Asai Nagamasa inherited power from his father, Asai Hisamasa, when he was only fifteen years old. Both brave and impulsive, he proved himself a capable commander, managing to regain lands from the Rokkaku clan that had previously been lost by his father. After a territorial dispute with Oda Nobunaga over the province of Mino, Nagamasa formed an alliance with Nobunaga and married his sister Oichi, who was famous for her beauty. In 1570, when Oda Nobunaga declared war on the Asakura family, Nagamasa sided with the Asakura because he had long-standing ties with them. This unexpected move threatened Nobunaga's invasion of the Asakura lands by threatening him from the rear. Oda managed to save his army, not without the help of Tokugawa Ieyasu, but relations between Nobunaga and Asai were permanently damaged.
In the summer of that year, the combined forces of Oda and Tokugawa marched against the armies of Asai and Asakura. Asai's army was a formidable force. It is believed that together with his vassals — Isono, Atsuji, Shinzō, Akao, Amemori, and Imai, he could field about ten thousand men, a significant portion of whom were armed with arquebuses. Asai and Asakura attached great importance to this weapon and established one of the three main centers of rifle production in Japan in Kunimoto, located in the province of Omi.
Despite all the preparations and armaments, in the bloody battle of Anegawa, the troops of Asai Nagamasa and Asakura Yoshikage were defeated and forced to flee. After that, Nagamasa finally became part of the anti-Nobunaga alliance, which also included the Asakura, Rokkaku, and the monks of Enryaku-ji Temple. This alliance was secretly supported by Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki, who was under the control of Oda Nobunaga.
In 1573, after the death of Takeda Shingen, Oda Nobunaga won a decisive victory over the Asakura army and laid siege to Odani Castle, which served as Nagamasa's residence. Finding himself under siege and with no hope of rescue, Nagamasa sent his wife Oichi and their three daughters to Nobunaga, after which he committed suicide.
Interestingly, one of Asai Nagamasa's daughters, Yodogimi, also famous for her beauty, became a concubine of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and bore him a son named Hideyori. This son died after the fall of Osaka Castle, which was taken by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1615. Ironically, another daughter of Nagamasa married Ieyasu's son, Hidetada, and became the mother of the third shogun of the Tokugawa family, Iemitsu.
See also
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Takeda Nobuyoshi
Takeda Nobuyoshi (1128–1186 or later) was a prominent Japanese samurai lord of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods and the founder of the Takeda clan.
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Tokugawa Iemochi
Tokugawa Iemochi (1846–1866) was the fourteenth shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate and ruled from 1858 until his death. His reign came during the turbulent final years of the shogunate, when Japan faced growing Western pressure and serious internal political conflict.
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Tokugawa Ienari
Tokugawa Ienari (1773–1841) was the eleventh shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate and ruled from 1787 to 1837, making him the longest-serving Tokugawa shōgun. He was a great-grandson of the eighth shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshimune.
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Matsudaira Nobuyasu
Matsudaira Nobuyasu was only twenty years old when his father ordered him to commit seppuku. The reason was not a defeat in battle, but a crisis inside the Tokugawa family that had become too dangerous to ignore.
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Yamagata Masakage
Masakage was one of Takeda Shingen’s most loyal and capable commanders. He was included in the famous list of the “Twenty-Four Generals of Takeda Shingen” and also belonged to the inner circle of four especially trusted warlords known as the Shitennō.
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Yagyu Munenori
Yagyū Munenori began his service under Tokugawa Ieyasu while his father, Yagyū Muneyoshi, was still at his side. In 1600, Munenori took part in the decisive Battle of Sekigahara. As early as 1601, he was appointed a kenjutsu instructor to Tokugawa Hidetada, Ieyasu’s son, who later became the second shogun of the Tokugawa clan.
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Yagyu Muneyoshi
A samurai from Yamato Province, he was born into a family that had been defeated in its struggle against the Tsutsui clan. Muneyoshi first took part in battle at the age of sixteen. Due to circumstances beyond his control, he was forced to enter the service of the Tsutsui house and later served Miyoshi Tōkei. He subsequently came under the command of Matsunaga Hisahide and in time became a vassal first of Oda and later of Toyotomi.
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Endo Naozune
Naozune served under Azai Nagamasa and was one of the clan’s leading vassals, renowned for his bravery and determination. He accompanied Nagamasa during his first meeting with Oda Nobunaga and at that time asked for permission to kill Nobunaga, fearing him as an extremely dangerous man; however, Nagamasa did not grant this request.
