Sakuma Nobumori
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Sakuma Nobumori (佐久間信盛; 1527-August 21, 1581) was a retainer of Oda clan. He has been also called Dewa no Suke(出羽介) and Uemon no I(右衛門尉).
He was born in Owari Province and served under Oda Nobuhide. Entrusted with the care of Oda Nobunaga when he was young, he, unlike other retainers who wavered over which side to take as the head of clan, Nobunaga or Oda Nobuyuki, Nobumori never changed his position as the royal retainer of Nobunaga, as he always fought for him. For this loyalty, he was treated as the most important retainer and he would fight in every important battle. He was called Shirizoki Sakuma(退き佐久間), lit. "Retreating Sakuma,"[citation needed] for his cautious tactics. He had a success against Rokkaku clan and contributed to putting down Buddhist-based rebellions in Echizen Province and at Nagashima. On 1572, he was a part of reinforcement to aid Tokugawa Ieyasu against Takeda Shingen. Unable to hold down Tokugawa, he fought in Battle of Mikatagahara which ended in a crushing defeat losing Hirate Hirohide.
On 1576, after hearing the report that Harada Naomasa died during a war against Honganji, Nobumori was chosen after Naomasa to lead and was supplied with troops from seven provinces, the largest army of all retainers. Yet, Akechi Mitsuhide, Shibata Katsuie and Hashiba Hideyoshi all won battles on the front they were assigned to, faced with fearless Buddhist zealots, Nobumori made no progress at all. After ten years of battles, Nobunaga had the emperor make a truce to end the war on 1580.
In the same year, Nobunaga showed fifteen accusations of failures including past failures and the failure against Honganji to Nobumori and banished Nobumori and his son Sakuma Nobuhide to Koyasan to be Buddhist monks. Nobumori died on 1581 at Totsugawa of Yamato Province. His posthumous names were 洞無桂巌 and 宗佑.
Nobumori's banishment has been widely called the symbol for Nobunaga's cold-bloodedness against even long-serving retainers, as well as the inability and limit of Nobumori's ability. However, it has been recorded that since childhood, Nobumori criticized Nobunaga, openly going against him. Nobunaga was reported to have repeatedly held tea parties instead of focusing on military matters. He never devised any measure against Honganji even though the war was in a stalemate.
