also shows that the military power of the Takeda house still retained a certain fighting strength to the very end. For Nobunaga, completing the Kōshū Campaign meant eliminating the greatest threat in the east, and it was a landmark victory that greatly advanced his unification of the realm. Estimates of the attacking force at Takato Castle vary by source. Some put Nobutada's main force at around 30,000, while others put the total force of the Kōshū Campaign anywhere from 50,000 to nearly 100,000. In any case, the gap with the fewer than 3,000 troops led by Nishina Morinobu was hopeless, and this disparity was the decisive factor that led his resistance to a tragic last stand.

What the Fall of Takato Castle Signified

The Battle of Takato Castle carries a historical significance that goes beyond the struggle over a single castle. It was a symbolic battle that announced the end of the Takeda army, hailed as the strongest in the Sengoku period. It also showed one extreme of the Sengoku warrior code, in which warriors fought with all their strength to the last and died in battle within their castle. While the surrounding castles surrendered one after another, Takato Castle alone maintained fierce resistance, and later warriors came to speak of this as the ideal image of loyalty to one's lord's house. Today, the Takato Castle ruins are designated a national historic site and are known throughout Japan as a cherry-blossom spot called "the finest cherry blossoms under heaven." In early April, when about 1,500 Takatō kohigan cherry trees dye the stone walls, the scene draws many cherry-blossom viewers each year. It is also said that the cherry blossoms at the Takato Castle ruins are deeper in color than other cherry trees because they drank the blood of the soldiers who died in that day's battle. Beneath the canopy of cherry blossoms in full spring bloom lie the memories of the warriors who died for their lord's house, and the land of Takato continues to convey the Takeda house's last show of pride to this day.