Battle of Kizugawa

What Happened

On 19 November 1614, Tokugawa forces crossed the Kizu River near Osaka and stormed a fortress held by the Toyotomi clan. The attack came in two waves. Ishikawa Tadafusa led 2,300 men across the river by boat from the west. Other contingents under Hachisuka Yoshishige struck from the south and east. The fortress fell to the Tokugawa.

The operation followed a shogunal reconnaissance mission that had mapped the Toyotomi position on the river. The fortress controlled a stretch of the Kizu River, which made it a strategic obstacle for the Tokugawa advance on Osaka.

Background

The battle belonged to the Winter Siege of Osaka, the first of two campaigns in which the Tokugawa shogunate destroyed the Toyotomi clan. The Toyotomi had been the ruling house of Japan under Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who died in 1598. After Hideyoshi's death, Tokugawa Ieyasu moved to take power, and he won the decisive Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. In 1603 he was named shogun, founding the Tokugawa shogunate. The shogunate governed from Edo, the city now called Tokyo.

The Toyotomi still held Osaka Castle, and Hideyoshi's heir Toyotomi Hideyori lived there. The castle and its outlying forts remained the last major centre of opposition to Tokugawa control. In 1614 the shogunate moved against Osaka. The campaign that followed is known as the Winter Siege of Osaka, and the Battle of Kizugawa was one of a number of engagements fought around the castle during that campaign.

The Kizu River flows into Osaka Bay, and a fortress loyal to the Toyotomi controlled a section of it near Osaka. That position threatened the Tokugawa approach and had to be taken before the siege of the castle could proceed.

The year 1614 fell in the nineteenth year of the Keichō era (慶長, けいちょう), the nengō or era name in use at the time. The broader period was the Edo period, which ran from 1603 to 1868.

Why It Mattered

The capture of the Kizu River fortress removed a Toyotomi strongpoint on the shogunate's line of advance and helped clear the way for the wider Winter Siege of Osaka. The success at Kizugawa formed part of a campaign that ended with the Tokugawa shogunate destroying the Toyotomi clan, the last major opposition to its control of Japan.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name of the battle is 木津川口の戦い, read in kana as きづがわぐちのたたかい and written in romaji as Kizugawaguchi no tatakai. The form 木津川の戦い, Kizugawa no tatakai, is also used.

Breaking the name down:

木 — read ki here. It means "tree" or "wood". In place names it often appears simply as a phonetic element rather than carrying its literal meaning.

津 — read zu here. It means "harbour", "port", or "crossing". The reading zu is the voiced form of tsu, which is why the river is Kizu and not Kitsu.

川 — read gawa here. It means "river". The character is normally read kawa; it becomes gawa when it follows another element in a compound, a common voicing change in Japanese place names.

口 — read guchi here. It means "mouth" or "opening", and by extension "entrance", "mouth of a river", or "gateway". In this name it marks the point where the river is entered or crossed. Like 川, it voices from kuchi to guchi inside the compound.

の — read no. This is the possessive particle, linking the place name to the word that follows. It corresponds roughly to "of" or to the apostrophe-s in English.

戦 — read tatakai. It means "battle" or "war". The same character is read sen in many compounds, but here it stands alone and takes the native Japanese reading tatakai.

い — read i. This is the kana that completes the word 戦い, tatakai. It is written in hiragana rather than as a kanji.

So the whole name means, roughly, "the battle at the mouth of the Kizu River". The river name itself, Kizu, is written 木津; the gawa of Kizugawa is 川, "river"; and 口 marks the crossing point or entrance on that river.

Key Figures

Hachisuka Yoshishige — a Tokugawa commander at the battle. His forces attacked the Toyotomi fortress from the south and east.

Ishikawa Tadafusa — the commander who led 2,300 men across the Kizu River by boat from the west in the amphibious assault on the fortress.

Asano Nagaakira — a figure associated with the conflict in which the Battle of Kizugawa was fought.