Anayama Nobutada

Anayama Nobutada (1541–1582) was a senior retainer of the Takeda family, known by the go Anayama Baisetsu. He was a nephew of Takeda Shingen, the son of Shingen's elder sister, Nanshō-in. As an important member of the Takeda clan, he served Shingen and Katsuyori, and as lord of Kawachi he handled military and administrative affairs in the Suruga region. However, during the Takeda Conquest he secretly allied with Tokugawa Ieyasu and abandoned the Takeda. He died after the Honnō-ji Incident of Tenshō 10 (1582), and his assessment is therefore complex.

Nobutada was born in Tenbun 10 (1541) to his father, Anayama Nobutomo (Izu-no-kami), and Nanshō-in, the elder sister of Takeda Shingen. As a member of the Takeda family he served Shingen, and in the invasion of Suruga he was responsible for winning over Imagawa retainers. He later became castellan of Ejiri Castle and governed the Ejiri territory in Suruga. He took Kenshō-in, a daughter of Takeda Shingen, as his wife, and he was among the most trusted figures within the Takeda clan. He fought on the Takeda side at the Battle of Nagashino (1575) and continued to serve Katsuyori afterwards.

In the 2nd month of Tenshō 10 (1582), when the Oda–Tokugawa army began the Takeda Conquest, Nobutada secretly allied with Tokugawa Ieyasu and defected. As Katsuyori's senior retainers surrendered or fled one after another, Nobutada's defection made the fall of the Takeda certain. After the Takeda fell, the Oda regime confirmed Nobutada in possession of the Kawachi territory in Kai and the Ejiri territory in Suruga, and he became a yoriki (attached vassal) of Tokugawa Ieyasu. However, in the 6th month of the same year, amid the chaos after Oda Nobunaga met a violent death in the Honnō-ji Incident, he was attacked by an armed peasant band at Ujitawara in Yamashiro while trying to leave the Kinai region together with Ieyasu, and he died there. He was aged 42 by traditional count.