Siege of Futamata

What Happened

The Siege of Futamata (二俣城の戦い) began on 21 November 1572 and ended on 22 January 1573. It was fought over Futamata Castle, a fortress in the Tenryū-ku district of what is now Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, at coordinates 34.8620250, 137.8089333. The attacking force was led by Takeda Shingen, the lord of Kai Province, with Nakane Masateru among his commanders. The siege formed part of a larger campaign known as Operation Nishikami.

Futamata was the first objective in Shingen's campaign against Tokugawa Ieyasu. Shingen did not remain in command at Futamata for the whole siege; he left it in the hands of his son and heir, Takeda Katsuyori, and moved on. The castle fell after roughly two months of investment.

The siege was immediately followed by the Battle of Mikatagahara. It had itself followed the Battle of Hitokotozaka.

Background

By 1572, Japan had been in the Sengoku period (戦国時代, sengoku jidai, "Warring States period") for over a century. Central authority had collapsed, and regional warlords — daimyō (大名, "great names") — fought one another for land and dominance. Two of the most formidable were Takeda Shingen, based in the mountainous province of Kai, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, who controlled the coastal provinces of Mikawa, Tōtōmi and Suruga.

The two men had once been allies, but their interests collided as both expanded westward and eastward respectively. In 1572 Shingen launched a major offensive into Tokugawa territory, an operation recorded as Operation Nishikami. The campaign's aim was to break through Ieyasu's northern defences and threaten the heart of his domain.

Futamata Castle stood on a bluff overlooking the Tenryū River, guarding one of the principal routes into Tōtōmi Province. Any army marching south toward Ieyasu's strongholds had to reckon with it. Shingen accordingly made Futamata his first target, opening the siege on 21 November 1572, in the third year of the Genki era (元亀, Genki).

The castle's defenders held out through the winter. Shingen, however, did not wait for the end of the siege in person. He delegated the reduction of Futamata to his son and heir, Takeda Katsuyori, and pressed on with the wider campaign. The garrison capitulated on 22 January 1573.

Why It Mattered

Futamata's fall opened the road south. With the castle in Takeda hands, Shingen could advance into the Tōtōmi plain and bring Ieyasu to battle. That battle came almost at once: the Battle of Mikatagahara, fought in the immediate aftermath of the siege, was one of the largest engagements of the period and one of Ieyasu's worst defeats.

The siege also marked a stage in the career of Takeda Katsuyori. By entrusting his heir with the conduct of the siege, Shingen gave him independent command at a moment when the Takeda were at the height of their power. Katsuyori would inherit that power when Shingen died the following year.

For the wider history of the Sengoku period, the 1572 campaign represents the high-water mark of Takeda expansion. Shingen's advance toward Kyoto was halted not by Tokugawa arms but by his own death in 1573, and the Takeda domain declined thereafter. Futamata, taken in two months, was the first step on a road that the Takeda would not be able to finish walking.

The siege belongs to the Muromachi period (1336–1573), the long span of Japanese history that ended in the same year the siege concluded.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name of the battle is 二俣城の戦い.

• Kana reading: ふたまたじょうのたたかい
• Romaji: Futamata-jō no tatakai

Broken down character by character:

二 — read here as futa. The kanji means "two."

俣 — read here as mata. This is a rare kanji, used almost exclusively in place names. It refers to a fork or a branching point, and in topography it commonly denotes the place where a river splits into two channels. The name Futamata therefore describes a forked river junction — an appropriate name for a castle sited near the Tenryū.

Together, 二俣 (Futamata) is the place name.

城 — read here as jō. It means "castle." When it follows a place name, -jō is the standard way of naming a fortress, as in Osaka-jō or Himeji-jō. Note that the same kanji can also be read shiro when it stands alone as a common noun.

の — read no. This is the possessive and linking particle, the equivalent of the apostrophe-s in English. It joins "Futamata Castle" to "battle."

戦 — read here as tatakai, from the verb 戦う (tatakau, "to fight"). It means "war," "battle" or "combat."

い — read i. This is the okurigana, the trailing hiragana that completes the reading of 戦 as tatakai rather than the Sino-Japanese reading sen.

So 二俣城の戦い parses literally as "the battle of Futamata Castle." Japanese battle names of this type are extremely regular: place name, plus 城, plus の戦い. A reader who learns the pattern can decode hundreds of siege and battle names across the Sengoku period.

Key Figures

Takeda Shingen (武田信玄) — lord of Kai Province and commander of the attacking army. He opened the siege of Futamata on 21 November 1572 as the first move of his campaign against Tokugawa Ieyasu, then delegated the siege to his son and continued the wider advance.

Takeda Katsuyori (武田勝頼) — Shingen's son and heir. He was left in charge of the Siege of Futamata when his father moved on, giving him independent command at a pivotal moment in the Takeda campaign.

Nakane Masateru (中根正照) — a commander on the Takeda side during the siege.

Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康) — the defending lord, whose territory the Takeda campaign was designed to break into. Futamata was the first obstacle between Shingen's army and Ieyasu's strongholds, and the siege was followed directly by the Battle of Mikatagahara.