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Intermediate Japanese - Free Online Course
ODA NOBUNAGA
織田 信長
(1534 – 1582)
Oda Nobunaga was an extremely successful samurai warlord. He served the Ashinaga Shogunate (which he ultimately betrayed and deposed.) Nobunaga was also the first Japanese military leader to recognize the strategic significance of Western guns on the battlefield.
Guns had existed in Japan since the early 1500s, when they were brought by the Portuguese and other Europeans. While the samurai used guns in a limited fashion, they were little more than auxiliary weapons on the battlefield. The code of bushido (武士道) held that firearms were cowardly because they killed enemies from a distance.
Oda Nobunaga decided to set these prejudices aside. At the battle of Nagashino in 1575, he employed firearms en masse. As a result, he scored a decisive victory over his opponents, who were armed mostly with traditional samurai weaponry.
Nobunaga was an utterly ruthless leader. On one occasion, he was opposed by some defiant warrior monks outside the city of Kyoto. Nobunaga sacked and burned their temple, then slaughtered every last monk.
Nobunaga finally met his end when several of his generals rebelled against him. But the conspirators did not capture him alive. When they cornered him in a temple, he chose the samurai’s way out—through ritual suicide.
