ABSTRACT
On a rainy summer afternoon in ad 1560, roughly 2,000 warriors of Oda Nobunaga’s army attacked a massive force, supposedly numbering 25,000 men, led by Imagawa Yoshimoto in what has come to be known as the battle of Okehazama. Thanks to a lightning assault, Nobunaga’s army routed the much larger group, and according to popular historiography, shifted the momentum of the Sengoku period (c.1470–1600). Suddenly Nobunaga’s star was on the rise, while the great house of Imagawa fell toward ruin.
