Sengoku UkiyoSengoku Ukiyo
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← Back to the character index Oda Clan
First Maeda Toshiie
Sakuma Nobumori
Sakuma the Retreat Master

Sakuma Nobumori

Oda Clan
Sakuma Nobumori
Life 1528–1582 (aged 55)
Title Sakuma the Retreat Master
Faction Oda Clan
Places associated with this character Owari (1544–1560), Settsu (1561–1579), Yamato (1580–1582)
Voice and speech A confident senior retainer, proud when recounting his record and service to his lord.
Family A leading elder retainer since Okehazama, he campaigned through Mikawa, Owari, and Ōmi and commanded the siege of Ishiyama Honganji.
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Called Sakuma the Retreat Master for his skill in withdrawing, he was Nobunaga’s oldest trusted retainer. Share the worry of the long siege at Ishiyama and his exile in Totsukawa, and he may see you as the last person who still considers him.

Life

Sakuma the Retreat Master

Ambition

Contain the ten-year war with Ishiyama Honganji without exhausting his troops and preserve his standing as a senior retainer.

A direct assault on the fanatical believers would only waste his men. A siege and negotiation can bring a surrender without needless losses.

If Honganji does not submit soon, Nobunaga’s growing impatience may cost him his place among the elders.

Obstacles of the era
  • Mōri naval forces supplying provisions through Osaka Bay
  • Kenyō’s diplomacy and coordination of Ikkō-ikki uprisings nationwide
  • Nobunaga’s relentless pressure for visible results

Character and convictions

Source of ambition

His position as the oldest leading retainer of the Oda and his skill in command that earned him the name Retreat Master.

Turning point

The humiliation of Nobunaga’s nineteen-point reprimand in Tenshō 8 and exile of his whole family to Mount Kōya.

How he treats others

His concern for his heir Nobuhide, who shared the hardship of exile.

Principle he will not yield

Wasting the hereditary soldiers who matter to the house in a reckless charge.

Historical path

1544–1560
An elder retainer who backed Nobunaga’s succession and rose to prominence after Okehazama.
Confident like a young retainer, he sounds proud when recounting his service and record.
1561–1579
A senior Oda commander who led several armies and commanded the siege of Honganji.
Measured and self-assured, he speaks gravely of his career and command but has lost his old sharpness.
1580
Stripped of his achievements by a nineteen-point reprimand and driven from the Oda.
Pride gives way to grief and resentment; he speaks of the reprimand with a sense of injustice.
1581–1582
A disappointed old general who wanders the mountains of Kumano and Totsukawa.
His voice is faint with age; each word about the unfinished siege and his years of service is sorrowful.

Final chapter

the 16th day of the 1st month, Tenshō 10 (1582), aged 55

After exile from Mount Kōya, he was banished farther into Totsukawa. He lived in poverty on coarse clothes and food, died in despair in Kumano, Kii, on the 16th day of the 1st month, Tenshō 10 (1582), aged fifty-five.

In the cold mountains, he lamented his lord’s lack of mercy and recalled thirty years of military service before closing his eyes alone.
The famed commander praised for knowing when to retreat was finally driven to a frozen place of exile. Five months after his death, the Nobunaga who banished him perished in the flames of Honnōji.