Taiko. Part 108

"But won't you please take your brush and sign a solemn pledge, just to stop up the mouths of such people?" Kanamori entreated.

That was it. That was what had suddenly become essential for the envoys that morning. The peace talks had gone too smoothly, and they had become uneasy with words alone. Even if they reported to Katsuie what had transpired, without some sort of doc.u.ment it was nothing more than a verbal promise.

"All right." The look on Hideyoshi's face showed full agreement. "I'll give one to you, and I'll expect one from Lord Katsuie. But this pledge isn't limited to Lord Katsuie and me. If the names of the other veteran generals are not attached as well, the doc.u.ment will be meaningless. I'll speak to Niwa and Ikeda immediately. That should be all right, shouldn't it?"

Hideyoshi's eyes met Inuchiyo's.

"That should be fine," Inuchiyo answered clearly. His eyes read everything in Hideyoshi's heart-he had seen the future even before leaving Kitanosho. If Inuchiyo could be called a rogue, he was a likable one.

Hideyoshi stood up. "I was just about to leave myself. I'll go with you as far as the town."

"They left the citadel together.

"I haven't seen Lord Katsutoyo today. Has he already left?" Hideyoshi asked.

"He is still unwell," Fuwa said. "We left him at his lodgings."

They mounted their horses and rode as far as the crossroads in the castle town.

"Where are you off to today, Hideyoshi?" Inuchiyo asked.

"I'm going to Kyoto, as usual."

Well, we'll separate here then. We still have to return to our lodgings and make our rations for the journey."

"I'd like to look in on Lord Katsutoyo," Hideyoshi said, "to see if he's improved."

Inuchiyo, Kanamori, and Fuwa returned to Kitanosho on the tenth day of the same month, and immediately reported to Katsuie. Katsuie was overjoyed that his plan to establih a pretense of peace had been carried out more smoothly than he had antic.i.p.ated.

Soon thereafter Katsuie held a secret meeting with his most trusted retainers and told them, "We'll keep the peace through the winter. As soon as the snows melt, we'll butcher our old enemy with a single blow."

As soon as Katsuie had completed the first stage of his strategy by making peace with Hideyoshi, he dispatched another envoy, this time to Tokugawa Ieyasu. That was at the end of the Eleventh Month.

For the last half year-since the Sixth Month-Ieyasu had been absent from the center of activity. After the Honno Temple incident, the entire nation's attention had been focused on filling the void that had been created when the center had so suddenly collapsed. During that time, when no one had had a moment to look anywhere else, Ieyasu had taken his own independent road.

At the time of n.o.bunaga's murder, he had been on a sightseeing tour of Sakai and had barely been able to return to his own province with his life. Immediately ordering military preparations, he pushed as far as Narumi. But the motive behind that action was quite different from the one Katsuie had had for crossing over Yanagase from Echizen.

When Ieyasu heard that Hideyoshi had reached Yamazaki, he said, "Our province is entirely at peace." Then he withdrew his army to Hamamatsu.

Ieyasu had never considered himself to be in the same category as n.o.bunaga's surviving retainers. He was an ally of the Oda clan, while Katsuie and Hideyoshi were n.o.bunaga's generals. He wondered why he should take part in the struggle among the surviving retainers, why he should fight to pick over the ashes. And there was something far more substantial for him now. For some time he had watched eagerly for a chance at territorial expansion into Kai and Shinano, the two provinces that bordered his own. He had been unable to play his hand while n.o.bunaga was alive, and there would likely be no better opportunity than now.

The man who foolishly opened up a path toward that goal and who gave Ieyasu a splendid opportunity was Hojo Ujinao, the lord of Sagami, another of the men who took advantage of the Honno Temple incident. Thinking that the time was ripe, a huge Hojo army of fifty thousand men crossed into the former Takeda domain of Kai. It was a large-scale invasion, executed almost as though Ujinao had simply taken a brush and drawn a line across a map, taking possession of what he thought he could.

That action gave Ieyasu a splendid reason to dispatch troops. The force he raised, however, consisted of only eight thousand men. The three-thousand-man vanguard checked a Hojo force of well over ten thousand men before it joined Ieyasu's main force. The war lasted more than ten days. Finally, the Hojo army could do nothing more than make a last stand or-as Ieyasu had hoped for and as it finally did-sue for peace.

"Joshu will be handed to the Hojo, while the two provinces of Kai and Shinano will be awarded to the Tokugawa clan."

That was the agreement to which they came, and it was just as Ieyasu had intended.

Their packhorses and traveling attire covered with the snow of the northern provinces, Shibata Katsuie's envoys to Kai arrived on the eleventh day of the Twelfth Month. They were first asked to rest in the guest quarters in Kofu. Their party was a large one and was led by two senior Shibata retainers, Shukuya Shichizaemon and Asami Dosei.

For two days they were more or less entertained. Otherwise, however, it seemed that they were being put off.

Ishikawa Kazumasa apologized profusely, telling the party that Ieyasu was still busy with military affairs.

The envoys grumbled at the coolness of their reception. In response to the many gifts of friendship from the Shibata clan, the Tokugawa retainers had simply received a list of the gifts and had given no other recognition at all. On their third day, they were granted an audience with Ieyasu.

It was the middle of a severe winter. Nevertheless, Ieyasu was sitting in a large room without even a hint of a warming fire. He did not look to be a man who had been afflicted by hardships and reverses since his youth. The flesh of his cheeks was plump. His large earlobes gave a certain weight to his entire body, like the rings of an iron teakettle and caused the visitors to wonder if the man could really be a great general still only forty years old If Kanamori had come as an envoy, he would have quickly seen that the phrase "unwavering at the age of forty" applied absolutely to this man.

'Thank you for coming all this way with so many gifts of friendship. Is Lord Katsuie in good health?"

He spoke in an extremely dignified manner, and his voice overwhelmed the others, even though it was soft. His retainers stared at the two envoys, both of whom felt like the representatives of a dependent clan bringing tribute. To relate the message from their lord now would be mortifying. But there was nothing else they could do.

"'Lord Katsuie congratulates you on your conquest of the provinces of Kai and Shinano. As a token of his congratulations, he sends these gifts to you."

"Lord Katsuie has sent you here to give me his congratulations at a time when we've been out of contact for so long? My goodness, how polite."

So the envoys set out on the road home with a truly bad aftertaste in their mouths. Ieyasu had not given them any message for Katsuie. It was going to be difficult reporting to Katsuie that Ieyasu had not said a kind word about him, quite apart from reporting the cold treatment they themselves had received.

Particularly galling was the fact that Ieyasu had written no reply to the warm letter Katsuie had sent. In short, it was not simply that their mission had ended in complete failure, but Katsuie seemed to have humbled himself in front of Ieyasu far more than was necessary for his own ends.

The two envoys discussed the situation with some anxiety. Naturally their enemy, Hideyoshi, featured in their somber thoughts, but so did their long-standing foes, the Uesugi. If, added to those dangers, there were the threat of discord between the Shibata and Tokugawa clans... They could only pray that that would not come to pa.s.s.

But the speed of change always outruns the imaginary fears of such timid people. At about the time the envoys returned to Kitanosho, the promises made the month before were broken, and just before the year's end, Hideyoshi began to move against northern Omi. At the same time, for unknown reasons Ieyasu suddenly withdrew to Hamamatsu.

It had been about ten days since Inuchiyo had returned to Kitanosho. Katsuie's stepson, Katsutoyo, who had been forced to stay at Takaradera Castle because of illness, had finally recovered and went to take his leave of his host.

"I shall never forget your kindness," Katsutoyo said to Hideyoshi.

Hideyoshi accompanied Katsutoyo as far as Kyoto and took pains to ensure that his return journey to Nagahama Castle was comfortable.

Katsutoyo ranked with the highest in the Shibata clan, but he was shunned by Katsuie and looked down upon by the rest of the clan. Hideyoshi's kind treatment had worked a change in Katsutoyo's att.i.tude to his stepfather's enemy.

For nearly half a month after Hideyoshi had seen off Inuchiyo and then Katsutoyo, he did not seem to be occupying himself with castle construction or events in Kyoto. Rather he turned his attention to some unseen arena.

At the beginning of the Twelfth Month, Hikoemon-who had been sent to Kiyosu- returned to Hideyoshi's headquarters. With that one move, Hideyoshi departed from the pa.s.sive and patient period of rest he had gone through since the Kiyosu conference, and for the first time slapped down the stone on the go board of national politics, signaling a return to the active mode.

Hikoemon had gone to Kiyosu to persuade n.o.buo that his brother n.o.butaka's secret maneuvers were more and more threatening and that Katsuie's military preparations were at present quite clear. n.o.butaka had not moved Lord Samboshi to Azuchi, in breach of the treaty signed after the Kiyosu conference, but had interned him at his own castle in Gifu. That amounted to kidnapping the legitimate Oda heir.

Hideyoshi's pet.i.tion went on to explain that in order to bring the affair to an end it would be necessary to strike at Katsuie-the ringleader of the plot and the cause of the instability-while the Shibata were unable to move because of the snow.

n.o.buo had been disaffected from the very beginning, and it was obvious that he disliked Katsuie. Certainly he did not believe he could rely on Hideyoshi for his future, but the latter was a far better choice than Katsuie. So there was no reason for him to deny Hideyoshi's pet.i.tion.

"Lord n.o.buo was really quite enthusiastic," Hikoemon reported. "He said that if you, my lord, would personally take part in a campaign against Gifu, he himself would join you. Rather than granting us the pet.i.tion, he seemed to be actively encouraging us."

"He was enthusiastic? Really, I can almost see him."

Hideyoshi pictured the pitiful scene to himself. Here was the n.o.ble sire of an ill.u.s.trious house but also a man whose character made him difficult to save.

Nevertheless, it was a piece of good luck. Before n.o.bunaga's death, Hideyoshi had never been the kind of man to proclaim his own aspirations or grand ideas, but after n.o.bunaga died-and especially after the battle at Yamazaki-he had become aware of the real possibility that he was destined to rule the nation. He no longer concealed either his self-confidence or his pride.

And there was another remarkable change. A man who aims at becoming the ruler of the nation is usually accused of wanting to expand his own power, but recently people were beginning to treat Hideyoshi as n.o.bunaga's natural successor.

Suddenly, very suddenly, a small army seemed to come together at the front gate of the Sokoku Temple. The soldiers arrived from the west, south, and north to gather under the standard of the golden gourds, until a fair-sized force had a.s.sembled in the center of Kyoto.

It was the seventh day of the Twelfth Month. The morning sun shone down through a dry, sweeping wind.

The people had no idea what was going on. The great funeral service held during the Tenth Month had been conducted with magnificence and pomp. It was easy for the people to be caught up in their own petty judgments. Their expressions showed that they had fooled themselves into believing that there would not be another war for the present.

"Lord Hideyoshi himself is riding at the very front. The Tsutsui forces are here, and so is Lord Niwa's army."

But the voices at the side of the road were puzzled about the destination of this expedition. The meandering line of armor and helmets pa.s.sed very quickly through Keage and joined the forces waiting at Yabase. The warships ferrying troops split the white waves in close formation, heading northeast, while the army taking the land route camped for three nights at Azuchi, arriving at Sawayama Castle on the tenth.

On the thirteenth Hosokawa Fujitaka and his son, Tadaoki, arrived from Tamba and immediately requested an audience with Hideyoshi.

"I'm glad you've come," Hideyoshi said warmly. "I imagine you were troubled a good bit by the snow."

Considering the situation they were in, Fujitaka and his son must have spent the last six months feeling as though they were walking on thin ice. Mitsuhide and Fujitaka had been steadfast friends long before either had served n.o.bunaga. Tadaoki's wife was Mitsuhide's daughter. Beyond that, there were many other bonds between the retainers of the two clans. For those reasons alone, Mitsuhide had been sure that Fujitaka and his son would side with him in his rebellion.

But Fujitaka had not joined him. If he had allowed himself to be swayed by his own personal feelings, his clan would probably have been destroyed with the Akechi. Certainly he must have felt as though he had been balancing eggs one on top of another. To have with prudence outwardly and avoided danger within must have been painful beyond words. He had saved Tadaoki's wife, but his clemency had created internal strife within his clan.

By now Hideyoshi had absolved him and recognized the loyalty shown by the Hosokawa. Thus they were receiving Hideyoshi's hospitality. As Hideyoshi looked at Fujitaka, he saw that his sidelocks had turned the color of frost over the last half year. Ah, this man is a master, Hideyoshi thought, and at the same time recognized that for a man to take a stand in the general trend of things and make no mistakes, he would have to whittle away at his flesh and the blackness of his hair. In spite of himself, he felt sorry for Fujitaka every time he looked at him.

"The drum is being beaten from over the lake and from the castle town as well, and you appear to be ready to attack. I hope you will honor us by placing my son in the vanguard," Fujitaka began.

"Do you mean the siege of Nagahama?" replied Hideyoshi. He seemed to be speaking off the point, but then responded in a different vein. "We're attacking from both land and sea. But you know, the real focus of the attack is inside the castle, not outside. I'm sure Katsutoyo's retainers will come here this evening."

As Fujitaka considered Hideyoshi's words, he meditated once again on the old saying "He who rests his men well will be able to employ them to desperate efforts."

As Fujitaka's son looked at Hideyoshi, he also remembered something. When the Hosokawa clan's fate had stood at a great crossroads, and its retainers had all met to deliberate a course of action, Fujitaka had spoken and directly indicated the position to take: "In this generation, I have seen only two truly uncommon men: one of them is Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu, the other is unmistakably Lord Hideyoshi."

Recalling those words now, the young man could only wonder if they were true. Was this what his father called an uncommon man? Was Hideyoshi really one of the two truly great generals of his generation?

When they had withdrawn to their quarters, Tadaoki expressed his doubts.

"I guess you don't understand," Fujitaka mumbled in response. "You're still lacking in experience." Aware of Tadaoki's dissatisfied look, he guessed what was on his son's mind and said, "The closer you get to a large mountain, the less its great size can be perceived. When you start to climb, you will not understand its size at all. When you listen and then compare everyone's comments, you can understand that most men will speak without having seen the entire mountain and, having seen only one peak or valley, will imagine they have seen everything. But they'll really be doing nothing more than making judgments on the whole while having seen only one part."

Tadaoki's mind was left with its former doubts, despite the lesson he had received. He knew, however, that his father had experienced far more of the world than he had, and so he could do nothing more than accept what his father was saying.

Surprisingly enough, two days after their arrival, Nagahama Castle pa.s.sed into Hideyoshi's hands without injury to a single soldier. It had been exactly as Hideyoshi had predicted to Fujitaka and his son: "The castle will be captured from within."

The envoys were three of Shibata Katsutoyo's senior retainers. They brought a written pledge in which Katsutoyo and all of his retainers swore to obey and serve Hideyoshi.

"They have acted with discrimination," Hideyoshi said with apparent satisfaction. According to the terms of the pledge, the castle's territory would remain the same as before, and Katsutoyo would be allowed to continue as its possessor.

When Hideyoshi gave up the castle, people commented on how quickly he had resigned himself to the loss of such a strategic location. Retaking the castle had been executed as easily as pa.s.sing something from the left hand to the right.

But even if Katsutoyo had asked for reinforcements from Echizen, they could not have come because of the heavy snows. In addition, Katsuie would only have treated him harshly, just as he had done before. When Katsutoyo had fallen ill on his mission to Hideyoshi, Katsuie had made his anger plain to the whole clan.

"To take advantage of Hideyoshi's hospitality under the pretense of illness, and then to return after spending several days as his guest-that man is a fool beyond words."

Reports of Katsuie's harsh words eventually reached Katsutoyo.

Now, surrounded by Hideyoshi's army, Nagahama Castle was isolated, and Katsutoyo had nowhere to turn.

His senior retainers, who had already guessed his intentions, announced, "Those retainers who have family in Echizen should go back. Those who feel like staying here with Katsutoyo and aligning themselves with Lord Hideyoshi may stay. His Lordship understands, however, that many of you may feel it would be difficult to remain true to the Way of the Samurai by leaving the Shibata clan and turning your back on Lord Katsuie. Those who feel that way may withdraw without hesitation."

For a moment the atmosphere was filled with tension. The men simply hung their heads in bitterness, and there were few objections. That night sake cups were raised in an honorable separation of lord and retainers, but fewer than one out of ten returned to Echizen.

In this way Katsutoyo cut his ties with his stepfather and allied himself with Hideyoshi. From that time on he was officially under Hideyoshi's command, but it had only a matter of form. Long before these events, Katsutoyo's heart had already been like a bird being fed in Hideyoshi's cage.

At any rate, the seizure of Nagahama was now complete. To Hideyoshi, however, it had been nothing more than a pa.s.sing event on the way to Gifu-n.o.butaka's main castle,.

The pa.s.s over Fuwa was famous as a place that was difficult to cross in winter, and conditions on the plain of Sekigahara were especially severe.

From the eighteenth to the twenty-eighth day of the Twelfth Month, Hideyoshi's army marched across Sekigahara. The army was divided into corps, and those corps were further broken down into divisions: packhorses, gunners, spearmen, mounted warriors, and foot soldiers. Defying the snow and mud, they pushed on. It took Hideyoshi's force of about thirty thousand soldiers two days to cross into Mino.

The main camp was set up at Ogaki. From there, Hideyoshi attacked and took all of the smaller castles in the area. This was immediately reported to n.o.butaka, who spent several days in complete confusion. He hardly knew what strategy to take, much less how to fight a defensive battle.

n.o.butaka had thought only of grandiose schemes but had had no idea how to accomplish them. Until then he had allied himself to men like Katsuie and Takigawa and submitted schemes for attacking Hideyoshi, but he had never expected to be attacked by him.

At his wits' end, n.o.butaka left his fate to the discretion of his senior retainers. But after arriving at the current pa.s.s, they had nothing left that could be called "discretion."

There was nothing the senior retainers could do but kowtow at Hideyoshi's camp just Katsutoyo's retainers had done. n.o.butaka's mother was sent as a hostage, and his senior retainers had to send their own mothers as well.

Niwa begged Hideyoshi to spare n.o.butaka's life. Hideyoshi, as might be expected, pardoned him. Granting them peace for the time, he smiled at n.o.butaka's senior retainers and asked, "Has Lord n.o.butaka come to his senses? It will be a blessing if he has."

The hostages were immediately sent to Azuchi. Immediately thereafter Samboshi, who had been kept at Gifu, was turned over to Hideyoshi and moved to Azuchi as well.

After that, n.o.buo was put in charge of the young lord. Having delivered that trust, Hideyoshi made a triumphal return to Takaradera Castle. New Year's Eve was celebrated two days after his return. Then came the first day of the eleventh year of Tensho. From morning on, sunshine glittered on the snow that had recently fallen on the trees just planted on the grounds of the renovated castle.

The fragrance of the New Year's rice cakes drifted through the grounds, and the sound of the drum reverberated through the corridors for more than half a day. But at noon an announcement rang out from the main citadel: "Lord Hideyoshi is going to Himeji!"

Hideyoshi arrived at Himeji around midnight on New Year's Day. Greeted by the flames of bonfires, he quickly entered the castle. The greatest joy, however, was not Hideyoshi's, but his people's, as they watched the flourish of the grand spectacle: all his retainers and their families were a.s.sembled at the main gate of the castle to welcome him.

Dismounting, he handed the reins to an attendant and, for a moment, looked up at the keep. In the Sixth Month of the previous summer, just before his forced march to Yamazaki and his great victory to avenge n.o.bunaga, he had stood at the same gate and wondered whether he would come back alive.

His last orders to his retainers had been clear: "If you hear that I have been defeated, kill my entire family and burn the castle to the ground."

Now he was back in Himeji Castle, having arrived exactly at midnight on New Year's Day. If he had faltered for a moment and wasted time by thinking about his wife and mother in Nagahama, he would have been unable to fight with the desperation of a man who expects to meet his death in battle. He would have been pressed by the power of the Mori in the west and watched the Akechi grow stronger in the east.

In the case of both the individual and the entire country, the border between rising and falling is always a wager based on life or death-life in the midst of death, death in the midst of life.

Hideyoshi, however, had not returned to rest. As soon as he entered the main citadel, and even before changing from his traveling clothes, he met with the officials of the castle. He listened attentively to the report on subsequent events in the west and the situation in his various estates.

It was the second half of the Hour of the Rat-midnight. Although unconcerned about their own exhaustion, Hideyoshi's retainers were worried that perhaps the strain might begin to affect their lord's health.