lliance between Oda
Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Among the small barons subject to the
Imagawa there was one called Matsudaira Motoyasu. He had taken the
name, Motoyasu, by adopting one of the ideographs of Yoshimoto's
appellation. His family, long in alliance with the Imagawa, were at a
variance with the Oda, and in the battle of Okehazama this Motoyasu
had captured one of the Owari forts. But on the defeat and death of
Yoshimoto, the Matsudaira chieftain retired at once to his own castle
of Okazaki, in the province of Mikawa. He had then to consider his
position, for by the death of Yoshimoto, the headship of the Imagawa
family had fallen to his eldest son, Ujizane, a man altogether
inferior in intellect to his gifted father. Nobunaga himself
appreciated the character of the new ruler, and saw that the wisest
plan would be to cement a union with Matsudaira Motoyasu. Accordingly
he despatched an envoy to Okazaki Castle to consult the wishes of
Motoyasu. The latter agreed to the Owari chief's proposals, and in
February, 1562, proceeded to the castle of Kiyosu, where he
contracted with Oda Nobunaga an alliance which endured throughout the
latter's lifetime. In the following year, Motoyasu changed his name
to Ieyasu, and subsequently he took the uji of Tokugawa. The alliance
was strengthened by intermarriage, Nobuyasu, the eldest son of
Ieyasu, being betrothed to a daughter of Nobunaga.

NOBUNAGA'S POSITION

It was at this time, according to Japanese annalists, that Nobunaga
seriously conceived the ambition of making Kyoto his goal. The
situation offered inducements. In the presence of a practically
acknowledged conviction that no territorial baron of that era might
venture to engage in an enterprise which denuded his territory of a
protecting army, it was necessary to look around carefully before
embarking upon the Kyoto project. Nobunaga had crushed the Imagawa,
for though his victory had not been conclusive from a military point
of view, it had placed the Imagawa under incompetent leadership and
had thus freed Owari from all menace from the littoral provinces on
the east. Again, in the direction of Echigo and Shinano, the great
captain, Uesugi Kenshin, dared not strike at Nobunaga's province
without exposing himself to attack from Takeda Shingen. But Shingen
was not reciprocally hampered. His potentialities were always an
unknown quality. He was universally recognized as the greatest
strategist of his time, and if