Kannonji Castle

The Battle of Kannonji Castle (観音寺城の戦い) is a battle that took place between the Oda/Azai forces and the Rokkaku clan. It is also known as the Siege of Mitsukuri (箕作城の戦い). When Nobunaga Oda agreed to take Yoshiaki Ashikaga to the capital to install him as Shogun, he had to pass through Ōmi Province as the most direct route to Kyōto. The Rokkaku clan chose to deny Nobunaga's request, provoking several simultaneous attacks on the main castles of the Rokkaku in Ōmi.

Role in Games
This battle first appears in Samurai Warriors 4 as the first stage of the Azai clan story. Nagamasa enters the fray of combat amidst the Oda forces already mid siege at the three castle's entrances. The Rokkaku had long been a thorn in the Azai's side, so Nagamasa, Oichi, and their retainers are more than happy to help Nobunaga crush the Rokkaku. The first matter of course the Azai reinforcements address is taking the center field, where Nobunaga is surrounded by Shigemasa Yoshida and Katamori Shindō.

Once reinforced, Nobunaga commands Nagamasa to capture Mt. Wada Castle, which is under the command of Yoshisada Rokkaku. At the same time, Nagamasa notices that several Oda officers are cut off in their efforts to take the three castle's exterior keeps. Ittetsu Inaba fights at Waka Castle’s north gate garrison against Sadatake Hirai, Katsuie Shibata is locked in combat against Yoshimasa Tanaka and Kinio Fuse at Kannonji Castle’s exterior garrison, and Yoshinari Mori battles Sanefusa Ogura at Mitsukuri Castle's satellite garrison. Rescuing all three officers greatly improves morale and opens faster routes to the enemy castles.

After the fall of Wada Castle, Hisahide Matsunaga will try to launch a surprise attack on Nobunaga, reasoning that killing the demon lord will defeat this threat to his own schemes. With his defeat, the battle turns decisively to the Oda/Azai's side. Koshōshō and Munenori Yagyū attempt a desperate push to reclaim the advantage, attacking Mitsuhide Akechi and Nagahide Niwa. Both Mitsukuri and Kannonji Castles are taken, but the last minute resistance led by Goemon Ishikawa provokes Nobunaga to order all further resisting forces to be killed, an order that Nagamasa disagrees with strongly.

Historical Information
When Ashikaga Yoshiteru was slain by the Miyoshi Sanninshu (trio who ruled the clan), Ashikaga Yoshiaki became the next Ashikaga in line for the Shogunate. However, he required a military and financial backer in order to establish himself, as the attack on Yoshiteru left his clan broke and the palace burnt to the ground. Yoshiaki spent three years moving between warlords looking for aid, including time with the Rokkaku and Asakura. He eventually turned to Oda Nobunaga for help, and the Owari warlord accepted.

Oda Nobunaga acquired permission from the emperor to reestablish the Shogunate in 1569. As he planned his march from Gifu Castle in Mino, he sent officials with Yoshiaki's retainer Wada Korimasa to arrange permission to move through other warlord's lands and reach Kyōto safely. Rokkaku Yoshiharu and his father Rokkaku Yoshikata rejected this envoy, possibly due to jealousy or maybe because of a secret alliance with the Miyoshi to keep the Ashikage from being reinstated.

Regardless of the rejection, Oda Nobunaga was ready for such an eventuality and gathered his forces, alongside the Azai and Tokugawa, and marched towards Kannonji Castle with around 50,000 men. The Rokkaku were aware of the Oda's movements and reinforced their surrounding castles with over 10,000 men, prepared for long, difficult sieges. Rokkaku Yoshikata and Yoshisada (Yoshiharu's younger brother) took charge of the defense of Kannoji Castle, Tanaka Yoshimasa moved the majority of their forces to Wadayama Castle, and Yoshida Shigemasa at Mitsukuri Castle.

The combined forces of Oda, Azai, and Tokugawa were prepared for this resistance. Nobunaga split his army into three sections after crossing the Aichi river. Inaba Ittetsu was sent to besiege Wadayama Castle, Shibata Katsuie and Mori Yoshinari to besiege Kannonji Castle, and Nobunaga himself led the forces against Mitsukuri Castle. Mitsukuri had strong natural defences of steep slopes and large trees, making the assault begun at 10 AM by Niwa Nagahide and Kinoshita Hideyoshi quite difficult, giving up the attack around 5 PM. With the attack broken off, Shigemasa assumed they could rest for the night, which Hideyoshi took advantage of and led a night raid by torchlight. This raid proved successful and the castle was taken before the dawn of the next day.

When word reached Wadayama Castle that Mitsukuri fell, the defenders fled in the night, leaving it for Ittetsu to easily capture. The next day, when Rokkaku Yoshiharu learned his two main supporting castles had already fallen, he chose to flee that following night, allowing Oda Nobunaga to capture all three castles in two days, and only one day of fighting. The missionary Luís Fróis recorded in his History of Japan that the Oda lost about 1,500 men taking the three castles, giving some small insight to how fierce the fighting was in that one day.

The Rokkaku clan took up residence at Koka (often erroneously called Koga) County to the south and continued to be a thorn in the Oda's side for several more years. Only one major retainer of  the Rokkaku held out after his master fled, and that was Gamō Katahide. As it happened, one of Nobunaga's retainers, Kanbe Tomomori, was related to Katahide through marriage to his wife, Katahide's sister. As a result, Tomomori was able to get an audience with Katahide and convince him to submit to the Oda instead of dying for a lord who left them. As part of their bargain, Gamō Ujisato, Katahide's son, was taken hostage by the Oda. Nobunaga would grow to respect Ujisato and marry one of his daughters to him, making him a prominent retainer.

With the Rokkaku defeated, the Miyoshi fled Kyōto and Nobunaga was able to enter the city peacefully, beginning the process of reestablishing the Ashikaga Shogunate.