Azai Nagamasa
The newly installed "shōgun" Ashikaga Yoshiaki also was extremely wary of his powerful nominal retainer Nobunaga, and immediately began plotting against him by forming a wide alliance of nearly every "daimyō" adjacent to the Oda realm. This included Oda's close ally and brother in-law Azai Nagamasa, the supremely powerful Takeda Shingen, as well as the monk warriors from the Tendai Buddhists monastic center at Mount Hiei near Kyoto (who became the first major casualty of this war as it was completely destroyed by Nobunaga).