Battle of Anegawa
The Battle of Anegawa started on August 9, 1570. The armies of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu fought together against the armies of Azai Nagamasa and Asakura Yoshikage. The battle occurred because Oda Nobunaga had marched against Asakura Yoshikage. At the time Azai Nagamasa was allied with both Oda Nobunaga and Asakura Yoshikage but decided to come to the aid of Azai Nagamasa and attack Oda Nobunaga from the rear. Nobunaga managed to retreat and prepared to attack Azai Nagamasa for the betrayal.
In 1570, Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu put together a force of 28,000. This force was then split to attack Azai’s Odani castle and Asakura’s Yokoyama castle. Azai and Asakura gathered a force of 18,000 and met the Oda and Tokugawa armies as they were leaving the castles. Both armies gathered on each bank of the shallow Ane River. The armies then met in the middle and a huge hand-to-hand melee in the middle of the waters occurred.
Nobunaga’s forces first faced off against the Azai upstream while Tokugawa’s forces fought the Askaura downstream. When Tokugawa unleased his second division to attack the Asakura’s left flank, the other army knew they had been defeated and began to retreat. When the Tokugawa forces had defeated the Asakura, they turned and attacked the Azai in their right flight. Both the Azai and Asakura forces were defeated.
There are no detailed sources about the battle. It was known that Nobunaga used 500 arquebusiers in the battle and he was known for using firearms. Death toll estimates for the Azai and Askaura have been estimated at over 4,000 which historians believe is likely due to ta fact that armies of that size often had more peasant footman than samurai. Therefore, while the samurai death toll may not have been as high it is likely that many of the common footmen were killed.