Sakuma Nobumori
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Sakuma Nobumori (佐久間信盛? 1528-February 18, 1582) was a retainer of the Oda clan. He has also been called Dewa no Suke (出羽介) and Uemon no Jo (右衛門尉).
He was born in Owari Province and served under Oda Nobuhide. Entrusted with the care of the still very young Oda Nobunaga, he, unlike other retainers who wavered over whether they should support Nobunaga or Oda Nobuyuki as the clan leader, Nobumori never changed his position as a loyal retainer of Nobunaga. He always fought for him. For this loyalty he was treated as Nobunaga's most important retainer, and he would fight in every important battle under Nobunaga. He was called Noki Sakuma(退き佐久間), which literally means "Retreating Sakuma,"[citation needed] because of his cautious tactics. He was successful in the campaign against the Rokkaku clan and he contributed to suppressing rebellions caused by Buddhist sects in Echizen Province and at Nagashima in Osaka. In 1572, his 3000 men army unit was part of the reinforcement troops dispatched by Nobunaga to aid Tokugawa Ieyasu's approximately 8000 soldiers against the 27000 soldiers led by Takeda Shingen. In the Battle of Mikatagahara he retreated after a preliminary engagement. His fellow commander Hirate Hirohide, however, was fighting alongside the Tokugawa troops and lost his life in this battle, which ended with a crushing defeat of the Tokugawa/Oda alliance.
In 1576, after Harada Naomasa had died during the campaign against the heavily fortified and well-supplied Honganji temple in Osaka, Nobumori was chosen as Naomasa's replacement as commander. He was supplied with troops from seven provinces. At that time, among all Oda retainers, he was in command of the largest Oda-clan army. And yet, unlike his colleagues Akechi Mitsuhide, Shibata Katsuie and Hashiba Hideyoshi who all won battles on the fronts they were assigned to, Nobumori, who was faced with fearless Buddhist zealots, made no progress at all. After ten years of battles, Nobunaga had the emperor mediate a truce to end the war in 1580.
In the same year, Nobunaga drafted a document containing fifteen accusations of Nobumori's failures, including past failures and the failure against the Honganji, and he banished Nobumori and his son Sakuma Nobuhide to the temple on Mount Koyasan, where they had to spend their days in the lifestyle of Buddhist monks. Nobumori died in 1581 at Totsugawa in Yamato Province. His posthumous names were Doumu Keigan(洞無桂巌) and Souyu(宗佑).
Nobumori's banishment has widely been regarded as symbolizing Nobunaga's cold-bloodedness against even long-serving retainers. It also puts the spotlight on Nobumori's inability and shortcomings as a military commander. However, it was also reported that Nobunaga had been more interested in holding his frequent tea parties rather than focusing on military affairs. He himself never devised any military measures against the Honganji, even though the war had remained in a stalemate. It has been recorded that since his childhood, Nobumori had been openly critical of Nobunaga.
