An easy-to-understand explanation of Amago Seisuiki

Stronghold of the Iron Wall Gassan Toda Castle

Gassan Toda Castle, which was the main castle of successive generations of the Amago clan and served as a base for conquest of Sanin and Sanyo, was one of the greatest fortresses of the Warring States period, with its scale and impregnability. Yoshitaka Ouchi attacked and Motonari MORI attacked, but they were not able to defeat them by force, and even in the battle against Motonari, the Amago clan surrendered after a raid.

Gassan Toda Castle is a mountain castle located in Hirose, Yoshigi County, Izumo Province. Tomita Castle is the original name, and it is Masamune to call it Gassan Castle. Located on Mt. Katsume (192m), which is located at the top of the Iinashi River basin flat area, it was a natural fortress separated by a deep valley between the north side and the southwestern part.

The Mori invasion and the downfall of the Amago clan

It continued to support the power of Amago for generations, but in April of Eiroku 8 (1565), a crisis finally came when the Mori army attempted to invade from three sides: Okomoriguchi, Shiotaniguchi, and Sugayaguchi. increase. The Amago clan defended well and pushed back the Mouri forces for a time, but Motonari changed direction to a siege strategy. On November 21st, Yoshihisa Amago finally surrendered to the Mori clan and surrendered the castle. At this point, the Amago clan, who had dominated Sanin and Sanyo since Tsunehisa, fell. Tomita Castle was returned to the Mori clan.

Amago clan revival war

The Amago army ended its history as a feudal lord of the Sengoku period, descending from the Mori clan. Motonari praised the besieged officers and soldiers as “samurai turtle mirrors,” and each of them dispersed in their own way, but dozens of them, including Hisamori Kawasoe, Hisatsuna Tachihara, Shikanosuke Yamanaka, Kurando Mitoya, and Tadashi Moriwaki Higashiichi. , Since he was allowed to see off the three Amago brothers to Kitsuki, he exchanged a cup of farewell. This is the lasting secret between the lord Amago Yoshihisa and Amago’s retainers, and the three brothers are escorted to Aki, and Shikanosuke and others leave their homeland of Izumo with their hopes for the future.

After the downfall of his master’s family, Yukimori YAMANAKA Shikanosuke, Tachihara Gentabei Hisatsuna, and others, who had gone up to Kyoto, returned to secular life the sons of the Shingu party who were in Tofuku-ji Temple, called themselves ‘Ama descendant Shiro Katsuhisa,’ and appointed him as the captain, before Eiroku. In June of the 12th year (1569), he entered Senshaku Bay on the Shimane Peninsula, landed after a skirmish, and set up camp at Tadayama. More than 200 former retainers gathered around Katsuhisa. About 3,000 people, including Masahisa Moriwaki Higashiichi, Yukinobu Megata Shinbei, Yukisada Do, Hisamori Kawazoe Mimasaka no Kami, Takanobu Taga Hyogosuke, and Yukiken Yabuki, gathered after hearing about the opportunity to restore Amago. Many of them were people who saw the surrender of Tomita Castle in the 9th year of the Eiroku era.

The Amago army moved its headquarters to Shinyama Castle and attacked its former castle, Tomita Castle, but was unable to recapture it. With soldiers, they attacked Mt. Nube near Mt. Gassan. However, he suffered a crushing defeat in front of the Mori army, and lost Yokomichi Hyogosuke, one of the Ten Braves of Amago. Next, Akikami Ansuke, who is next to Yamanaka Shikanosuke, descends to Mouri, and on June 3, Katsuhisa’s close aide, Mitoya Kurando, and Ueda, who is named among the Ten Braves. Even Sanaesuke was killed.

In March of the second year of Genki, Tsunahiro Yonehara, the lord of Takase Castle on the Amago side, surrendered the castle to the Mouri side and moved out to Amago’s main camp, Shinyama Castle. On June 14, Motonari MORI died at the age of 75 in Koriyama-jo Castle, where he lived. The first round of running and revival did not bear fruit after all.

Amako’s complete demise

Around the time Amago Tsunin ran to Kyoto, the Sengoku stage was showing rapid development by Nobunaga Oda. Shikanosuke Yamanaka, with the help of Nobunaga, advances to Inaba Province and plots the second war of revival. However, the plan to recapture Inaba, Hoki, and Izumo collapsed, and he was frustrated again, and returned to Kyoto.

The stage of the third round of Amago revival will be moved from Sanin to Sanyo, and Banshu Kozuki Castle will be the main battlefield. In other words, this was a once-in-a-lifetime confrontation between Hideyoshi Hashiba, the commander-in-chief of Nobunaga’s conquest of China, and Motoharu Kikkawa and Takakage Kobayakawa, who assisted Terumoto Mori, the commander-in-chief of the Mouri. Kozuki Castle, where the Akamatsu clan of the Mori side is trapped, is captured by Hideyoshi’s army, and Katsuhisa Amago and Shikanosuke Yamanaka take the front line of the Hashiba army and enter Kozuki Castle instead. However, Kozuki Castle was surrounded by a large army of 30,000 Mori soldiers, and in an attempt to save the Amago masters and servants, Hideyoshi had Kamei Korenori (Yu Shinjuro), who was Hideyoshi’s former Amago retainer, infiltrate Kozuki Castle. However, Shikanosuke did not respond, and in the end Kozuki Castle fell before the Mori clan attacked, and Katsuhisa committed suicide (at the age of 26). Here, the main daimyo of Izumo, the Amago clan, was completely destroyed.

On the other hand, Yamanaka Shikanosuke was deported, captured, and on his way to the west, he was murdered at the foot of Bitchu Matsuyama Castle at the junction of the Takahashi River (Kobe River) and the Nariwa River. On July 17, Tensho 6, he passed away at the age of thirty-four. In the end, Shikanosuke’s ambitions to revive Amago were tried twice and three times, but were thwarted by the Mouri army, which was led by a large army.