HOJO

During the sixteenth century Japan’s medieval period was le behind as the samurai experienced a military revolution that involved the introduction of rearms and the mobilisation of large armies who fought from stone castles. The history of this violent time is perfectly encapsulated in the campaigns waged by five generations of one outstanding warlord family: the Hojo of Odawara Castle. In 1487 the dynasty’s founder attacked a wooden stockade using bows and arrows; in 1590 his great-great grandson defended a huge castle using cannon. Successive Hojo warlords were contemporaries of famous samurai such as Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin and Oda Nobunaga, whose armies they fought and defeated, but their end came at the hands of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the “Napoleon of Japan”, who defeated the Hojo in a massive siege of their mighty castle of Odawara. This book tells the story of a century of warfare using Japanese sources not previously translated into English. It is spectacularly illustrated with photographs of armour and weapons plus newly-commissioned artwork. Detailed and authoritative accounts of the campaigns show the Hojo samurai using ‘every trick in the book’ from sea raiding to ninja attacks. There are also many surprises, such as the use of dogs as messengers and the revelation that the final siege of Odawara in 1590 was no easy matter. When the Hojo dynasty came to its glorious end and their last patriarch committed hara-kiri, Japan and samurai warfare were changed forever.