The 1546 siege of Uchiyama was one of many battles fought by

Takeda Shingen was daimyō, daimyo of Kai Province during the Sengoku period of Japan. Known as "the Tiger of Kai", he was one of the most powerful daimyo of the late Sengoku period, and credited with exceptional military prestige. Shingen was based in a p ...

bid to gain control of

Shinano Province or is an old province of Japan that is now Nagano Prefecture. Shinano bordered Echigo, Etchū, Hida, Kai, Kōzuke, Mikawa, Mino, Musashi, Suruga, and Tōtōmi Provinces. The ancient capital was located near modern-day Matsumoto, whi ...

. His troops surrounded the fortress and starved out the garrison.

Background

The battle took place during the 16th-century

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

, also known as the "Age of Civil War". After the

Ōnin War The , also known as the Upheaval of Ōnin and Ōnin-Bunmei war, was a civil war that lasted from 1467 to 1477, during the Muromachi period in Japan. ''Ōnin'' refers to the Japanese era name, Japanese era during which the war started; the war ende ...

(1467–77), the ''

shōgun , officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamak ...

''s system and taxation had increasingly less control outside the province of the capital in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

, and powerful lords (''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

s'') began to assert themselves. Such lords gained power by usurpation, warfare or marriage—any means that would safeguard their position. It was manifested in '' yamajiro'' ("mountain castles"), which overlooked the provinces. One of the most ambitious and successful warlords of the period was

, the ''daimyō'' of the

Takeda clan The was a Japanese samurai clan active from the late Heian period until the late 16th century. The clan was historically based in Kai Province in present-day Yamanashi Prefecture. The clan reached its greatest influence under the rule of Taked ...

, which dominated Kai Province. Bordering Kai to the north was

, a large mountainous territory which was not controlled by a single clan but by several relatively weak ones, notably the Suwa, Ogasawara, Murakami and Takato. As such it was an attractive target to its neighbours, in particular the Takeda to the south and

Uesugi clan The is a Japanese samurai clan which was at its peak one of the most powerful during the Muromachi period, Muromachi and Sengoku periods (14th to 17th centuries).Georges Appert, Appert, Georges. (1888) ''Ancien Japon,'' p. 79./ref> At its heigh ...

Echigo Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province in north-central Japan, on the shores of the Sea of Japan. It bordered on Uzen Province, Uzen, Iwashiro Province, Iwashiro, Kōzuke Province, Kōzuke, Shinano Province, Shinano, and Etchū Province, ...

to the north. Takeda Shingen's father,

Takeda Nobutora was a Japanese ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) who controlled the Province of Kai, and fought in a number of battles of the Sengoku period. He was the father and predecessor of the famous Takeda Shingen. Biography Nobutora’s son was Harunobu, la ...

, had already made a probing expedition into Shinano in 1536 (leading to the Battle of Un no Kuchi), and after becoming ''daimyō'' himself Shingen mounted his own invasion in 1542, which ended with the successful conquest of the Suwa. One of the castles Shingen seized was that of Nagakubo, which he entrusted to Oi Sadataka. However, in 1543 Sadataka betrayed Shingen and went over to the Takato. Shingen responded by mounting a second invasion of Shinano in 1543, and he quickly seized Nagakubo and captured Sadataka. Sadataka's son Oi Sadakiyo continued to resist, making his base at Uchiyama, but Shingen was temporarily distracted by a renewed the threat from the Takato, whom he spent the next two years fighting.

Siege

Once that threat was finally dealt with, Shingen was free to turn his attention back to Oi Sadakiyo. He marched against Sadakiyo's fortress at Uchiyama in June 1546 and successfully starved it into submission.

Aftermath

Uchiyama subsequently became a Takeda base for operations deeper in Shinano Province. After the Takeda reverse at the Battle of Uedahara it was attacked and burned on 1 June 1548 by Ogasawara Nagatoki and the Murakami clan, but Shingen's general Oyamada Nobushige regained it in September.

References

*Turnbull, Stephen (1998). 'The Samurai Sourcebook'. London: Cassell & Co. *Turnbull, Stephen (2013). 'Kawanakajima 1553-64: Samurai power struggle'. Oxford: Osprey {{DEFAULTSORT:Uchiyama 1546 Sieges of the Sengoku period Shinano Province 1546 in Japan Conflicts in 1546 Military history of Nagano Prefecture 16th-century military history of Japan Attacks on military installations in Japan