Battle of Suemori Castle

Fought from the 9th to the 11th day of the ninth month of Tenshō 12 (October 12–14, 1584) at Suemori Castle in Noto Province, the Battle of Suemori was the decisive contest between Maeda Toshiie and Sassa Narimasa for supremacy in the Hokuriku region—remembered as the Maeda house's "Okehazama."

That year Hashiba Hideyoshi faced the allied forces of Oda Nobukatsu and Tokugawa Ieyasu at Komaki-Nagakute, a central confrontation that shook the loyalties of warlords across Japan. Sassa Narimasa of Etchū, initially aligned with Hashiba, switched to the Oda-Tokugawa side when the Hashiba army struggled, making conflict with the neighboring Maeda—who held Kaga and Noto and backed Hashiba—inevitable. Both men were former retainers of Oda Nobunaga who had once served side by side, which made their falling-out all the more bitter.

After a surprise attack on Asahiyama Castle, Sassa besieged Suemori Castle with 15,000 men on the 9th. Suemori was the strategic link between Kaga and Noto; its fall would have split the Maeda domain in two. The castle was held by commander Okumura Nagatomi and only about 300 men. Under fierce assault the fortress was pushed to the verge of falling, its acting castellan Dohi Tsugushige killed. Receiving the urgent report at Kanazawa, Maeda Toshiie set out at once with 2,500 troops, marching through the night along a coastal back road guided by a farmer, and at dawn on the 11th struck the Sassa army from the rear. Caught between the defenders and the relief force, the Sassa collapsed and Narimasa withdrew to Etchū, with more than 750 dead on both sides. The defense of Suemori was the turning point that raised the Maeda into lords of Kaga, Noto, and Etchū—the foundation of the later "million-koku Kaga" and its flourishing metalwork and sword-fitting culture.