The warrior Toda Hanbei Shigeyuki stands on a hill as the 1575 Battle of Mount Tobisu rages between the forces of the Takeda clan and Oda Nobunaga. The flags below bear the mon (crests) of the great families who were involved in the fight. Individual warriors are identified by sashimono, symbols worn on poles attached to their backs. Usually, this symbol was a flag or card with an appropriate emblem. Shigeyuki used a human skull, which likely terrified his enemies. While the title of the print identifies the figure as Shigeyuki, some scholars suggest that the figure is in fact Sakai Tadatsugu, the general who marched soldiers through the pouring rain to the top of Mount Tobisu. The dark blue crest of the Sakai family on some of the banners supports this theory.
Appearance List One Hundred Aspects of the Moon: Mount Tobisu Dawn Moon (Toda Hanbei Shigeyuki, 1887) by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi; A History of Japan, 1334–1615 (1961) by George B. Sansom (for Battle of Nagashino; no mention of Toda Hanbei Shigeyuki)
Sample Read Tsukioka Yoshitoshi at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art [Smithsonian]
Description The warrior Toda Hanbei Shigeyuki stands on a hill as the 1575 Battle of Mount Tobisu rages between the forces of the Takeda clan and Oda Nobunaga. The flags below bear the mon (crests) of the great families who were involved in the fight. Individual warriors are identified by sashimono, symbols worn on poles attached to their backs. Usually, this symbol was a flag or card with an appropriate emblem. Shigeyuki used a human skull, which likely terrified his enemies. While the title of the print identifies the figure as Shigeyuki, some scholars suggest that the figure is in fact Sakai Tadatsugu, the general who marched soldiers through the pouring rain to the top of Mount Tobisu. The dark blue crest of the Sakai family on some of the banners supports this theory.
