Siege of Edo

What Happened

On 17 February 1524, the Hōjō (北条, ほうじょう) clan attacked Edo Castle. The castle was held by Uesugi Tomooki (上杉朝興, うえすぎ ともおき), and the attacking force was led by Hōjō Ujitsuna (北条氏綱, ほうじょう うじつな). The fighting took place at Takanawa, the stretch of ground near the castle, and the engagement is remembered under the name Takanawahara no Tatakai — the Battle of Takanawahara.

The Hōjō took the castle. Uesugi Tomooki lost Edo and withdrew, and Hōjō Ujitsuna installed himself in a strongpoint that would remain in his family's hands.

The date falls in the fourth year of the Daiei era (大永, だいえい), during the Muromachi period (室町時代, むろまちじだい), the stretch of Japanese history running from 1336 to 1573. Within that long span, the events of 1524 belong to the Sengoku period (戦国時代, せんごくじだい), the century and a half of near-continuous warfare between regional warlords that reshaped who held power in Japan.

Background

Edo in 1524 was not a city. It was a fishing village on the edge of the Kantō plain, sitting where the Sumida river meets the bay, and the castle that bore its name was a modest fortification rather than the enormous complex that later stood on the same ground. The site's importance was strategic rather than commercial: it controlled movement along the Kantō plain and access to the water.

The Kantō region was contested between two great houses. The Uesugi (上杉, うえすぎ) had long-standing authority in the area, exercised through a network of deputies and branch families. The Hōjō were relative newcomers, based in Odawara to the south-west, who had spent the preceding years expanding their hold on the provinces around them. Hōjō Ujitsuna was the second head of the family, having succeeded his father Hōjō Sōun, the founder of the house's power.

Edo Castle belonged to the Uesugi sphere. Ōta Sukenaga, a retainer of the Uesugi, had held it, and after his death in 1524 the castle passed into the hands of Uesugi Tomooki, who took personal charge of the position. Ujitsuna moved against it in the same year. The result was a direct clash between the rising Hōjō and the established Uesugi over a small but well-placed fortress.

Why It Mattered

The immediate consequence was a change of ownership. Hōjō Ujitsuna took Edo Castle from Uesugi Tomooki, and the Hōjō kept it. From that point the castle anchored the northern edge of Hōjō territory in the Kantō, and the family's position in the region grew steadily through the following decades.

For the Uesugi, the loss was a serious reversal. Tomooki had personally taken on the defence of Edo, and its fall handed the Hōjō a foothold deep inside Uesugi country. The rivalry between the two houses continued for years afterwards, with the Uesugi repeatedly attempting to recover ground they had lost.

The longer significance lies in what Edo eventually became. The fishing village that the Hōjō seized in 1524 grew into the seat of the Tokugawa shoguns in 1603 and, in the modern period, into Tokyo, the capital of Japan and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. The 1524 siege is the first event of consequence recorded at the site. A place that would later house the government of the entire country was, at the moment of its capture, a minor prize in a regional war.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name for this event is 高輪原の戦い. It is read たかなわはらのたたかい (takanawahara no tatakai). In romaji the full name is Takanawahara no Tatakai.

The name breaks down as follows.

高 — read here as たか (taka). It means "high" or "tall". It is the same character used in words like 高い (たかい, takai), "tall" or "expensive".

輪 — read here as わ (wa). It means "ring", "wheel" or "circle". In place names it often describes a loop or a curving shape in the land, and it appears in many Japanese toponyms.

原 — read here as はら (hara). It means "plain", "field" or "open moor". It is a very common element in Japanese place names, describing flat open ground rather than cultivated paddy.

Together, 高輪 (たかなわ, Takanawa) is a place name: a district on the southern edge of what is now central Tokyo, near the bay. The literal sense of the characters is something like "high ring plain", but as a name it simply identifies the location.

の — the possessive particle, read no. It links the place name to the noun that follows, functioning like the English "of" or the apostrophe-s.

戦 — read here as たたか (tataka), from the verb 戦う (たたかう, tatakau), "to fight" or "to do battle". The character means "war", "battle" or "combat".

い — read i, the okurigana that completes the verb stem. Written together, 戦い (たたかい, tatakai) is the noun "battle" or "fight".

So the whole name means "the Battle of Takanawahara" — the fight at the plain of Takanawa. The same event is also known in English as the Siege of Edo, referring to the castle rather than the ground where the fighting took place.

Key Figures

Hōjō Ujitsuna (北条氏綱, ほうじょう うじつな) led the attacking force. He was the second head of the Hōjō house of Odawara and the son of its founder, Hōjō Sōun. His capture of Edo Castle in 1524 extended Hōjō power northward into the Kantō plain.

Uesugi Tomooki (上杉朝興, うえすぎ ともおき) held Edo Castle and commanded its defence. He was a member of the Uesugi house whose authority in the Kantō the Hōjō were challenging. He lost the castle to Ujitsuna on 17 February 1524.