Siege of Ishiyama Hongan-ji
The
Siege of the Ishiyama Hongan-ji was the longest siege in
Japanese history, lasting eleven years. The
Ikko-ikki, mobs of warrior monks and peasants, controlled the
Ishiyama Hongan-ji fortress, and were among the last to stand in the way of
Oda Nobunaga's bid to conquer all of Japan. Oda had fought the Ikki before, crushing their armies of
Mikawa Province and other areas, and their twin fortresses of Ishiyama Hongan-ji and
Nagashima were their last bastions of strength. He sieged both fortresses simultaneously, attacking Ishiyama in August
1570 and
Nagashima in
1571. The siege of the Ishiyama would last until August of
1580, when the Abbot
Kosa was convinced to surrender.
In August 1570, Oda Nobunaga left his castle in
Gifu with 30,000 troops, and ordered the building of fortresses around the Ishiyama. On September 12th, the
Ikko-ikki launched a midnight stealth attack with 3000 arquebusiers, destroying several of these forts, and pushing Oda's army back. While Oda himself focused on the
sieges of the Nagashima fortress and other campaigns, his armies remained camped out, assigned to monitor the Ikki's fortress, and take it if they could.
In April
1576, Oda's army attacked with 3,000 men under the command of
Akechi Mitsuhide and
Araki Murashige. By now, 51 outposts had been built around the central fortress, many equipped with
arquebus squads. The attackers were quickly repelled by 15,000 defenders. Oda Nobunaga was forced to revise his tactics, and began to attack the outposts, and the supporters of the Ikki. He sent
Toyotomi Hideyoshi to head an assault on the monk's fortress at
Negoroji.
After reducing the threat from the Ikki's supporters, Oda attempted to starve out the fortress. This was no easy task, however, because the Ishiyama fortress sat on the coast, which was guarded by the fleet of the
Mori clan, masters of naval combat, and Oda's dire enemies. In
1575, the fortress was in urgent need of supplies, and the Abbot Kosa was ready to begin peaceful overtures with Nobunaga, to end the siege. But the ousted
Shogun,
Ashikaga Yoshiaki sent a letter to
Mori Terumoto, asking for his aid in supplying the cathedral fortress. Nobunaga enlisted
Kuki Yoshitaka to set up a blockade and disrupt the fortress' supply lines. In August 1576, in the first
battle of Kizugawaguchi, the blockade failed. But Kuki Yoshitaka returned two years later with massive new battleships and, in the second
battle of Kizugawaguchi, he broke the Mori supply lines for good.
By now the siege was beginning to swing in Oda Nobunaga's favor. The majority of the Ikki's allies were already inside the fortress with them, so they had no one to call on for aid.
Uesugi Kenshin, one of Nobunaga's strongest enemies, and therefore among the Ikki's strongest allies, died in
1578, and the Mori clan lost their castle at
Miki in
1580. Between
1578 and
1580, the Ikki sallied forth from the fortress many times under the leadership of
Shimotsuma Nakayuki, to face Oda's armies.
But by April of
1580, the defenders were nearly out of ammunition and food. The Abbot
Kosa held a conference with his colleagues, and shortly afterwards received a message from the
Emperor himself, asking that the Ikki surrender. It was no secret that this letter had been prompted by Nobunaga, but that would not change the power of an Imperial request; Kosa surrendered several weeks later, and fighting finally ended a few months after that, in August, 1580.
Nobunaga spared the lives of many of the defenders, including
Shimotsuma Nakayuki, but burned the fortress to the ground. Three years later,
Toyotomi Hideyoshi would begin construction on the same site, building
Osaka Castle, which still stands today.
*Sansom, George (1961). "A History of Japan: 1334-1615." Stanford: Stanford University Press.
*Turnbull, Stephen (2003). 'Japanese Warrior Monks AD 949-1603'. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.
