Battle of Shijōnawate

What Happened

The Battle of Shijōnawate was fought on 4 February 1348, in the third year of the Shōhei era (正平, 1346–1370). The battle took place in Yoshino, in the southern part of Nara Province, at a location known as the Sasara district, in what is now the city of Shijōnawate. It was an engagement of the Nanboku-chō period, the decades-long conflict between the Northern Court, backed by the Ashikaga shogunate in Kyoto, and the Southern Court, which had established itself at Yoshino after the fall of Kyoto in 1336.

The Southern Court army was commanded by Kusunoki Masatsura, the son of the celebrated loyalist Kusunoki Masashige. Masatsura led his forces north from Yoshino to meet the advancing army of the Northern Court, which was commanded by Ashikaga Takauji, the first shōgun of the Muromachi shogunate. The two armies clashed at Shijōnawate, and the battle ended in a decisive defeat for the Southern Court. Kusunoki Masatsura was killed in the fighting.

Background

The Nanboku-chō period began in 1336, when Ashikaga Takauji turned against Emperor Go-Daigo, who had overthrown the Kamakura shogunate three years earlier in the Kenmu Restoration. Takauji installed a rival emperor in Kyoto, creating the Northern Court, while Go-Daigo fled to Yoshino and established the Southern Court. The two courts each claimed legitimacy, and their supporters fought a series of campaigns across Japan for more than half a century.

Kusunoki Masatsura inherited his father’s role as the foremost military commander of the Southern Court. Masashige had died in 1336 at the Battle of Minatogawa, fighting for Go-Daigo against Takauji’s forces. Masatsura took up the cause and, in the years leading up to 1348, led several successful raids against Northern Court positions. These raids made him a symbol of Southern Court resistance, but they also drew the full attention of the shogunate.

In early 1348, Ashikaga Takauji launched a major campaign to crush the Southern Court once and for all. His army marched south toward Yoshino, and Kusunoki Masatsura moved to intercept it. The two forces met at Shijōnawate, a narrow valley that controlled the approach to Yoshino. Masatsura chose to fight there despite being heavily outnumbered, hoping to stop the Northern advance before it reached the Southern Court’s mountain capital.

Why It Mattered

The defeat at Shijōnawate was a catastrophic blow to the Southern Court. With Masatsura dead, the court lost its most capable field commander, and the road to Yoshino lay open. The Northern army pressed on and captured Yoshino itself shortly after the battle, forcing Emperor Go-Murakami, Go-Daigo’s successor, to flee deeper into the mountains. The Southern Court survived, but it never again posed a serious military threat to the Ashikaga shogunate.

The battle also cemented the legend of the Kusunoki family. Masatsura’s death, following his father’s sacrifice twelve years earlier, turned the family into the enduring symbol of imperial loyalty in Japanese history. Later chroniclers of the Nanboku-chō period, writing under the patronage of the Southern Court’s descendants, portrayed Masatsura as a model of selfless devotion to the throne. This image would be revived and amplified in the nineteenth century, when the Meiji government promoted the Southern Court as the legitimate imperial line and elevated the Kusunoki family to the status of national heroes.

For the Ashikaga shogunate, the victory at Shijōnawate secured its control over the central provinces for the next two decades. Takauji’s authority was never seriously challenged again in his lifetime, and the Muromachi period, which had begun with his assumption of the shogunate in 1338, entered a phase of relative stability.

The Name in Japanese

The battle is called 四條畷の戦い in Japanese, read しじょうなわてのたたかい in kana, and romanised as Shijōnawate no Tatakai.

The name breaks down as follows:

• 四 (し, shi) — “four.” The character depicts the number four, with its four strokes arranged in a square.
• 條 (じょう, jō) — “branch” or “article.” This is the traditional form of the character 条, which appears in words like 条件 (じょうけん, jōken, “condition”). In this place name it is part of the compound 四條, meaning “fourth district” or “fourth street.”
• 畷 (なわて, nawate) — “ridge path” or “narrow dyke road.” This is a rare character, used almost exclusively in place names and in the word 畷 (なわて), which refers to a narrow path running along a ridge between rice paddies. It is composed of 田 (でん, den, “rice field”) on the left and 叕 on the right, which gives the reading.
• の (no) — the possessive particle, meaning “of.”
• 戦い (たたかい, tatakai) — “battle.” The character 戦 means “war” or “battle,” and the reading tatakai is the noun form of the verb 戦う (たたかう, tatakau, “to fight”).

So 四條畷の戦い literally means “the battle of the fourth-district ridge path.” The place name refers to the narrow ridge road in the Sasara district where the armies met. The modern city of Shijōnawate, in present-day Osaka Prefecture, takes its name from this same location.

Key Figures

Kusunoki Masatsura (楠木正行, くすのき まさつら, 1326–1348) was the commander of the Southern Court army at Shijōnawate. He was the eldest son of Kusunoki Masashige, the legendary strategist who had served Emperor Go-Daigo during the Kenmu Restoration. Masatsura took command of the Kusunoki family forces after his father’s death in 1336 and led a series of raids against Northern Court positions in the 1340s. He died in battle at Shijōnawate at the age of twenty-one or twenty-two.

Ashikaga Takauji (足利尊氏, あしかが たかうじ, 1305–1358) was the commander of the Northern Court army and the founder of the Muromachi shogunate. He had begun his career as a general for the Kamakura shogunate, then turned against it in 1333 to support Emperor Go-Daigo’s restoration. Within three years he turned against Go-Daigo as well, installing his own emperor in Kyoto and taking the title of shōgun in 1338. His victory at Shijōnawate secured his control over central Japan, and he remained shōgun until his death in 1358.