Sekigahara Campaign

Sekigahara Campaign
Part of the Sengoku period
Date
  • 22 August - 5 November 1600
Low-level conflict from 12 July
Continued Date-Uesugi conflict in Tōhoku until May 1601
Location
Japan
Result Tokugawa victory; beginning of Tokugawa shogunate
Territorial
changes
Tokugawa gains nominal control of all Japan
Belligerents

Eastern Army: Forces loyal to Tokugawa Ieyasu

Western Army: Forces loyal to Ishida Mitsunari

Commanders and leaders
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Tokugawa Hidetada
Tōdō Takatora
Matsudaira Tadayoshi
Fukushima Masanori
Katō Kiyomasa
Honda Tadakatsu
Torii Mototada 
Matsudaira Ietada 
Ōkubo Tadachika
Honda Masanobu
Ii Naomasa (WIA)
Katō Yoshiaki
Sakakibara Yasumasa
Sakai Ietsugu[1]
Maeda Toshinaga
Mogami Yoshiaki
Date Masamune
Kuroda Nagamasa
Kuroda Yoshitaka
Ikeda Terumasa
Hosokawa Tadaoki
Hosokawa Fujitaka Surrendered
Mizuno Katsunari
Nabeshima Naoshige
Kyōgoku Takatsugu
Sanada Nobuyuki
Horio Yoshiharu
Asano Nagamasa
Yamauchi Kazutoyo
Kobayakawa Hideaki (late)]
Nanbu Toshinao
Tsutsui Sadatsugu
Kanamori Nagachika
Ishida Mitsunari Executed
Ukita Hideie
Shima Sakon 
Ōtani Yoshitsugu 
Toyotomi Hideyori
Mōri Terumoto
Mōri Hidemoto
Konishi Yukinaga Executed
Uesugi Kagekatsu
Naoe Kanetsugu
Maeda Toshimasu
Ōtomo Yoshimune
Tachibana Muneshige
Shimazu Yoshihiro
Shimazu Toyohisa 
Chōsokabe Morichika
Oda Hidenobu Surrendered
Sanada Masayuki
Sanada Yukimura
Kobayakawa Hideaki (defected)
Strength
Over 75,000 initially[2] 120,000 initially[2]
Casualties and losses
4,000–10,000[3] killed 8,000[4]–32,000[5] killed
~23,000 defected

The Sekigahara Campaign was a series of battles in Japan fought between the Eastern Army aligned with Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Western Army loyal to Ishida Mitsunari, culminating in the decisive Battle of Sekigahara. The conflict was sparked by a punitive expedition led by Ieyasu against the Uesugi clan in the northeastern Tōhoku region, providing Mitsunari with an opportunity to denounce Ieyasu in the name of the infant ruling taikō Toyotomi Hideyori while the Tokugawa troops were in the field.

Much of the campaign consisted of a struggle to control key castles on the Tōkaidō and the Nakasendō, the main roads linking Edo and the capital of Kyoto. However, battles and sieges far from these key highways, both in the Tōhoku and in pockets of resistance around the capital, had wide-reaching effects on the manoeuvring and availability of troops for the decisive battle at Sekigahara. The campaign also spilled over briefly into the southern island of Kyūshū, but Ieyasu quickly ordered his forces to stand down following his victory for political reasons.

The campaign dramatically changed the political landscape of Japan, resulting in the ascendancy of the Tokugawa Shogunate over the Toyotomi clan and the shifting of political power between the various daimyō who participated in it.

  1. ^ "朝日日本歴史人物事典".
  2. ^ a b Davis 1999, p. 204.
  3. ^ 『関原合戦記』
  4. ^ 『関原始末記』
  5. ^ 『関原軍記大成』