Taiko. Part 57

"I haven't seen my brother for some time, my lord. He's busy with his military duties, but I do receive letters from time to time."

"Where are you living now?"

"At Choteiken Castle in Fuwa, where I have a slight connection."

"I wonder if Watanabe Tenzo has returned yet," Hideyoshi said, trying to change the subject, but n.o.bunaga was an old fox and was not going to be taken in.

"What are you saying? You're getting confused. Didn't you yourself just tell me that Tenzo wouldn't return for another three days?"

Hideyoshi's face turned bright red. n.o.bunaga seemed to be satisfied with this. He had wanted to see him look self-conscious and troubled for a while.

n.o.bunaga invited Oyu to the evening's drinking party, and commented, "You haven't seen my dancing, although Hideyoshi has seen it on several occasions."

When Oyu asked to take her leave later that evening, n.o.bunaga did not insist on her staying, but he said bluntly to Hideyoshi, "Well then, you go too."

The couple left the castle. Soon, however, Hideyoshi returned alone somewhat fl.u.s.tered.

'Where is Lord n.o.bunaga?" he asked a page.

"He has just now retired to his bedroom."

Hearing this, Hideyoshi hurried to the private apartments with an unusual lack of composure and asked the samurai attendant to convey a message.

'I must have an audience with His Lordship this evening."

n.o.bunaga had not yet gone to sleep, and as soon as Hideyoshi was ushered into his presence, he asked for everyone to leave the room, but although the men on night watch withdrew, Hideyoshi still looked around the room nervously.

"What is it, Hideyoshi?"

"Well, it seems there's still someone in the next room."

"It's no one to be worried about. It's just Ranmaru. He should be no problem."

"He is also a problem. I'm sorry to ask, but..."

"He should go too?"

"Yes."

"Ranmaru, you leave too." n.o.bunaga turned and spoke toward the next room.

Ranmaru bowed silently, got up, and left.

"It should be all right now. What is this?"

"The fact is that when I took my leave and went back to town just now, I ran into Tenzo."

"What! Tenzo's back?"

"He said that he hurried across the mountains to get here, hardly knowing day from night. Shingen's death is a certainty."

"So...after all."

"I can't give you many details, but the inner circle in Kai seems to have put on a faade of normality, beneath which a melancholy air can clearly be detected."

"Their mourning is being kept a strict secret, I'll bet."

"Of course."

"And the other provinces know nothing?"

"So far."

"So, now's the time. I a.s.sume you forbade Tenzo to speak about this."

"That's not something you have to worry about."

"But there are some unscrupulous men among the ninja. Are you sure about him?"

"He's Hikoemon's nephew, and he is loyal."

"Well, we should be extremely cautious. Give him a reward, but keep him inside the castle. It would probably be better to imprison him until this is all over."

"No, my lord."

"Why not?"

"Because if we treat a man like that, the next time the opportunity comes up, he won't feel like jeopardizing his life as he did this time. And if you cannot trust a man, but give him a reward, he might be tempted with a lot of money by the enemy someday."

"Well, then, where did you leave him?"

"As luck would have it, Oyu was just about to return to Fuwa, so I ordered him to go along as a guard for her palanquin."

"The man risked his life coming back from Kai, and you immediately ordered him to accompany your mistress? Isn't Tenzo going to resent that?"

"He went along with her happily. I may be a foolish master, but he knows me very well."

"You seem to employ people a little differently than I do."

"You can be doubly at ease, my lord. She may be a woman, but if it appears that Tenzo is about to spill any secrets to anyone, she'll protect our interests, even if she has to kill him."

"Put away your self-congratulations."

"Sorry. You what I'm like."

"That's not the point," n.o.bunaga said. "The Tiger of Kai has died, so we can't delay. We've got to move before Shingen's death is known by the world at large. Hideyoshi, leave tonight and hurry back to Yokoyama."

"I had planned to do that immediately, so I sent Oyu back to Fuwa, and-"

"Forget the rest. I've hardly got time to sleep. We're going to mobilize at daybreak."

n.o.bunaga's thoughts were perfectly in line with Hideyoshi's. The opportunity they had always sought-the time to finish up a former problem-was now at hand. The problem being, of course, the liquidation of the troublesome shogun and the old order.

Needless to say, as n.o.bunaga was an actor in the new age that was about to replace the old, his advance was quickly realized. On the twenty-second day of the Third Month, his army thundered out of Gifu. When it arrived at the sh.o.r.es of Lake Biwa, the army split into two. One half of the army was under the command of n.o.bunaga. He boarded ship and sailed across the lake to the west. The remaining half, composed of the troops led by Katsuie, Mitsuhide, and Hachiya, took the land route and advanced along the southern edge of the lake.

The land army ousted the anti-n.o.bunaga forces made up of the warrior-monks in the area between Katada and Ishiyama, and destroyed the fortifications that had been erected along the road.

The shogun's advisers quickly held a conference.

"Shall we resist?"

"Shall we sue for peace?"

These men had a big problem: they had not yet given a clear answer to the seventeen-article doc.u.ment that n.o.bunaga had sent to Yoshiaki on New Year's Day. In it, n.o.bunaga had itemized all his grievances against Yoshiaki.

"What audacity! I am the shogun, after all!" Yoshiaki had said angrily, conveniently forgetting that it was n.o.bunaga who had protected him and returned him to Nijo Palace. Why should I submit to a nonent.i.ty like n.o.bunaga?"

Messengers had come from n.o.bunaga one after another to work out peace terms, but had withdrawn without being granted audiences. Then, as a sort of response, the shogun had barricades erected on the roads that led to the capital.

The opportunity that n.o.bunaga had been waiting for and that Hideyoshi had been planning against was the arrival of the appropriate moment for reproving Yoshiaki for his lack of response to the Seventeen Articles. That opportunity had come sooner than either of them had imagined-hastened by Shingen's death.

In any period of history, a man on his way to ruin always holds on to the ludicrous illusion that he is not the one about to fall. Yoshiaki fell straight into that trap.

n.o.bunaga saw him in yet another way, saying, "We can use him, too." Thus he was handled with delicate disrespect. But the members of the worthless shogunate of this period did not know their own value, and no matter what the subject of their thoughts, intellectually speaking, their understanding did not go beyond the past. They saw only the narrow face of culture in the capital and believed that it prevailed throughout j.a.pan. Entrusting themselves to the cramped policies of the past, they relied on the warrior-monks of the Honganji and on the many samurai warlords throughout the provinces who hated n.o.bunaga.

The shogun was still unaware of Shingen's death. And so he played tough. "I am the shogun, the pillar of the samurai cla.s.s. I'm different from the monks on Mount Hiei. If n.o.bunaga were to aim his weapons at Nijo Palace, he would be branded a traitor."

His att.i.tude indicated that he would not decline war if it was offered. Naturally, he called on the clans around the capital and sent urgent messages to the faraway Asai, the Asakura, the Uesugi, and the Takeda, setting up a showy defense.

When n.o.bunaga heard this, he turned toward the capital with a laugh and, without stopping his army for a single day, entered Osaka. The ones who were shocked this time were the warrior-monks of the Honganji. Suddenly face to face with n.o.bunaga's army, they had no idea what to do. But n.o.bunaga was content simply to line his men up in battle array.

"We can strike anytime we like," he said. At this point he wanted most strongly to avoid any unnecessary expenditure of military strength. And, until this time, he had repeatedly sent envoys to Kyoto asking for a response to the Seventeen Articles. So this was a sort of ultimatum. Yoshiaki took a highhanded view: he was shogun and he simply did not feel like listening to n.o.bunaga's opinions of his administration.

Among the Seventeen Articles, Yoshiaki was pressed quite firmly by two articles in particular. The first was concerned with the crime of disloyalty to the Emperor. The second article had to do with his disgraceful conduct. While it was his duty to maintain the peace of the Empire, he himself had incited the provinces to rebellion.

"It's useless. He'll never accept this kind of grilling-just written notes and messengers," Araki Murashige said to n.o.bunaga.

Hosokawa Fujitaka, who had also joined n.o.bunaga, added, "I suppose it's no use hoping that the shogun will wake up before his fall."

n.o.bunaga nodded. He seemed to understand only too well. But it would not be necessary to use the drastic violence here that he had employed at Mount Hiei; neither was he so poor in strategy that he would have to use the same method twice.

"Back to Kyoto!" n.o.bunaga had given this order on the fourth day of the Fourth Month, but it had seemed nothing more than an exercise to impress the ma.s.ses with the size of his army.

"Look at that! He's not going to have them bivouac for very long. Just like the last time, n.o.bunaga's uneasy about Gifu and is hurriedly withdrawing his soldiers," Yoshiaki said, elated. With the reports that came to him one after another, however, his color began to change. For just as he was congratulating himself about the troops bypa.s.sing Kyoto, the Oda army flowed into the capital from the Osaka road. Then, without a single war cry and more peacefully than if they had been simply performing maneuvers, the soldiers surrounded Yoshiaki's residence.

"We're close to the Imperial Palace, so be careful not to disturb His Majesty. It will be enough to censure this impudent shogun's crimes," n.o.bunaga ordered.

There was no gunfire, and not even the hum of a single bowstring. It was uncanny, far more than if there had been a great commotion.

"Yamato, what do you think we should do? What is n.o.bunaga going to do to me?" Yoshiaki asked his senior adviser, Mibuchi Yamato.

"You're pitifully unprepared. At this point, do you still not understand what n.o.bunaga has in mind? He's clearly come to attack you."

"B-but... I'm the shogun!"

"These are troubled times. What good is a t.i.tle going to do you? It appears that you have only two choices: either resolve to fight or sue for peace." As his retainer spoke these words, tears fell from his eyes. Along with Hosokawa Fujitaka, this honorable man had not left Yoshiaki's side since the days of his exile.

"I do not remain to protect my honor or to seek fame. Nor am I following a strategy for survival. I know what's going to happen tomorrow, but somehow I just can't abandon this fool of a shogun," Yamato had once said. Certainly he knew that Yoshiaki was hardly worth saving. He knew the world was changing, but he seemed resolved to stand his ground at Nijo Palace. He was already over fifty years old, a general past his prime.

"Sue for peace? Is there any good reason why I, the shogun, should beg someone like n.o.bunaga for peace?"

"You're so obsessed by the t.i.tle of shogun that your only course is self-destruction."

"Don't you think we'll win, if we fight?"

"There's no reason why we should. It would be completely laughable if you put up a defense of this place with any thought of victory."

"Well then, w-why are you and the other generals dressed up in your armor so ostentatiously?"

"We think it would at least be a beautiful way to die. Even though the situation is hopeless, to make our final stand here will be a fitting end to fourteen generations of shoguns. That is the duty of a samurai, after all. It's really nothing more than arranging flowers at a funeral."

"Wait! Don't attack yet! Put down your guns."

Yoshiaki disappeared into the palace and consulted with Hino and Takaoka, two courtiers with whom he was on friendly terms. After noon, a messenger was secretly sent out of the palace by Hino. Following that, the governor of Kyoto came from the Oda side and, toward evening, Oda n.o.buhiro appeared as a formal envoy from n.o.bunaga.

"Hereafter, I will carefully observe each of the articles," Yoshiaki a.s.sured the envoy. With a bitter look on his face, Yoshiaki pledged himself with words that were not in his heart. That day he begged for peace. n.o.bunaga's soldiers withdrew and peacefully returned to Gifu.

Only one hundred days later, however, n.o.bunaga's army once again surrounded Nijo Palace. And that was because, of course, Yoshiaki had fallen back on his old tricks once again after the first peace.

The great roof of the Myokaku Temple at Nijo was beaten desolately by the rains of the Seventh Month. The temple served as n.o.bunaga's headquarters. There had been a terrible wind and rain from the time his fleet had started across Lake Biwa. But this had only increased the determination of the troops. Soaked by the rain and covered in mud, they had surrounded the shogun's palace and were poised, waiting only for the command to attack.

No one knew if Yoshiaki was to be executed or taken prisoner, but his fate was entirely in their hands. n.o.bunaga's troops felt as though they were looking into the cage of a fierce, n.o.ble animal that they were about to slaughter.

The voices of n.o.bunaga and Hideyoshi drifted on the wind.

"What are you going to do?" Hideyoshi asked.

"At this point there are no two ways about it." n.o.bunaga was firm. "I'm not forgiving him this time."

"But he's the-"

"Don't belabor the obvious."

"Is there no margin for a little more deliberation?"

"None! Absolutely not!"

The room in the temple was gloomy from the darkening rain outside. The combination of the lingering summer heat and the long autumn rains had resulted in such humid weather that even the gold leaf of the Buddhas and the monochrome ink drawings on the siding doors looked mildewed.