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The Sengoku period (30 July 1570) occurred near Lake Biwa in Ōmi Province, Japan, between the allied forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu, against the combined forces of the Azai and Asakura clans. It is notable as the first battle that involved the alliance between Nobunaga and Ieyasu, liberated the Oda clan from its unbalanced alliance with the Azai, and saw Nobunaga's prodigious use of firearms. Nobunaga's loyal retainer, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was assigned to lead troops into open battle for the first time. The battle came as a reaction to Oda Nobunaga's sieges of the castles of Odani and Yokoyama, which belonged to the Azai and Asakura clans. It was also referred to as the Battle of Nomura (野村合戦 ''Nomura Kassen'') by the Oda and Azai clans and the Battle of Mitamura (三田村合戦 ''Mitamura Kassen'') by the Asakura clan. There is a battlefield memorial marker in Nomura-cho, Nagahama city, in Shiga prefecture. ==Description== As warriors sallied forth from the castles, the battle turned into a melee fought in the middle of the shallow Ane River. For a time, Nobunaga's forces fought the Azai, while the Tokugawa warriors fought the Asakura a short distance upstream. After the Tokugawa forces finished off the Asakura, they turned and hit the Azai right flank. Inaba Ittetsu, who had been held in reserve, then came forward and hit the Azai left flank. Many of the besiegers of Yokoyama even left their task to aid in the battle. The Azai and Asakura forces were soon defeated. It is often noted that Nobunaga used 500 arquebusiers in this battle. He was famous for his tactical use of firearms but would find himself on the opposite end of skilled arquebus tactics in his Siege of Ishiyama Honganji that year. Meanwhile, no reliable source exists to reconstruct the battle. The Battle of Anegawa is vividly presented in the books compiled in the middle or the end of the Edo period. Many of the stories are pure fiction. The only valuable source is the ''Shinchōkō-ki'', describing it very briefly without any notes concerning tactics or details of the battle. The exact number of the casualties in this battle is unknown. However, the ''Shinchōkō-ki'' mentions 1,100 samurai from Asakura clan being killed in battle. An army of this period had at least several times more ''ashigaru'' (commoner footmen) than samurai, so it would be reasonable to assume at least several thousand men were killed. According to A.L. Sadler in ''The Life of Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu'' there were 3,170 heads collected by the Oda camp. A good portion were taken by Mikawa men, the Tokugawa force. The ''Mikawa Fudoki'' gives a very real picture of the battle: the retainers fighting in groups and the decapitation of soldiers in the confused mingling of armies among the clouds of smoke and dust. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Anegawa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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