Siege of Katsurao 1553
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1553 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | Japan | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| Coordinates | 36.4720, 138.1761 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The 1553 siege of Katsurao was one of many sieges undertaken by the warlord Takeda Shingen in his long campaign to gain control of Japan's Shinano province, which was ruled by a hodgepodge of minor daimyō, notably the Suwa, Ogasawara, Murakami and Takato.
Shingen mounted his first invasion of Shinano in 1542 and steadily worked his way northwards, defeating the Suwa and Takato by 1547. His inexorable advance through the province alarmed the Uesugi clan, which controlled Echigo province to the north, and in 1547 Uesugi Norimasa sent an army into the province to confront Shingen, but this was swept aside at Odaihara. At this point the Murakami and Ogasawara finally entered the fray, and Murakami Yoshikiyo succeeded in defeating Shingen at Uedahara (1548), but Shingen regrouped and went back on the offensive. Identifying Yoshikiyo as the greater threat, he decided to concentrate his initial efforts on the weaker Ogasawara, and in 1550 he seized their principal castle at Fukashi, in modern Matsumoto, forcing their daimyo Ogasawara Nagatoki to flee and seek sanctuary with his ally Murakami Yoshikiyo at Katsurao.
Takeda Shingen then turned his attention to the Murakami, and after some difficulty succeeded in reducing their stronghold at Tosihi in 1551.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Katsurao (revision 1370742367), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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