Siege of Ueda

The siege of Ueda was staged in 1600 by Tokugawa Hidetada, son and heir of the warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu, against Ueda castle garrison in Shinano province, which was controlled by the Sanada family.

Hidetada came across the castle as he marched his army along the Nakasendō (central mountain road) from Edo to rendezvous with his father's forces. Sanada Masayuki resisted, and Sanada Yukimura, second son of Masayuki, was able to fight Hidetada's 38,000 men with only 2,000. However, when the castle did not fall as quickly as Hidetada had hoped and expected, he gave up and abandoned the siege and hurried to meet up with his father. As a result of this delay, Hidetada missed the battle of Sekigahara, the decisive victory in his father's unification of Japan.

In popular culture

In the 2009 movie Summer Wars, the fictional Jinnouchi family was descended from those who fought during the siege, making explicit reference to the victory of 2,000 men over 38,000 enemies; the director, Momoru Hosoda, chose Ueda as the primary setting of the film after visiting his then-fiancée's home in Ueda, and it was also close to Hosoda's birthplace.

References

• Turnbull, Stephen (1998). 'The Samurai Sourcebook'. London: Cassell & Co.