Before the appearance of Yamamoto Kansuke, there were already military strategists in the Takeda family!
When it comes to Takeda Shingen’s military strategist, the name “Yamamoto Kansuke” comes up. However, for a long time it was said that this Kansuke did not exist. The existence of Kansuke was proven when the NHK Taiga drama “Heaven and Earth” was broadcasted in 1969 (Showa 44). The Ichikawa documents (Shingen’s letters) found in Hokkaido became the decisive evidence for the existence of Kansuke (the letters say “Kansuke” in different kanji). So were there any other “military strategists” in the Takeda family before (or besides) Kansuke? These were the vassals who became the eyes and ears of the warlords Shingen and Nobutora, or their hands and feet, and demonstrated their skills in diplomacy, domestic affairs, and battles.
The original definition of a military strategist seems to be a person who leads battles according to military art as represented by Kansuke. However, in reality, a military strategist originally referred to a person who was knowledgeable in magic, astronomy, astrology, and calendar art. In addition to this, the military strategist was also responsible for performing ceremonies such as the ceremony of departure for battle, the method of inspecting severed heads, and raising victory cries. From this old form of military strategist emerged several types such as staff officer type, tactical/strategic type, diplomatic type, and bureaucratic type. Kansuke is considered to have been a military strategist who was skilled in castle building while also being a staff officer type and tactical/strategic type.
From the time of Takeda Nobutora to the time of Shingen (before Kansuke), there was Komai Kohakusai Masatake. He is also known as the recorder of “Kohakusai-ki,” (Kohakusai Records) which is an indispensable first-class material for studying the Takeda family during the Sengoku period along with “Myoho-ji-ki” (Myoho-ji Records). One piece of evidence that Kohakusai was a military strategist is that he is known as the drafter of the famous “Koshu Hatto-shidai (Shingen Hatto/Standard).” In addition, Kohakusai was in charge of “kuwadate” (groundbreaking ceremony) for castle building. Kuwadate was an important job for a military strategist. In addition to this, he used astronomy to forecast weather before battles (for example, during the Toshiishi Castle battle with Murakami Yoshikiyo in Shinshu). Furthermore, as a typical diplomatic-type military strategist, he played a role in mediating between Imagawa Yoshimoto, Hojo Ujiyasu and Uesugi Kenshin’s hegemony at Shingen’s command and led it to success. The year of birth and death of Kohakusai is unknown but after the fall of the Takeda family his descendants served Tokugawa Ieyasu as 1800 koku hatamoto (high ranking samurai).
A generation before Kohakusai there was Ogiwara Hitachi-no-suke Masakatsu who served Nobutora and helped young Nobutora unify Kai. At that time Kai province had enemies on three sides: Suruga, Shinano and Sagami. In 1521 (Eiroku 18), a 15000-men army led by Fukushima Kazusa-no-suke Masashige from Suruga invaded. The Suruga forces advanced as far as near Kofu. On the other hand, the Takeda army had 3000 men. They had to face an enemy five times their size.
Military strategist Ogiwara Masakatsu prepared a strategy to “control large with small”. He gathered flag bearers at Ichijo Hill in Kofu to make it look like Takeda army had gathered here while hiding Takeda army with local advantage here and there. Masakatsu’s tactics were based on “signal flags”. In the past Masakatsu saw about 50 fishing boats setting out from the Kii coast following schools of fish based on large flag signals from lookout hut on the coast and got an idea for his tactics from this. He devised various ways to turn Kai’s mountains and rivers into sea. This is called the Kamijo Kawara Battle. This victory, before and after which Shingen was born, gave rise to the legend that he was named “Katsuchiyodai” (victorious for a thousand generations). Military strategist Ogiwara Masakatsu led all of Nobutora’s battles to victory and even predicted Shingen’s extraordinary talent, saying “In the future he will do great things.”
In addition, several generations later, one of his descendants was Ogiwara Shigehide, the Kanjo Bugyo (accounting magistrate) (mistakenly infamous for his coinage reform) during the Genroku era (5th shogun Tsunayoshi).
In addition to this, those who played a role similar to that of a staff officer as a military strategist included Nobukata Itagaki, Shingen’s mentor, one of Takeda’s four great vassals, Nobufusa (Nobuharu) Baba, and Shingen’s younger brother Nobushige.
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