The winter campaign of 1614 and the summer campaign of 1615 loom large in Japanese history, but the final battle remains overshadowed by Sekigahara in the collective consciousness, even though Tokugawa Ieyasu faced a greater personal threat in Osaka.
The 1614 campaign began with skirmishes that favoured the castle defenders and convinced Ieyasu to settle in for a siege. After negotiating a phony truce with the representatives of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s son, Ieyasu left behind a force to demolish the outer perimeter of the castle defenses. Toyotomi complained, but there was little he could do having concluded “peace” with Ieyasu.
When the massive 150 000 man Tokugawa army returned in 1615, Toyotomi’s collection of 60 000 loyalists and an unknown number of ronin left the safety of the castle to take the fight to their besiegers. Led by Sanada Yukimura, Toyotomi’s army fought with desperation and successfully overran the Tokugawa front line. Seeing this, Ieyasu, then in his seventies, charged to the front in an attempt to rally his army. Unconfirmed rumours state that Ieyasu was injured that day, but in the end, he won the battle, eliminating the final military and political threat to his house’s leadership of Japan.
Where was one of Tokugawa’s longest serving house guards, Ishikawa Jozan, in all of this? Apparently not at Ieyasu’s side protecting him. Based on the accounts I have managed to piece together, Ishikawa joined a unit led by Maeda Toshitsune closer to the front line so that he might see action. Having missed the fighting at Sekigahara (1600) and the previous year in Osaka, a letter from his mother urging him to uphold the family name must have spurred him to join the fight. Yamamoto Shiro, in his book Ishikawa Jozan and Shisendo, credits Ishikawa with taking three heads that day, so he undoubtedly fulfilled his goal. His personal accomplishments, combined with his family's long history of service to Tokugawa are likely the only reasons that he was not executed for disobeying an order not to storm the castle gates. Instead, he was stripped of his samurai status and sentenced to house arrest.
I knew none of this in 1997 when I made my first trip to Osaka Castle. In fact, I limited myself to walking the grounds and viewing the exterior of the reconstructed castle (including some impossibly large boulders in the castle's outer walls) while I killed time waiting for a friend to arrive at Kansai Airport. My tour book informed me that there was a collection of samurai memorabilia inside, but such was my lack of interest in samurai that I had no qualms about skipping the visit. If I had only known then that eleven months later a visit to Shisendo would lead to a quest to research the life of Ishikawa, I would have gone inside to see the screen paintings depicting the battle, not to mention a reconstruction of Hideyoshi’s famous golden tea room. It was a hard lesson in never passing an opportunity to see an attraction while on the road.
Travis Belrose is the author of The Samurai Poet, a work of historical fiction based on the life of Ishikawa Jozan. Learn more here.
Jozan was ordered to not storm the castle gates? Did he attempt to do this to achieve more honor and glory? I wonder why he would face punishment for that?
ReplyDeleteJozan's grandfather, Ishikawa Masanobu, was the first man to reach the gate of Anjo Castle in 1540. He was rewarded for this exploit with a sword by Ieyasu's father, Matsudaira Hirotada. He died in Ieyasu's service at the battle of Nagakute. His father, Nobutada, received a spear as a gift for his involvement in the attack of Tanaka Castle in 1578. Given this family history of service, I think Ishikawa did feel pressure to receive his own reward for taking the lead at Osaka.
ReplyDeleteJust before the day of the battle, Ishikawa fell ill in Kyoto, and was left behind at Nijo Castle when the army marched to Osaka. Though not fully recovered, Ishikawa followed the army and falsely claimed that he was an envoy of Ieyasu so that he could join Maeda Toshitsune's unit, apparently exploiting a family connection with Honda Masashige. I'm less clear if he then disobeyed a specific personal order or a general order not to lead an attack on the gate, but I can imagine few acts of bravery that would compensate for two instances of insubordination on the same day.
Interesting. Thank you.
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