On the Description of Oda Nobunaga’s Conquest of the Takeda Domain in “Shinchō-kō ki”

Abstract

The paper examines the features of the narrative of the chronicle “Shinchō-kō ki”, one of the most valuable sources on the history of Japan of the Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods, written by Ōta Gyūichi, a vassal of Oda Nobunaga. The characteristic features of the description of Nobunaga's conquest of the Takeda domain, which became an important stage in the political unification of Japan at the end of the 16th century, are analyzed. The author of the chronicle seeks to justify the inevitability of the victory of the Oda army and the defeat of Katsuyori, the head of the Takeda house. Katsuyori appears in the chronicle as an unjust and cruel ruler, who is the antithesis of Oda Nobunaga, who in the work of Ōta Gyūichi is endowed with the qualities of a virtuous Confucian ruler. The fall of the Takeda house is explained in the spirit of Buddhism as retribution for the deaths of people during the wars waged by three generations of the Takeda house (Nobutora, Shingen, Katsuyori). The narrative of Ōta Gyūichi in the corresponding fragments of the chronicle of book XV, which describes the “pacification” of the Takeda domain, becomes more expressive, closer in style to earlier military epics of the Kamakura and Muromachi periods. In general, the narrative of the conquest of the Takeda inheritance reflects the intention of Ōta Gyūichi, which permeates other parts of the chronicle, which consists in exalting the military valor and dignity of Nobunaga. At the same time, the author of the chronicle uses both Confucian and Buddhist ideas and concepts. The appendix to the article also contains a commented translation into Russian of an excerpt from book XV, which tells about the conquest of the Takeda domain.