This man aspired to the heights his father had reached, but lacked the talent and drive of his sire. The Takeda were left to the son of Shingen, Katsuyori. Had Death not claimed him at the age of fifty-three, he might have become shogun himself. But for all his faults, he was an excellent adminstrator and a very capable general. Some of his clan had died in battle- including two of his famous Twenty Four Generals in a single battle, while he ordered others-including family members- to commit seppuku for plotting against him. Shingen had gutted the Takeda during his rise in power. Shingen died the next year, to infection, illness, or as some say, a sniper’s bullet. Ieyasu got away, and went on to become Shogun himself. What few escaped did so by ruse, not battle. The Takeda cavalry charge overran the Tokugawa gunners and slaughtered almost the entire army. Regardless, his forces met those of Shingen at Mikatagahara in 1572. It is unknown whether Tokugawa Ieyasu thought too much of his new thunderous weaponry, or if he underestimated the fury of a Takeda charge. Takeda Shingen was seen as one of the few daimyos who could stop the steamroller. Oda Nobunaga was overrunning Japan on his way to the shogunate, and Ieyasu was his ally now. This was one of the first battles using firearms recorded in Japanese history. Shingen even defeated the legendary Tokugawa Ieyasu, his one-time ally, at the Battle of Mikatagahara. He and Shingen fought no less than five battles at Kawanakajima, and their feud became legendary. Thus Shingen fought, and conquered, and by the time he was thirty nine, Shinano Province was his.ĭuring his battles, he made a rival out of another famous general: Uesugi Kenshin- the Tiger of Echigo. With no missiles and hounded by cavalry, most armies broke beneath his churning hooves. This heavy cavalry charge brushed aside all in its path to its target- those lots and lots of archers. Shingen removed the bows from his horsemen, and replaced them with lances. The way of the day was heavy infantry, and large quantities of those backed by archers- lots and lots of archers. These victories came as a shock to most daimyo- not because of Shingen’s youth, but because of his innovations and tactics. He pressed north and defeated these others again and again, sometimes suffering a reversal, but most often victorious.

They gathered to do battle, but Shingen defeated them- handily. Other daimyo opposed this upstart who would exile his own father. This cemented an alliance with the Imagawa that would serve young Shingen well as he turned his eyes to the much larger province of Shinano to the north. His father, who had intended to relegate the prodigal son to a life of nothingness by naming another son as heir, was himself exiled to Suruga Province under the eyes of the Imagawa clan. It was summer in 1541, and twenty-one-year-old Harunobu defied the virtue of familial duty to seize his father’s throne in a bloodless revolution and become the ruler of Kai Province himself. This was Shingen, and Takeda Shingen would be a name the histories would remember. This name would follow him throughout his life, but he chose another by which to be known. Nobu was from his father, Nobutora, and Haru came from the name of the shogun Yoshiharu. His official name was Minamoto-no Harunobu. This feud ended around the time our greatest leader was born. Then we feuded with the Uesugi, when they rebelled against the shogun. Later, we earned Wakasa province as well. We aided the Hojo against their upstarts- and were rewarded with Aki Province. We came to the province of Kai, as mentioned, and from there we grew strong, slowly but surely. It is interesting to note that the Minamoto clan, to which we belong, was also the clan from which the Ashikaga shoguns descend. Over time, three centuries or so to be exact, Yoshikiyo, son of Yoshimitsu, became the first of our line to adopt the name of Takeda. This we bless, for it relieves us of the burden of remotenessa nd allows us to freely engage in mortal politics and warfare, in which we excel. Our branch of the Divine Family was given the name Minamoto, signifying our descent from the Heavens but formally excluding us from the Throne. The Takeda were an old clan, descendants of the Emperor Seiwa from the Heian Period. And mostly due to Takeda Shingen, the greatest of the Takeda. Thus it is strange that the Takeda developed the finest cavalry in all of Japan, but it is true. It is a mountainous, land-locked place, but has a castle at Kofu. Hear, oh traveler, the tale of the Takeda, once a mighty daimyo clan from Kai Province in eastern Honshu.

Total war shogun 2 wikipedia