Battle of Okehazama
1560 battle
The Battle of Okehazama (桶狭間の戦い, Okehazama-no-tatakai) took place on 12 June 1560 in Owari Province, in today's Aichi Prefecture. In this battle, the heavily outnumbered Oda clan troops, commanded by Oda Nobunaga, defeated Imagawa Yoshimoto and established Oda as one of the front-running warlords in the Sengoku period.
Background
In 1560, Imagawa Yoshimoto, a powerful warlord who controlled Suruga, Tōtōmi, and Mikawa Provinces amassed an army of 25,000 men to march on Kyoto to challenge the increasingly weak and ineffective Ashikaga shogunate for control of the country. The army followed the route of the Tōkaidō highway, and crossed from Mikawa into Owari Province, which had recently been united by the local warlord Oda Nobunaga.
Prelude
The 25,000 Imagawa forces quickly overran Oda's border fortresses of Washizu, Matsudaira forces led by Matsudaira Motoyasu took Marune fortress, and Yoshimoto set up camp at Dengaku-hazama, located in the village of Okehazama, just outside of what is now the city of Nagoya. In opposition, Oda Nobunaga could field only about 2000-3000 men, or roughly one-tenth of the Imagawa army. Although some of his staff recommended withdrawing to the Oda stronghold of Kiyosu Castle, Nobunaga was aware that Kiyosu would not be able to withstand a siege. He instead stated that "only a strong offensive policy could make up for the superior numbers of the enemy" and ordered a counterattack.
The geography of the area in which the Imagawa set up their camp was well known to Nobunaga and his scouts, as they had often used the area for war games in the guise of falconry hunts.
The evening before the attack, Nobunaga gathered his men and told them that to wait would be suicide and that it be best to attack the enemy head on, before sending them home to rest.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q349422. The Library of Congress control number is sh85094452. Authority coordinates are 35.060, 136.981. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1560 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Okehazama” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.