Odawara and decline of Hojo family

Hi there

Thinking about that Odawara question has got me interested in the
question why did the Hojo clan fail and decline in 1590 A.D. The main
reasons I can think are that

1. The constant warring of Hojo Ujiyasu against local clans such as
the Satake and Satomi undermined his position in the region by
fostering a relationship between him and other Daimyo that made them
turn to Oda and Tokugawa for support.

2. Hojo Soun's establishment of the clan was based on poor
foundations, after all he claimed only tenuous links to ancient clan
traditions. Thus his band of followers were small.

3. Hojo Ujiyasu had excellent organisational skills but when Hojo
Ujimasa took over he did not coordinate his forces as well as his
father did.

4. The position of the Hojo in the Kanto region although relatively
guarded and rich was tennable, due to the Tokkaido roads and Hakone
mountain passes that led to the old capital at Kamakura. Also the
Hojo lacked naval strength as the other Western based clans had, such
as Kuki family who served Oda so effectively using the kumano Sui
navy.

5. The battle of Kawagoe 1545 was at the time a victory, but I would
argue a pyrhic one, because by defeating the Uesugi, it only
harboured resentment enough to turn them against the Hojo and from
the North they blocked off retreat in the Odawara campaign.

6. Uesugi Kagekatsu who was Hojo by birth but adopted by Kenshin,
supported the forces against Tokugawa, it could be argued that if he
remained on friendly terms, the Hojo and Uesugi could have formed a
reasonable alliance covering the Hakone mountains, and most of
Shinano, any attack would be costly and not so easily executed,
leaving the Hojo as Sparta did during the Sparta athenian war, to
concntrate on naval resources. Also Date family could have been asked
for support leading to a North vs South war perhaps. Although this is
highly unlikely because most clans were fighting against each other
and in particular the Satake and Satomi were already located in the
East of Hojo and would be a considerable thorn in the side.

7. The quality of Hojo guns, As the allied forces apparently brought
Western cannon with them, but not siege cannon, they were only
capable apparently of setting fire to barricades. But never the less,
if Hojo attained a supply of guns from Sakai, or another major trade
port already under control by Oda or Tokugawa, then there ability to
last in a siege would be much greater.

8. The Hojo should have looked further afield, there were many Daimyo
who didn't like Oda or Tokugawa, but most of Japan supported them, if
the Hojo had dug deeper they may have caused a Segikahara 10 years
earlier than it happened. Without Date and Maeda for suppport
Tokuugawa may not have become shogun, as Uesugi Kagekatsu perhaps
realised his mistake in also not supporting Hojo.

9. The war against the Takeda perhaps put an end to Takeda but also
left them vulnerable with Tokugawa seizing vital territories namely
Kai and Shinano, with this seizure came the ability to turn the
mountin passes, leaving the columns of Tokugawa and Oda samurai to
march through.

10. A pitched battle in the mountains? could it have turned the tide,
remeber Okehazama Nobunaga stopped Imagawa with approx 1/10 of his
force, could a force of say 5000 take on 50000 of Tokuagwa by
strategic blocking of passes and clever deception techniques. Maybe,
Hojo had a man for this Fuma Kotaro-the special forces leader, but
was he dead? But even if this had occured the Hojo were still in dire
straits.

11.The Satake and Satomi clans, did not support Hojo. With support by
these clans supply routes could have been kept open, likewise goes to
Yuki Harumoto who choose to side with Tokuagwa. With Yuki's support
Hojo could have lasted alot longer, Odawara was a fortress effort had
been made to strengthen it.

12. Toyotomi Hideyoshi- It can't be denied that Toyotomi HIdeyoshi
was a great general. He apparently managed to build a castle under
the nose of the Odawara defenders, I think although it would have
been a morale shattering episode, it was more a case of Roman esque
siege tactics, because he enclosed Odawara in two lines of siege
works, then built his castle I think.

13. Maybe the Odawara castle was not as strong as the Hojos thought,
because it had been sieged and burnt twice before 1561 Uesugi
Kagetora deputy kanrei, 1569 Takeda captured it but retreaded due to
famine.

14. Build walls, to link the castles, making one huge fortified area,
the Hojo let there sattelite castles fall one by one, perhaps it
could be argued that a policy, more like Athens when she built long
walls to protect her port the Pireaus. But the Hojo had no means of
sea supply anyway. I guess the Hojo were cut off. But they could have
fortiefied and linked their defenses better. Allowing key men like
Chiba Shigetane a better chance to make a lasting stand.

15. Daidoji Masashige, could have offered another plan, what Im
unsure of,but to sit and wait was demoralizing for any army no matter
how small, it is said the best form of defence is attack, therefore
why not catch them off guard. But it would only prolong the
inevitable, but a small victory could have lifted the spirits and
maybe shown other daimyo that the two generals were not invincible.

16. Negotiation, the Hojo constantly attempted to negotiate their
corner, no battle was really fought it was more like sitting round a
table holding back the cards, i.e the Odawara-jo. Nobody wanted a
fight, Tokugawa and Hideyoshi would not be wise to fight, because the
North east was still to be subdued Date, Mogami, Hachisuka, AShina,
Hatakeyama some major daimyo still were left, the North East would be
mountainous and tough. therfore losses of 50% or more would put the
conquerors in a poor military situation. Hojo Ujimasa eventually paid
with his life, Hojo Ujinao became a monk then died of small pox, the
Hojo clan faded from the sengoku epoch. Why didn't one Hojo perhaps
Ujiteru flee North East to gain support, because he couldn't they
were samurai and thus waited to die.

In conclusion perhaps the best outcome the Hojo could have hoped for
was to dent the enemy forces enough to make them hesitate showing
weakness so more time could be gained to strengthen their forts and
more allies could be gathered. But this never happened because a
siege was seen as the best way of holding ground, to negotiate
favourable terms. But the problem was Tokugawa and Hideyoshi had 200
000 men, Hojo had 50000 ~ and this ratio of 4/1 could only be used to
the Hojos advantage, if they attacked single regiments at a time,
weakening each front until the cohesive strength became such that a
major breakout and encirclement could be attempted by their own
forces, perhaps using cavalry as an armoured fist. I only speculate
as in reality in history it never did happen, perhaps it was not
possible. Perhaps they ressigned themselves to fate. Seeing
HIdeyoshis new castle built apparently overnight at Ichiya. The
pretext to this war was the Hojos taking of Sanada castle at
Nukuramui (think Shinano) maybe if the Hojo could get the Sanada to
support them they would have increased the likely hood of having
better generals and more vetern troops. But anything the Hojo did of
this parremeter would be in the end a pyrhic victory. The Hojo did
not really stand a chance, its another sad chapter in the times of
Sengoku warfare, not even Gekokuji (low overcome high) but now the
Low overcome the High who used to be low and before never existed.
Because Hojo Soun brought the clan into existence on fragile
foundations, they never had all the right elements to become bakufu.
It is said if you build your house on poor foundations it will come
to no good; well in the Hojos case it was true. How sad how very sad.

Anyone respond if you can think of any other reasons, its just my
opinion, thinking about the situation, because the facts are limited
it is difficult to understand the campaign in great and sufficient
detail.

All best Mark

Hi Mark,
I just wanted to say that you have some good points
witht he Odawara campaign. but I wanted to add a
little. First, negptiations were going on between the
Toyotomi and Hojo for at least two years prior to
Hideyoshi's invasion of the Kanto. Ieyasu was a the
intermediary between the two as he was allied to both.
He had even sent relatives to live with Hojo. Ieyasu,
however aligned himself with Hideyoshi and urged the
Hojo to submit. They of course did not do that, though
Ujimasa had plenty of opportunity to do so.

2; Given Hideyoshi's past conduct, Ujimasa may have
expected to remain in power even after a war.
Hideyoshi generally treated his defeated foes well,
leaving them in power in exchange for oaths of
allegiance (shimazu, chosokabe, mori, etc.). Once the
Hojo submitted, however, he confiscated all of their
lands, and installed Ieyasu in the Kanto. Hideyoshi
seems to have decided the fate of the Hojo well
beforehand.
It's also interesting that Hojo Ujimori eventually
received a fief in Kawachi. Not sure what happened to
him...

3: this brings up the point of position. The Kanto is
well removed from the Kinai, and did not offer a good
position from which to gain control of the country.
That seems to be why Hideyoshi put Ieyasu there, he
didn't trust him. Of course, the Kanto is the most
productive region of Japan and I would imagine that
whoever controlled it could affect the rice market,
although I've never read anything about that...maybe
the rest of the nation produced enough.

4: During the seige, lords came out of the north to
pledge allegience to Hideyoshi, including Date,
Utsunomiya and Satake, thus the Hojo were the last
holdouts. They must have seen that they could expect
no help.

the way things turn out...! Soun would've been ticked!

-JDS
ps- thanks for the info on Tsutsui.


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HI again Joseph

First you make good points also, I think I overlooked many issues at
first when I gave many of my reasons. The idea of negotiations
occuring 2 years to the campaign is sound, as it was probably the
HOjos best option, also it would have got Hideyoshi the Kanto without
major loss of life, this would have served his aims as the campaigns
in the North would be seen as being tough ones. Im not sure about
Ujimasa remaining in power after the war, as he was made to commit
Seppuku straight after the siege. Hideyoshi and Ieyasu wanted him out
the way kill the father, convert the sons, Hoji Ujinori seems to be
the only one who got any benifit out of the siege ending, only 10 000
koku fief is not great in terms of benifit. Ujinao died alone, Uji
Kuni unsure.

Hideysohi and Tokugawa wanted the Kanto they needed it. They need the
rich land, to give to loyal retainers, they need stategic control of
the Tokkaido roadway that goes from Kamakura to Kyoto, they need the
city of Odawara fortress, It could be used as a staging post for
attacks into the North. Tokugawa Ieyasu used the Kanto to his
advantage, first he built Edo attracting many people and valuable
craftsmen then he took steps to control the Tokkaido roadway. He was
always now in a position to threaten the capital whenever he wanted,
at Sekigahara its the way he marched. In general the kanto was
valuable.

Date Masumune did not send troops to Odawara, he submitted in 1590
when his forces in Aizu came into contact with Hideyoshis, he
submitted Aizu but at the time of Odawara, he was busy fighting
Asahina, Mogami and various others. The key in my opinion as I tried
to suggest was Uesugi kagekatsu, and now I also realise Uesugi
Kenshin, well not him because he was dead, but he was the Kanto
Kanrei. In 1578 when he died who became Kanto kanrei, was it possible
that the Uesugi family took on the role esp Uesugi Kagekatsu, could
it even have been possible that he was assasinated by Tokugawa or
Hideyoshi because they knew in the future he may not support a
campaign against the Kanto, being Kanto Kanrei himself. I only
speculate. But it is likely that if Uesugi Kenshin was still alive he
would have resited aggresive moves into the Kanto possibly allying
with Hojo, this is counterfactual and only conjecture. The main point
is that the Uesugi family in Echigo and influence in the Kanto were
the key block in the defeat of the Hojo.

Because I only have access to limited sources, I am only wondering,
someone with Japanese sources on this time could do a better job
probably.

All the best Mark