Oda Nobuna no Yabou 04 — The Battle of Okehazama

Aside from Nobuna’s continued tsundereness, this was a pretty decent episode.

The details regarding the Battle of Okehazama were pretty much accurate. Nobunaga’s scouts did discover Imagawa’s camp after Imagawa invaded. They went to pray at the Atsuta shrine for victory, and then marched. A thunderstorm helped them sneak up on the enemy. Nobunaga was outnumbered by about 2000 to 35000, but the enemy were drunk and celebrating so they were able to rout the Imagawa.

From what I could figure out, the battle is named after the nearby village of Okehazama, which is not where the battle actually took place. That may have been part of Saru’s confusion upon seeing the mountain. The battle actually occurred at Dengaku-Hazama, a wooded, narrow gorge where Imagawa had set up camp and started celebrating his victory. In retrospect, a narrow forested gorge was probably not the best place to get his army drunk before the war had actually ended.

There were, of course, some differences from history in the show, so I’ll point some of these out.

Nobunaga didn’t attack during the thunderstorm, he snuck up during it and attacked after the storm ended. From what I can tell, there wasn’t much of an organized resistance at all. Imagawa thought it was just a drunken fight among his own men until he saw the Oda warriors for himself.

Nobuna’s prayer at the temple was made up, although I enjoyed the blasphemous version nonetheless:

Nobunaga did not hide in his room until Saru got back. Here’s what he is believed to have told his men when he made the decision to attack:

Imagawa has 40,000 men marching toward this place? I don’t believe that. He ‘only’ has 35,000 soldiers. Yes, that is still too many. So, Sado, you want me to surrender. What if we do surrender? Will you get content with losing your life that way? Or what if we hold on like Katsuie wants me to? What if we stay here in this castle, lock it up, and wait until the Imagawas lose appetite and stop the siege and go home? We will be able to prolong our lives for five or ten days, and what we cannot defend will still be undefendable. We are at the bottom of the pit, you know. And our fate is interesting. Of course the misery is too great, too. But this is how I see it: this is a chance in a lifetime. I can’t afford to miss this. Do you really want to spend your entire lives praying for longevity? We were born in order to die! Whoever is with me, come to the battlefield tomorrow morning. Whoever is not, just stay wherever you are and watch me win it!