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Abstract
Military changes that took place in Japan during the late sixteenth century bear a striking resemblance to those in Europe at about the same time. This essay argues that the Roberts thesis of military revolution – widely applied to Europe – provides a useful framework for identifying a series of cascading developments that, once realized, constituted the fundamental elements of a similar revolution in early modern Japan. These included: the almost universal adoption of firearms, the development of tactics for the effective deployment of those firearms, and finally, a change in the composition and organization of armies leading to the professionalization of warfare. Most important, by revolutionizing the way armies were organized and wars were fought, Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi contributed directly to the emergence of new notions of centralized authority that were critical to the creation of a unified and peaceful early modern state.
Acknowledgements
This article began life as a brief essay used for teaching at the University of Sydney. Since then, it has undergone significant expansion and countless refinements, thanks in large part to the input of many bright student readers. Several colleagues have also provided valuable advice, including Olivier Ansart, Elise Tipton and Eddy U. I am grateful to Carolyn Stevens for ushering the final manuscript through the anonymous review process and to David Kelly for providing useful suggestions. Thanks are due the University of Tokyo Historiographical Institute and the Hakutei Archives of Inuyama Castle for granting permission to publish images.
Notes
1. 1Representative literature on the military revolution in Europe includes: Roberts, ‘The Military Revolution, 1560–1660’; Black, European Warfare, 1453–1815; Black, European Warfare, 1660–1815; Downing, The Military Revolution and Political Change; Duffy, The Military Revolution and the State, 1500–1800; and Parker, The Military Revolution.
2. 2Hideyoshi is credited with having established a federated system, but it was Ieyasu and his successors who solidified that system by placing it under the auspices of an imperially sanctioned shogunate.
3. 3Parker, The Military Revolution, 140–142.
4. 4Nagashino kassenzu byōbu, property of Inuyama-jō hakutei bunko.
5. 5Conlan, State of War; Friday, Samurai, Warfare and the State.
6. 6The earliest recorded use of gunpowder weapons in Japan dates to the late thirteenth century when continental troops invading Kyushu during the Mongol invasions deployed grenades and other explosive devices. Primary pictorial sources that include images of the grenades can be viewed at http://www.bowdoin.edu/mongol-scrolls/
7. 7See Friday, Samurai, Warfare, and the State, esp. chapter 3.
8. 8For more detail on the early introduction of firearms, see Brown, ‘The Impact of Firearms on Japanese Warfare, 1543–98’.
9. 9Shiritsu Nagahama-jō rekishi hakubutsu-kan, Kunitomo teppō kaji, 26–28.
10. 10See Hora, Teppō.
11. 11From Kunitomo teppō-ki, quoted in Kuroita, Kuroita Katsumi sensei ibun, 238.
12. 12Kai no kuni Myōhō-ji kiroku, quoted in Tokutomi, Kinsei Nihon kokumin-shi, vol. 1, 103, hereafter abbreviated in the style KNKS, 1:103. The record does not specify the type of guns used.
13. 13Takeda Shingen directive, Genki 2 (1571)/8/?, quoted in KNKS, 10:384.
14. 14See Kusaka, Hōkō ibun, 77–113; and Taikō-ki, in Kondō, Shiseki shūran, vol. 6, ch. 29, 203.
15. 15From Katsube Hyōemon kikigaki, quoted in KNKS, 5:287.
16. 16Hōjō godaiki, in Kondō, Shiseki shūran, vol. 5, ch. 26, 60.
17. 17Ibid., 59.
18. 18A directive from Hideyoshi to Shimazu, Tenshō 19 (1591), in Asakawa, The Documents of Iriki, 332–335.
19. 19Taikō-ki, in Kondō, Shiseki shūran, vol. 6, ch. 29, 309.
20. 20For a detailed study of Hideyoshi’s Korean campaign, see chapter 8 of Berry, Hideyoshi.
21. 21Letter from Shimazu Yoshihiro to Hishijima Kiinokami, Bunroku 1 (1592)/9/28, in KNKS, 10:380.
22. 22Order from Asano Yoshinaga to Asano Nagamasa, Keichō 3 (1598)/1/11, from Asano monjo, quoted in KNKS, 10:379.
23. 23Parker, The Military Revolution, 17.
24. 24According to screen paintings of the battle, Nobunaga employed a double-rank gunner formation. This is in contrast to the Dutch volley-fire scheme of six ranks. Parker, The Military Revolution, 19.
25. 25Methods for waging war might have remained largely unchanged but by no means did military organization, command and technology remain static. See Friday, Samurai, Warfare and the State, esp. chapter 2.
26. 26Ishii contrasts the independent nature of Japanese soldiers with the apparently collective orderliness of the invading Yüan–Koryŏ forces in his ‘The Decline of the Kamakura Bafuku’, 138–140. Also, see Conlan, In Little Need of Divine Intervention.
27. 27Takezaki Suenaga, who fought the Mongols during the invasions of 1274 and 1281, was rewarded by the shogunate for ‘being capable of leading five men into battle’ (italics mine). Conlan suggests this number was typical for the period. See Conlan, In Little Need of Divine Intervention, 2.
28. 28Satō, Heike monogatari, dai 8 maki, gekan, 35; McCullough, The Tale of the Heike, 270.
29. 29See Conlan, ‘The Nature of Warfare in Fourteenth-Century Japan’ . On battle cries and self-introductions (nanori), see Friday, Samurai, Warfare and the State, 145.
30. 30The Battle of Nagashino is also the setting for several Sony Playstation video games, including Koei’s ‘Kessen III’ and ‘Samurai Warriors’.
31. 31Translated by the author, from Ōta, Shinchō kōki, maki 8, ‘Sanshū Nagashino kassen no koto’.
32. 32Parker, The Military Revolution, 19.
33. 33According to Ōta, Shinchō kōki, prior to Nagashino, Nobunaga had commanded troops in over 22 battles or engagements to quell uprisings. In that record, never once had he used a similar tactical deployment before.
34. 34The textual materials relating to the battle of Shizugatake were compiled during the seventeenth century under the title Shizugatake kassen-ki. See Kondō, Shiseki shūran, vol. 13, 350–355.
35. 35Such apparatuses included tsukejiro (付城) and toride (取出, or 砦). See, among others, maki 11 of Ōta, Shinchō kōki. Also, Asao, ‘16 seiki kōhan no Nihon’, 20.
36. 36Ōta, Shinchō kōki, maki 11, ‘Harima Kanji-jō no koto’.
37. 37KNKS, 6:94.
38. 38Hōjō godaiki, in Kondō, Shiseki shūran, vol. 5, ch. 26, 60.
39. 39European historians often call this tactic ‘besiegement’.
40. 40Ōta, Shinchō kōki, maki 13, ‘Banshū Miki rakkyo no koto’ (1580).
41. 41Hideyoshi was traveling with a reduced fighting contingent of about 27,000. See Shin Nihon koten bungaku taikei, Taikō-ki, 54–55.
42. 42Kuroda kafu, quoted in Miyamoto, Kenchiku-ka Hideyoshi, 33. 20,032 spans is equal to about 36 square kilometers. I assume, therefore, this figure is referring to the entire basin in which the castle stood.
43. 43For details on the various problems and suspected solutions to the dam-building project at Takamatsu, see Miyamoto, Kenchiku-ka Hideyoshi, 32–33.
44. 44Hayashida, Nihon zairaiba no keitō ni kansuru kenkyū, 109–120. Friday, Samurai, Warfare and the State, 97. F. Brinkley wrote in 1902, ‘The Japanese never had a war-horse worthy to be so called. The misshapen ponies which carried them to battle showed qualities of hardiness and endurance, but were so deficient in stature and massiveness that when mounted by a man in voluminous armour they looked painfully puny.’ Quoted in Cooper, They Came to Japan, 147.
45. 45Kōyō gunkan, in Koji ruien kankōkai, Koji ruien, vol. 29, 181–182.
46. 46Date nikki, in Zoku gunsho ruiju kansei-kai, Gunsho ruiju, vol. 13, 1064.
47. 47Koji ruien kankōkai, Koji ruien, vol. 29, 44–72.
48. 48Hideyoshi instructed his generals in the field to keep gunners in the vanguard. Directive from Hideyoshi to Kobayashi and others, Bunroku 1 (1592)/12/6, in Kusaka, Hōkō ibun, 404.
49. 49For a full discussion on these two documents, see Miki, ‘Jindatesho no seiritsu o megutte’.
50. 50For detailed information on medieval articles of war such as the chakutōjō or the gunchūjō, see Satō, Komonjo nyūmon, 242–251.
51. 51For discussion, see Friday, Samurai, Warfare and the State, 53–62.
52. 52There is no evidence daimyō drew up tactical fighting plans prior to this. Theoretical tacticians did, however, devise highly theoretical plans based on battle accounts in Chinese classical texts. Nagakute is also known as the battle of Komaki-Nagakute.
53. 53Miki, ‘Jindatesho no seiritsu o megutte’.
54. 54Miki emphasizes that the jindatesho signaled a change from ‘individualized’ fighting to more unified, ‘group’ fighting. Ibid.
55. 55See Kawai, with Grossberg, ‘Shogun and Shugo’.
56. 56Berry, ‘Public Space and Private Attachment’, 238.
57. 57See Paret, Makers of Modern Strategy, introduction.
58. 58Fujiki, Toyotomi heiwa-rei to sengoku shakai, 75–76.
59. 59Nagahara, Nihon chūsei no shakai to kokka, 192–93, also 245.
60. 60White, ‘State Growth and Popular Protest in Tokugawa Japan’, 2; Berry, ‘Public Peace and Private Attachment’, 245. Read the views of Charles Tilly on the articles of statehood in Ravina, Land and Lordship, 24.
61. 61On the Tokugawa status system in general see, for example, Asao, Mibun to kakushiki, and Howell, Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-century Japan.
62. 62From Kaitei shinhen sōshū komonjo, quoted in Asao, Mibun to kakushiki, 17–18.
63. 63Ibid., 17.
64. 64On the ‘Sword Hunt’ (katanagari-rei) of 1588, see Berry, Hideyoshi, 102–111.
65. 65See Perrin, Giving up the Gun. David Howell more recently has shown that hunters and farmers continued to use guns throughout the Tokugawa era. See his ‘The Social Life of Firearms in Tokugawa Japan’.