Battle of Komaki and Nagakute | |||||||
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Part of the Sengoku period | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
forces of Hashiba Hideyoshi | forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu and Oda Nobukatsu | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Hori Hidemasa Ikeda Tsuneoki † Mori Nagayoshi † Hashiba Hidetsugu Kinoshita Sukehisa † |
Tokugawa Ieyasu Sakai Tadatsugu Mizuno Tadashige Sakakibara Yasumasa Niwa Ujishige Ii Naomasa Ikeda Sen |
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Strength | |||||||
40,000 (approximate) | 18,500 (approximate) | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Ikeda Tsuneoki Ikeda Motosuke Mori Nagayoshi |
Tokugawa Tactical Victory
The Battle of Komaki and Nagakute (小牧・長久手の戦い Komaki-Nagakute no Tatakai) was a series of battles in 1584 between the forces of Hashiba Hideyoshi (who would become Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1586) and the forces of Oda Nobukatsu and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Hideyoshi and Ieyasu had both served Oda Nobunaga and had not previously come into conflict; this would in fact be their only period of enmity. Although this episode of history is most commonly known by the two largest and most important battles, the event is also sometimes referred to as the Komaki Campaign (小牧の役 Komaki no Eki).
In 1583, at the Battle of Shizugatake, Hideyoshi supported Nobukatsu, the second son of Oda Nobunaga, and defeated Shibata Katsuie, who supported Nobunaga's third son, Nobutaka. After winning the battle, Hideyoshi invited Nobukatsu and other generals to his residence at Osaka Castle, which he had just completed that same year. The meaning of such an invitation was for all the men to pay homage to Hideyoshi, which would reverse the roles between Hideyoshi and Nobukatsu. Therefore, Nobukatsu broke his bonds to Hideyoshi and did not go to Osaka Castle. Hideyoshi offered reconciliation to three of Nobukatsu's chief retainers (Tsugawa Yoshifuyu, Okada Shigetaka and Azai Nagatoki), which led to rumors that they were all in support of Hideyoshi. This in turn led Nobukatsu to become suspicious of the three men, whom he ordered executed on the sixth day of the third month. These actions gave Hideyoshi the justification for attacking Nobukatsu and, as a result, Nobukatsu asked Ieyasu for auxiliary forces. The next day, when Ieyasu sent his forces out to battle, it became a battle between Hideyoshi and Ieyasu.
The first of these battles was fought around Mount Komaki and gave rise to the name "Battle of Komaki". The rest of the battles took place around Nagakute, giving rise to the modern-day names for the conflict.