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So far as concerned legalized power he had no equal in the empire, but his military strength was by no means proportionate. In the north, in the east, in the west, and in the south, there were great territorial nobles who could put into the field armies much larger than all the Owari chief's troops. Takeda Shingen, in the Kwanto, was the most formidable of these opponents.
It was commonly said that from the age of sixteen he had scarcely doffed his armour; had never once showed his back to a foe, and had received nine wounds all in front.* Before he died he had the satisfaction of establishing a double link between the Hojo and the house of the great warrior, Takeda Shingen, a son and a daughter from each family marrying a daughter and a son of the other.
In the end, after Etchu and Kotsuke had been brought under Kenshin's sway, peace was concluded between him and the Hojo, and he turned his full strength against his perennial foe, Shingen. But at this stage the situation was entirely changed by the appearance of Oda Nobunaga on the scene, as will be presently narrated.
The better to ensure himself against Hojo designs, Shingen joined hands with the Satomi family in Awa, and the Satake family in Hitachi; while to provide against irruptions by the Uesugi family he enlisted the co-operation of the priests in Kaga, Echizen, and Noto. Shingen further established relations of friendship with Matsunaga Hisahide in the far west.
He was universally recognized as the greatest strategist of his time, and if Nobunaga ventured to move westward, the Kai baron would probably seize the occasion to lay hands upon Owari. It is true that the alliance with Tokugawa Ieyasu constituted some protection. But Ieyasu was no match for Shingen in the field.
The sorrow which overtook Antony and Octavius at the death of Brutus, has been the general experience of brave men. Kenshin, who fought for fourteen years with Shingen, when he heard of the latter's death, wept aloud at the loss of "the best of enemies."
In November, 1572, Shingen led a large force and seized two of the Tokugawa castles, menacing the third and most important at Hamamatsu, where Ieyasu himself was in command. Nobunaga thereupon despatched an army to succour his ally, and in January, 1573, a series of bloody engagements took place outside Hamamatsu.
This battle, known in history as the War of Mikata-ga-hara, was the greatest calamity that ever befell Ieyasu, and that he would have suffered worse things at the hands of Takeda Shingen cannot be doubted, had not Shingen's death taken place in May, 1573.
Mustering an army said to have been 110,000 strong, he attacked the Hojo in Odawara. But Ujiyasu would not be tempted into the open. He remained always behind the ramparts, and, in the meanwhile incited Shingen to invade Echigo, so that Kenshin had to raise the siege of Odawara and hasten to the defence of his home province.
This year witnessed also the death of Takeda Shingen, and thus Nobunaga not only established his sway over the whole of the provinces of Omi and Echizen but also was relieved from the constant menace of a formidable attack by a captain to whom public opinion justly attributed the leading place among Japanese strategists.
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