Battle of Shizugatake

What Happened

The Battle of Shizugatake (賤ヶ岳の戦い, Shizugatake no Tatakai) was fought over two days beginning on the twentieth day of the fourth month of Tenshō 11 — 11 June 1583 by the Gregorian calendar — at Shizugatake in Ōmi Province, in the hills north of Lake Biwa. The armies belonged to Hashiba Hideyoshi, who had not yet taken the surname Toyotomi, and to Shibata Katsuie, one of Oda Nobunaga's most senior generals.

Katsuie's forces attacked fortifications held by Hideyoshi's supporters around Shizugatake. Sakuma Morimasa, commanding the assault, defeated Nakagawa Kiyohide and overran his position. The other attacks, led by Maeda Toshiie and Takigawa Kazumasu, stalled. Katsuie ordered Sakuma to pull back; Sakuma ignored the order and stayed where he was.

Hideyoshi, who had been campaigning elsewhere, force-marched his army back and fell on Sakuma in a surprise counterattack. Sakuma's force broke and fled. Hideyoshi pursued him to Kitanosho Castle and besieged it, and the castle fell. Shibata Katsuie killed himself, and Oichi, Nobunaga's sister and Katsuie's wife, died with him.

Background

Oda Nobunaga was killed in 1582, and the question of who would succeed him split the Oda clan. Nobunaga's third son, Oda Nobutaka, claimed the succession, and Shibata Katsuie backed him. Hideyoshi, who had moved fastest after Nobunaga's death, had effectively taken control of the clan's central machinery and treated himself as the heir to Nobunaga's power.

The dispute hardened into open war in 1583. Katsuie was the senior figure by reputation, a veteran commander who had served Nobunaga from the early years. Hideyoshi was the man who held the capital and the loyalty of a large part of the Oda military machine. The fighting at Shizugatake was the decisive engagement between them.

The battle belongs to the Sengoku period, the long era of civil war, and specifically to the Azuchi–Momoyama period, which runs from 1573 to 1603 and takes its name from Nobunaga's Azuchi Castle and Hideyoshi's Momoyama Castle. The year 1583 was the eleventh year of the Tenshō era (天正, Tenshō).

Why It Mattered

The victory at Shizugatake let Hideyoshi consolidate his position as Nobunaga's successor. Katsuie's death removed the strongest remaining claimant on the Oda side, and Nobutaka's cause collapsed with him. Hideyoshi was left as the dominant military figure in central Japan.

It was not the end of the resistance. The Battle of Komaki and Nagakute in 1584 was the next serious challenge to his rule, and it came within a year. But Shizugatake was the point at which the succession question was effectively settled in Hideyoshi's favour.

The historian George Sansom wrote that the Battle of Shizugatake "must be regarded as one of the decisive battles in Japanese history." The judgement rests on what followed: from this position Hideyoshi went on to complete the unification of Japan, and the political order he built led directly into the Tokugawa shogunate.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name is 賤ヶ岳の戦い, read in kana as しずがたけのたたかい, and romanised as Shizugatake no Tatakai.

Breaking it down:

• 賤 — read here as shizu. The character means "lowly", "humble" or "base". On its own it carries a sense of low status or cheapness. In this name it is purely a place element and has no descriptive force.
• ヶ — read ga. This is a small katakana ケ used as a particle, not a full word. In place names it usually stands for the possessive ga ("of") or functions as a filler between a name and a suffix. It is the same ヶ seen in names like 霞ヶ関 (Kasumigaseki) and 三ヶ月 (mikazuki). Learners should note that it is written small and is never pronounced ke in this role.
• 岳 — read take. It means "peak" or "mountain", specifically a tall, prominent summit. It is a common element in Japanese mountain names.
• の — read no. The possessive and linking particle, written in hiragana. Here it joins the place name to the noun that follows: "the battle of Shizugatake".
• 戦 — read tatakai. It means "battle" or "war". The same character appears in 戦国 (Sengoku, "warring states") and 戦争 (sensō, "war"). Read on its own as a noun, 戦 is tatakai; in compounds it is usually sen.
• い — read i. Hiragana, completing the reading of 戦い. The verb 戦う (tatakau) means "to fight", and 戦い is its noun form.

So the whole name means, plainly, "the battle of Shizugatake" — a battle named after the mountain where it was fought.

Key Figures

Hashiba Hideyoshi (羽柴秀吉) — the commander who won the battle. He had not yet adopted the surname Toyotomi, under which he is better known. He returned from a separate campaign, counterattacked Sakuma Morimasa, and pursued him to Kitanosho Castle.

Shibata Katsuie (柴田勝家) — the senior Oda general who opposed Hideyoshi and backed Oda Nobutaka's claim to the succession. He ordered Sakuma to retreat; the order was ignored. After the defeat at Kitanosho Castle he took his own life.

Sakuma Morimasa (佐久間盛政) — the commander who led the attack on the fortifications at Shizugatake and defeated Nakagawa Kiyohide. His refusal to withdraw exposed his force to Hideyoshi's counterattack, and the rout that followed decided the battle.

Oda Nobutaka (織田信長) — Nobunaga's third son, whose claim to succeed his father was the political cause behind Katsuie's campaign. His cause collapsed with Katsuie's defeat.

Nakagawa Kiyohide (中川清秀) — the commander holding a position loyal to Hideyoshi at Shizugatake. He was defeated by Sakuma's assault.

Oichi (お市) — Oda Nobunaga's sister and Shibata Katsuie's wife. She died at Kitanosho Castle alongside her husband.

Maeda Toshiie (前田利家) and Takigawa Kazumasu (滝川一益) — commanders on Katsuie's side whose attacks stalled, leaving Sakuma's advance unsupported.