Siege of Uchiyama
The 1546 siege of Uchiyama was one of many battles fought by Takeda Shingen bid to gain control of Shinano Province. His troops surrounded the fortress and starved out the garrison. Background The battle took place during the 16th-century Sengoku period, also known as the "Age of Civil War". After the Ōnin War (1467–77), the shōguns system and taxation had increasingly less control outside the province of the capital in Kyoto, and powerful lords (daimyōs) began to assert themselves. Such lords gained power by usurpation, warfare or marriage—any means that would safeguard their position. It was manifested in yamajiro ("mountain castles"), which overlooked the provinces. One of the most ambitious and successful warlords of the period was Takeda Shingen, the daimyō of the Takeda clan, which dominated Kai Province. Bordering Kai to the north was Shinano Province, a large mountainous territory which was not controlled by a single clan but by several relatively weak ones, notably the Suwa, Ogasawara, Murakami and Takato. As such it was an attractive target to its neighbours, in particular the Takeda to the south and Uesugi clan of Echigo Province to the north. Takeda Shingen's father, Takeda Nobutora, had already made a probing expedition into