Nobunaga Defeats the Asai

1570

Oda Nobunaga crushed a coalition of the Asai and Asakura clans at the battle of Anegawa, a confused engagement in a shallow river that left thousands of corpses drifting downstream. Tokugawa Ieyasu, his young ally, distinguished himself in the day's fighting. Japan's unification was grinding forward victory by victory. The battle cemented the Nobunaga-Tokugawa alliance whose combined forces would eventually unify Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate.