Siege of Miki
| Siege of Miki | |||||||||
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| Part of the Sengoku period | |||||||||
 The encirclement of Miki by Hashiba Hideyoshi | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Forces of Oda Nobunaga | Forces of Bessho Nagaharu | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Hashiba Hideyoshi | Bessho Nagaharu † | ||||||||
The siege of Miki (三木合戦) lasted from 1578 to 1580. Toyotomi Hideyoshi took Miki Castle of Harima Province, located in what is now Miki, Hyōgo, Japan, from Bessho Nagaharu, an ally of the Mōri clan.
Situation in Harima
The original Shugo (governor) of the province was the Akamatsu clan, with the Bessho clan and Kodera clan as its Shugodai (deputy governor). The Akamatsu clan were one of the most powerful shugo of the previous Shogunate having at one point being the shugo of 4 separate provinces, however, by this time they had already greatly declined in power, and was but a nominal leader holding together a collapsing coalition of clans in Harima.
When Hashiba Hideyoshi entered the province on the order of Oda Nobunaga in late 1576, the Akamatsu clan leader Akamatsu Norifusa decided to simply surrender to the Oda while he still had a decent deal on the table, and soon after the Bessho clan and Kodera clan also submitted.
Beesho rebellion
Having apparently taken all of Harima without bloodshed, Hideyoshi proceeded to move his base of operation to Himeji, the former residential castle of the Akamatsu, and began preparing for a showdown with the Mōri clan, however during this time, Beesho Nagaharu's uncle Bessho Yoshichika was reported to have felt insulted having to submit to Hideyoshi, who was born a commoner. He managed to convince his nephew to rebel, and also set up a secret alliance with the Mori clan. Soon after his rebellion, the Kodera clan also joined in.
Once the first shot was fired, Hideyoshi was suddenly in a dangerous position, trapped between the powerful Mori clan in the front and a bunch of rebelling clans behind him. He decided to go for an all out siege of the Miki castle, hoping to stomp the source of the rebellion.
The siege
Hideyoshi's force gradually took out Beesho clan's out lying castle and eventually surrounded them in Miki castle completely. However, the Beesho held out for an extraordinarily long time thanks to a large stock of food, secret resupplying mission from the Mori Navy, and in the final stages, sheer will power. They attempted to break the siege on a few occasion. With daring attacks on the much larger Oda forces, bu to no avail, Bessho Harusada, the younger brother of Nagaharu, was killed in one of these raids.
Finally after nearly 3 year since the beginning of the rebellion, Miki castle finally surrendered, Beesho Nagaharu's committed seppuku and his uncle Bessho Yoshichika, the instigator of this rebellion, was killed by his own soldiers