As Oda Nobunaga rose to power at the end of the 1560s, the monks of Enryaku-ji regained their military might, and fought a number of skirmishes in the streets of Kyoto against a new rival sect, Nichiren Buddhism. They eventually burned all of Kyoto's Nichiren temples to the ground, and then sought allies among the local lords (daimyō). Unfortunately for them, the Azai and Asakura clans they allied with were enemies of Oda Nobunaga. Beginning on September 29, 1571, Nobunaga's army of 30,000 led the Siege of Mount Hiei, destroying Enryaku-ji and massacring thousands. Though it was rebuilt, the standing army of warrior monks would never be reconstituted after this devastation. Nobunaga then moved on to fighting the Ikkō-ikki in their fortresses of Nagashima and Ishiyama Hongan-ji (see Sieges of Nagashima, Ishiyama Hongan-ji War). In the summer of 1574, with the help of former pirate Kuki Yoshitaka, Nobunaga essentially blockaded the Ikkō fortresses and starved them into submission. The 20,000 inhabitants of the fortress went up in flames along with their home. Two years later, Nobunaga returned to the Ishiyama Hongan-ji, which he had failed to take earlier. At the two Battles of Kizugawaguchi, Nobunaga defeated his enemies, the Mōri clan, who had naval control over the area. The Ikkō were finally forced to surrender in 1580. In the 1580s and 1590s, various factions of warrior monks sided with either Tokugawa Ieyasu or his rival Toyotomi Hideyoshi, fighting in a number of battles and skirmishes. When Tokugawa Ieyasu finally defeated the last of his enemies and took control of the country in 1603, the time of the warrior monks finally came to an end. Weapons and dress Sōhei were quite varied in their armament. The naginata is the weapon most often associated with them, though in legend as well as history many warrior monks are known to have been proficient with everything from yari, yumi, tachi, and tantō. Many fought on horseback, and many with the ō-yoroi armor of the samurai. Warrior monks, like most other Buddhist monks of related sects, wore a series of kimono-like robes in layers, one over the other, usually white underneath, and tan or saffron yellow on top; this style has changed very little since the introduction of Buddhism to Japan in the 7th century. Footwear traditionally consisted of tabi socks and geta (wooden clogs), or waraji (straw sandals). Warrior monks would often fold and