#tamonin nikki

[odaclan]

Iga riots post-Honnouji

In Wikipedia there was a short passage saying that Nobukatsu wasn’t able to participate in the battle against the Akechi forces after Honnouji because there was a riot in Iga. He had difficulty taking care of the issue because many of his army had been taken by Nobutaka to be part of the Shikoku conquest, and so he was outnumbered.

The Wikipedia passage says “this is doubtful” due to the existence of a conflicting account, but it only addressed the part where his troops were taken by Nobutaka. It didn’t say the riots in Iga was doubtful or false. 

The story was also mentioned in this blog post. The blog contains a couple of citations to real documents, but this particular bit was simply narrated without source.

The story says that Nobukatsu was supposed to join his older brother, who had made a last-minute decision to stay in Kyoto unprepared, and bring reinforcements. However, Honnouji happened before he was able to move his army out. He brought his troops to Oumi province, but wasn’t able to trust that there are no more traitors, and so he camped in Suzuka Pass instead of entering Azuchi.

At that point, Akechi troops supposedly turned to Iga to stir up riots, and Nobukatsu ended up having to head out there to take care of that mess. 

So what’s the verdict, though?

The story about Iga actually has merit, because the Tamon’in Nikki did record that “on the 5th of the 6th month Gohonjo’s (Nobukatsu) troops entered Iga, pacified the province, and took hostages”.

Tamon’in Nikki has long been considered a highly reliable source, so at the very least it’s not entirely dubious.

The relevant bit from the Tamon’in Nikki transcript digitised online in the Japanese archives:

What happened in Iga before and after this is still something I can’t account for, though. If on the 5th everything is settled, it does not look like the situation is still ongoing in the days that follow, unless there were still stray rioters that needed to be rounded up in Iga.