Taiko. Part 105

Detachment. For Hideyoshi, that simple word was a talisman.

Detachment might not seem to be a very impressive quality, but it was at the heart of his skill at sleeping. Impatience, delusion, attachment, doubt, urgency-every kind of bond was cut through in an instant with his two eyelids, and he slept with a mind as blank as a virgin sheet of paper. And conversely, he would wake up in a moment, completely alert.

But detachment was not only for when he fought cleverly and his plans went as he intended. Over the years he had made many blunders, but during those times he never brooded over his failures and lost battles. On such occasions he recalled that one word: detachment.

The kind of earnestness people often spoke of-sustained determination and perseverance, or singleminded concentration-was not a special quality for him, but rather a natural part of daily life. Thus for him, it was far more essential to aim toward that detachment that would allow him to remove himself from those qualities-even if just for a moment-and allow his soul to breathe. In turn, he naturally left the problems of life and death up to that one concept: detachment.

He had been lying down just a short time. Had he slept an hour?

Hideyoshi got up and went down the stairs to the toilet. Immediately, a man on duty was kneeling on the floored veranda, holding up a paper lantern. Very soon thereafter, when he stepped from the toilet, another man was holding a small dipper filled with water, and, drawing near, he poured the water over Hideyoshi's hands.

As Hideyoshi wiped his hands, he gazed at the position of the moon over the eaves, then turned to his two pages and asked, "Is Gonbei there?"

When the man he had asked for appeared, Hideyoshi started back toward the stairs to the second floor, looking back at Gonbei as he walked.

"Go to the temple and tell the men we're leaving. The division of soldiers and the streets by which to advance were all written down this evening when we left the castle and given to Asano Yahei, so get instructions from him."

"Yes, my lord."

"Wait a moment. I forgot about something. Tell k.u.mohachi to come see me."

Gonbei's footsteps went from the stand of trees behind the house off in the direction of the temple. After he had left, Hideyoshi quickly dressed in his armor and went out.

Hideyoshi's lodgings stood near the crossroads of the Ise and Mino roads. He pa.s.sed by the corner of the store house and walked off in the direction of that crossroads.

At that moment k.u.mohachi, who had just received Hideyoshi's summons, ran tottering up from behind. "I'm here and at your service!" He came around and knelt in front of Hideyoshi.

k.u.mohachi was an old warrior of seventy-five years, but he was not easily bested even by younger men, and Hideyoshi saw that he had come with his armor already on.

"Well now, this is not a matter that necessitates armor. I'd like you to do something in the morning. I want you to stay behind."

'In the morning? You mean at the castle?"

'That's right. You've understood well, typical of your years of service. I want you to go with a message to the castle that I fell ill during the night and suddenly had to return to Nagahama. Also say that I deeply regret not being able to attend the ceremony, but that I hope everything will be well. I imagine that Katsuie and Takigawa will dwell on that for a while, so I want you to wait there, appearing to be senile and hard of hearing. Don't react to anything you hear, and then leave as though nothing had happened."

"I understand, my lord."

The old warrior was bent at the waist like a shrimp, but his spear never left his hand. Bowing once before standing up, he turned his body as though his armor weighed heavily upon him, and shuffled off.

Almost all of the men at the temple had already lined up on the road in front of the gate. Each corps, which was identified by its banner, was in turn divided into companies. The commanders readied their horses at the head of each unit.

The fires on the fuse cords flickered back and forth, but not a single torch was lit.

The moon in the sky was only a slender crescent. Along the row of trees, the seven hundred troops swayed silently in the dark, like waves on a sh.o.r.e.

'Hey! Yahei!" Hideyoshi called out as he walked along next to the line of officers and men. The men were not easily distinguishable in the shadows of the trees, and here was a short man beating a bamboo staff on the ground as he walked along with six or seven men following behind. Most of the soldiers probably thought he was the head of a group packers, but when they realized it was Hideyoshi, they became even more hushed, tig their horses back so they would not get in the way.

"Here I am! Over here!"

Asano Yahei had been at the base of the stone steps giving instructions to a group of men. When he heard Hideyoshi's voice, he finished up quickly and ran over to him.

"Are you ready?" Hideyoshi spoke to him impatiently, hardly giving him time to kneel. "If you're all set, move out."

"Yes, my lord, we're ready."

"aking charge of the commander's standard with the golden gourds that had been propped up in a corner of the gate, he carried it out into the middle of the ranks and quickly mounted his own horse to join the troops.

Hideyoshi rode out, accompanied by his pages and about thirty mounted men. The conch sh.e.l.l might have been blown at that moment, but circ.u.mstances prohibited the use of the conch or of torches. Yahei had received the golden fan of command from Hideyoshi and, in his stead, waved it once, twice, and then a third time. With that signal, the seven-hundred-man army began gradually to advance.

The head of the procession then changed direction and, turning on the road, pa.s.sed by Hideyoshi. The position of corps commander was filled exclusively by trusted retainers. That one saw almost none of the faces of the old and experienced veterans was most likely because many of them had been left at Hideyoshi's castles in Nagahama and Himeji, and at his other estates.

At midnight, Hideyoshi's soldiers left the castle at Kiyosu, looking as though they were the main force accompanying their lord. Taking the Mino road, they started out for Nagahama.

Hideyoshi himself departed immediately afterward with no more than thirty or forty men. He took a completely different route and hurried along the back roads where no one would notice him. He finally arrived in Nagahama the following day at dawn.

"We slipped up, Genba," Katsuie said.

"No, it was a plan that really had no room for mistakes."

"Do you really think there is such a plan? Somewhere there was an oversight, and that's why the fish slipped out of the net so easily."

"Well, it's not that I didn't say anything about it. If you're going to strike, strike! If we had attacked that sc.u.m's quarters, we'd have been able to look at Hideyoshi's head by now. But all you could talk about was doing it in secret. Now all our efforts have come to nothing because you wouldn't listen to me."

"Ah, you're still young. You were asking me to use a flawed plan, and the plan I had devised was superior. The best strategy was to wait until Hideyoshi came up to the castle and force him to disembowel himself. Nothing could have been better than that. But according to the reports last night, Hideyoshi was suddenly striking camp. Now, at first, I thought that was unfortunate, but then I reconsidered. If that b.a.s.t.a.r.d was leaving Kiyosu at night, it was a gift from heaven-because he was leaving unannounced, I could have denounced his crimes. I instructed you to lie in ambush and strike him down on the way so that justice might be served."

"That was a careless mistake on your part, Uncle, from the very beginning."

"My mistake? Why?"

"Your first mistake was in thinking Monkey would play into our hands by coming to today's celebration. Then, although you instructed me to go with some soldiers to ambush him, your second mistake was in forgetting to take the precaution of ordering men to guard the backroads."

"Fool! I gave you the orders and had the other generals follow your instructions solely because I had faith that you would not overlook things like that. And you have the impudence to say that hiding soldiers only on the main road and letting Hideyoshi slip through is my fault! You should reflect a little on your own inexperience!"

"Well, I apologize for my error this time, but hereafter, Uncle, please refrain from rattling on with too much artifice. A person who gets carried away with his own clever schemes is going to drown in them someday."

"What are you saying? You think I use too much cunning?"

"It's your constant habit."

"You...you fool!"

"It's not just me, Uncle. Everybody says so. 'Lord Katsuie makes people cautious, because no one can never tell what he is plotting.'" Katsuie was silent, knitting his thick black eyebrows.

For a long time, the relationship of uncle and nephew had been far warmer than that between lord and retainer. But too much familiarity had eroded authority and respect in the relationship, and those qualities were now missing. That morning Katsuie could hardly restrain the sullen look on his face.

It was a complicated sense of displeasure. He had not slept at all the night before. Having ordered Genba to strike down the fleeing Hideyoshi, Katsuie had waited until dawn for the report that would clear the gloom that filled his heart.

When Genba returned, however, he did not make the report Katsuie had been waiting for so tensely.

"The only people who pa.s.sed by were Hideyoshi's retainers. Hideyoshi himself was nowhere to be seen. I thought it would be disadvantageous to attack them, so I came back with nothing to show for my efforts."

That report, added to Katsuie's fatigue from the night before, put him in a state of despondency.

Then, when even Genba found fault with him, there was little wonder that he was feeling depressed that morning.

He could not remain in such a mood, however. Today was the celebration of the announcement of Samboshi's succession. After his breakfast Katsuie took a nap and had a bath, then he once again arrayed himself in his sweltering ceremonial robes and headgear.

Katsuie was not the kind of man who, once depressed, remained visibly so. Today the sky was filled with clouds and it was even more humid than the day before, but his demeanor on the road to Kiyosu Castle was far more majestic than that of anyone else in castle town, and his face sparkled with sweat.

The fierce men who only the night before had fastened the cords of their helmets, crawled through the gra.s.s and bushes with their spears and firearms, and looked to take Hideyoshi's life on the road were now arrayed in court hats and ceremonial kimonos. Their bows were in their cases and their spears and halberds sheathed, and they now meandered in innocent-looking attire up to the castle.

The men who climbed to the castle were not from the Shibata clan alone, of course, but were also from the Niwa, the Takigawa, and other clans. The only men who had been there the day before but who were no longer present were those under the command of Hideyoshi.

Takigawa Kazumasu informed Katsuie that k.u.mohachi had been waiting in the castle since early morning, as a representative of Hideyoshi.

"He said Hideyoshi would not be able to attend today because of illness and was sening his apologies to Lord Samboshi. He also mentioned that he had hoped for an audience with you, my lord. He's been waiting for a little while."

Katsuie nodded bitterly. While it angered him that Hideyoshi was scrupulously feigning ignorance of the whole affair, he too had to pretend to know nothing, and now granted an audience to k.u.mohachi. Katsuie then cantankerously asked one question after another. What kind of illness did Hideyoshi have? If he had decided to return home so suddenly the night before, why hadn't he informed Katsuie? If he had, Katsuie himself would have come to visit and taken care of all the arrangements. But it seemed that old k.u.mohachi had grown extremely deaf and was only able to hear about half of what Katsuie was saying.

And no matter what was being said, the old man appeared not understand, but repeated the same answer over and over. Feeling that the interview was as useless as beating the air, Katsuie could not help but be vexed at Hideyoshi's ulterior motives in sending such a senile old warrior as a formal envoy. No matter how much he rebuked the old man, nothing came of it. With pent-up anger from his irritation, he asked k.u.mohachi one more question to finish the conversation.

"Envoy, how old are you, anyway?"

"Exactly... yes, indeed."

"I'm asking you about your age...How old are you?"

"Yes, it's just as you say."

"What?"

Katsuie felt as though he were being made a fool of. Thrusting his angry face next to k.u.mohachi's ear, he yelled out in a voice loud enough to crack a mirror.

"How old are you this year?"

Thereupon k.u.mohachi nodded vigorously and answered with exceeding calm.

"Ah, I see. You're asking me my age. I'm ashamed to say that I've done nothing o merit that the world might have heard of, but this year I'll be seventy-five."

Katsuie was dumbfounded.

How ridiculous it was for him to be losing his temper with this old man, with today's pressure of work in front of him and the probability that he would be unable to relax all day. Along with an awareness of self-scorn, Katsuie felt his hostility toward Hideyoshi moving him to make a pledge that the two of them would shortly not exist under the same sky.

"Go on home. That's enough."

Gesturing with his chin, he ordered the old man to leave, but k.u.mohachi's b.u.t.tocks seemed to be stuck to the floor with rice paste.

"What? What if there's a reply?" he asked, gazing sedately at Katsuie.

"There is none! No reply at all! Just tell Hideyoshi that we'll meet wherever we chance to meet."

With this parting remark, Katsuie turned and walked away down the narrow corridor toward the inner citadel. k.u.mohachi also ambled down the corridor. With one hand on his hip, he turned toward Katsuie's retreating image. Chuckling to himself, he finally walked on toward the castle gate.

The celebration for Samboshi's accession was completed that day, and a feast was given that surpa.s.sed the one of the evening before. Three halls were opened up inside the castle for the announcement of the new lord's installation, and people attended in far greater numbers than the day before. The main topic of conversation among the guests was Hideyoshi's insulting behavior. To feign illness and be absent on the day of This important event was outrageous, and there were some who said that Hideyoshi's disloyalty and insincerity could clearly be seen.

Katsuie knew quite well that the criticism of Hideyoshi was being artificially generated by the followers of Takigawa Kazumasu and Sak.u.ma Genba, but he indulged in the comfort of gloating secretly over the knowledge that the advantage was going to him.

After the conference, the observance of the anniversary of n.o.bunaga's death, and the day of celebration, Kiyosu was inundated by heavy rains every day.

Some of the lords left for their provinces the day after the celebration. A number of others, however, were held back by the rising waters of the Kiso River. Those who remained behind waited for the weather to clear, thinking it might happen the next day or day after that, but they could really do nothing more than pa.s.s the days in inactivity in their lodgings.

To Katsuie, however, the time was not necessarily wasted.

The comings and goings of Katsuie and n.o.butaka between their respective lodgings were quite noticeable. It must be remembered that Oichi, Katsuie's wife, was n.o.bunaga's younger sister and therefore n.o.butaka's aunt. Moreover, it was n.o.butaka who had persuaded Oichi to remarry and become Katsuie's wife. It was really from the time of the marriage that the relationship between n.o.butaka and Katsuie had become intimate. Certainly they were more than simple in-laws.

Takigawa Kazumasu was at those meetings as well, and his presence seemed to have some significance.

On the tenth day of the month Takigawa sent out an invitation for a morning tea cer-ny to all the remaining lords.

The gist of the invitation was as follows: The recent rains are clearing, and each of you is thinking of returning to his home province. It is a maxim among warriors, however, that uncertainty governs the time of their next meeting. As we remember our former lord, I would like to offer you a bowl of plain tea in the morning dew. I know you must be in a hurry to leave for home after this long stay, but I do antic.i.p.ate your presence.

That was all it said, and it was nothing more than what might be expected. But the people of Kiyosu gaped at the men going in and out that morning. What was it? A secret council of war? Men like Hachiya, Tsutsui, Kanamori, and Kawajiri attended the tea ceremony that morning, while n.o.butaka and Katsuie were probably the guests of honor. But whether the meeting was the tea ceremony it purported , or some secret affair, could not have been known by anyone other than the host and his guests that day.

Later that afternoon the generals finally returned to their home provinces. On the night of the fourteenth Katsuie announced that he would leave for Echizen, and on the fifteenth he left Kiyosu.

As soon as he had crossed the Kiso River and entered Mino, however, Katsuie was troubled by rumors that Hideyoshi's army had closed all the pa.s.ses in the mountains between Tarui and Fuwa and was barring his way home.

Katsuie had only just decided that he would attack Hideyoshi, but now the situatior had been reversed, and he found the path home as dangerous as thin ice. To get to Echizen Katsuie had to pa.s.s Nagahama, and his antagonist had already returned there. Would Hideyoshi let him pa.s.s through without challenging him?

When Katsuie had left Kiyosu, his generals had advised him to take a more round-about route, through Takigawa Kazumasu's province in Ise. But if he had done so, the world would certainly have believed he was afraid of Hideyoshi-a loss of face that Katsuie would have been unable to bear. As they entered Mino, however, the central question persisted with every step.

Reports of troop movements in the mountains ahead forced Katsuie to halt his army's advance and arrange its units into battle formation until the reports could be verified.

A rumor was then reported that units under Hideyoshi's command had been sighted in the area of Fuwa, and as Katsuie and his field staff sat on their horses, their hair stood on end. Trying to imagine the numbers and strategy of the enemy waiting in their path they were overcome by feelings as black as ink.

The troops were brought to a sudden halt in front of the Ibi River, while Katsuie and his staff quickly discussed the matter in the wood of the local village shrine. Should they strike on ahead, or retreat? One possible strategy would be to retreat for the present and take possession of Kiyosu and Samboshi. They could then denounce Hideyoshi's crimes, unite the other lords, and set out in a more imposing manner. On the other hand, they had a large force, and it would give them joy as a samurai to fight their way through, routing the enemy with a quick victory.

As they thought over the possible results of each alternative, they realized that the former plan would mean a protracted war, while the latter would bring a prompt decision As for that, however, instead of crushing Hideyoshi with one quick blow, their own defeat was not entirely out of the question.

Certainly the mountainous terrain north of Sekigahara was very advantageous for men lying in ambush. In addition, the troops that Hideyoshi had withdrawn to Nagahama would no longer be the small force of the recent past. From southern Omi to the areas of Fuwa and Yoro, a large number of men from small castles, powerful provincial families, and scattered samurai residences had connections with Hideyoshi. Those with connections to the Shibata were few.

"No matter how I think this through, there just doesn't seem to be a good strategy for confronting Hideyoshi here. His quick return home must have been planned exactly to take this kind of advantage. I think we should not risk the battle he wants under these conditions," Katsuie said, echoing the advice of his generals.

Genba, however, laughed scornfully. "That's probably the right course of action if you're resolved to become a laughingstock for being so afraid of Hideyoshi." In any war council, the suggestion to retreat is the weak one, while the counsel to advance is considered more forceful. Genba's opinion in particular exerted a strong influence on the members of the field staff. His matchless courage, his rank within the clan, and the affection with which he was regarded by Katsuie were all factors to be taken into consideration.

"To flee at the sight of the enemy, without exchanging a single arrow, would ruin the reputation of the Shibata clan," one general said.