Taiko. Part 67

"Nene," she said, "it'll be a while before the master gets up. Let's pick some eggplants in the garden while we have the time. Bring a basket!"

The old lady began to pick the eggplants. Nene filled one basket, and then carried over another.

"Hey, Nene! Are you and Mother both out here?"

It was the voice of her husband-the husband who so rarely got up early these days.

"I didn't realize you were up," Nene apologized.

"No, I suddenly woke up. Even the pages were fl.u.s.tered." Hideyoshi wore a bright smile, a sight she had not seen for some time. "Takenaka Hanbei reported that a ship with an envoy's banner is on its way from Azuchi. I got up immediately, paid my respects to the castle shrine, and then came here to apologize for neglecting you in recent days."

"Aha! You've apologized to the G.o.ds!" his mother chuckled.

"That's right. Then I have to apologize to my mother, and even to my wife, I think," he said with great seriousness.

"You came all the way here for that?"

"Yes, and if you would only understand how I feel, I wouldn't have to go through the form of doing this anymore."

"Oh, this boy is cunning." His mother laughed outright.

Although Hideyoshi's mother was probably somewhat suspicious of her son's suddenly cheerful behavior, she was soon to understand the reason.

"Master Maeda and Master Nonomura have just arrived at the castle gate as official messengers from Azuchi. Master Hikoemon went out immediately and led them to the guests' reception room," Mosuke announced.

Hideyoshi dismissed the page and began picking eggplants with his mother. "They're really ripening well, aren't they? Did you put the manure along the dirt ridges yourself, Mother?"

"Shouldn't you be hurrying off to see His Lordship's messengers?" she asked.

"No, I pretty much know why they've come, so there's no need to get fl.u.s.tered. I think I'll pick a few eggplants. It would be nice to show Lord n.o.bunaga their shiny emerald color, covered with the morning dew."

"You're going to give things like this to the envoys as presents for Lord n.o.bunaga?"

"No, no, I'm going to take them this morning myself."

"What!"

Hideyoshi had, after all, incurred his lord's displeasure and was supposed to be penitent. This morning his mother began to have doubts about him and soon was almost worried to distraction.

"My lord? Are you coming?" Hanbei had come to hasten Hideyoshi, who finally left the eggplant field.

When the preparations for the trip had been made, Hideyoshi asked the envoys to accompany him back to Azuchi.

Hideyoshi suddenly stopped. "Oh! I've forgotten something! His Lordship's present." He sent a retainer to fetch the basket of eggplants. The eggplants had been covered with leaves, and morning dew still clung to the purple beneath. Carrying the basket with him, Hideyoshi boarded the ship.

The castle town of Azuchi was not yet a year old, but fully a third of it had been finished and was already bustling with prosperity. All travelers who stopped here were struck by the liveliness of this dazzling new city, its road spread with silver sand leading to the castle gate; the masonry steps made of huge stone blocks; the plastered walls and the burnished metal fittings.

And while the sight was indeed dazzling, the grandeur of the five-story donjon was beyond description, whether seen from the lake, from the streets of the town below, or even from within the castle grounds themselves.

"Hideyoshi, you've come." n.o.bunaga's voice resounded from behind the closed sliding door. The room, set amid all the gold, red, and blue lacquer of Azuchi, was decorated with a simple ink painting.

Hideyoshi was still at some distance, prostrating himself in the next room.

"I suppose you've heard, Hideyoshi. I've set your punishment aside. Come in."

Hideyoshi edged forward from the next room with his basket of eggplants.

n.o.bunaga looked at him suspiciously. "What's that?"

"Well, I hope this will please you, my lord." Hideyoshi moved forward and put the eggplants in front of him. "My mother and wife grew these eggplants in the garden at the castle."

"Eggplants?"

"You may consider them a silly, strange present, but since I was traveling by fast ship, I thought you would be able to see them before the dew evaporated. I picked them from the field this morning."

"Hideyoshi, I suspect that what you wanted to show me was neither eggplants nor unevaporated dew. What exactly is it that you would like me to taste?"

"Please guess, my lord. I'm an unworthy servant and my merit is negligible, but you have elevated me from a simple farmer to a retainer who holds a domain of two hundred twenty thousand bushels. And yet my old mother never neglects taking up the hoe with her own hands, watering the vegetables, and putting manure around the gourds and eggplants. Every day I give thanks for the lessons she teaches me. Without even having to speak, she tells me, 'There's nothing more dangerous than a farmer rising up in the world, and you should get used to the fact that the envy and fault-finding of others comes from their own conceit. Don't forget your past in Nakamura, and always be mindful of the favors your lord has bestowed on you.'"

n.o.bunaga nodded, and Hideyoshi went on, "Do you think I could devise any strategy on a campaign that would not be to you benefit, my lord, when I have a mother like that? I consider her lessons as talismans. Even if I quarrel openly with the commander-in-chief, there is no duplicity in my breast."

At that point, a guest at n.o.bunaga's side slapped his thigh and said, "These eggplants are really a good present. We'll try them later on."

For the first time Hideyoshi noticed that someone else was in the room: a samurai who looked to be in his early thirties. The man's large mouth indicated the strength of his will. His brow was prominent, and the bridge of his nose was somewhat wide. It was difficult to say whether he was of peasant stock or simply robustly built, but the light in his eyes and the l.u.s.ter of his dark red skin showed that he possessed a strong inner vitality.

"Have Hideyoshi's mother's home-grown eggplants pleased you, too, Kanbei? I'm pretty happy with them myself," n.o.bunaga said, laughing, and then, growing serious, he introduced the guest to Hideyoshi.

"This is Kuroda Kanbei, the son of Kuroda Mototaka, chief retainer of Odera Masamoto in Harima."

Hearing this, Hideyoshi was unable to conceal his surprise. Kuroda Kanbei was a name he had been hearing constantly. Moreover, he had often seen his letters.

"My goodness! So you're Kuroda Kanbei."

"And you're the Lord Hideyoshi I'm always hearing about?"

"Always in letters."

"Yes, but I can't think of this as our first meeting."

"And now here I am, shamefully begging my lord for forgiveness. I'm afraid you're going to laugh at me: this is Hideyoshi, the man who's always being scolded by his lord. And he laughed with a voice that seemed to sweep everything away. n.o.bunaga laughed heartily, too. With Hideyoshi, he could laugh happily about things that were not actually very amusing.

The eggplants Hideyoshi had brought were quickly prepared, and very soon the three men were enjoying a drinking party. Kanbei was nine years younger than Hideyoshi, but was not the least bit inferior in his understanding of the current of the times or in his intuition of who would grasp supreme power in the land. He was nothing more than the son of a retainer of an influential clan in Harima, but he did possess a small castle in Himeji and had embraced a great ambition from early on in his life. Moreover, among all who lived in the western provinces, he was the only one who had gauged the trend of the times clearly enough to come to n.o.bunaga and secretly suggest the urgency of the conquest of that area.

The great power in the west was the Mori clan, whose sphere of influence extended over twenty provinces. Kanbei lived in the midst of them but was not overawed by their power. He perceived that the history of the nation was flowing in one direction. Armed with this insight, he had sought out one man: n.o.bunaga. From that point alone, it could hardly be said that he was a common man.

There is a saying that one great man will always recognize another. In their conversation at this one meeting, Hideyoshi and Kanbei were tied as tightly together as though they had known each other for a hundred years.

Monkey Marches West Not long after his meeting with Kuroda Kanbei, Hideyoshi received a special a.s.signment from n.o.bunaga.

"The truth is," n.o.bunaga began, "I'd like to risk my entire army on this expedition, but the situation won't permit that yet. For that reason I've chosen you as the one in whom I put all of my trust. You're to take three armies, lead them into the western provinces, and persuade the Mori clan to submit to me. This is a great responsibility that I know only you could take on. Will you do it?"

Hideyoshi was silent. He was so elated and so filled with grat.i.tude that he was unable to answer immediately.

"I accept," he said finally with deep emotion.

This was only the second time n.o.bunaga had raised three armies and entrusted their command to one of his retainers. The first time was when he had put Katsuie in charge of the campaign in the northern provinces. But because it was so important and so difficult, an invasion of the western provinces could not be compared with the northern campaign.

Hideyoshi felt as though an incredible weight had been put on his shoulders. Observing Hideyoshi's unusually cautious expression, n.o.bunaga suddenly felt uneasy, wondering if this were not too heavy a responsibility for him after all. Does Hideyoshi have the confidence to take on this responsibility? he asked himself.

"Hideyoshi, will you go back to Nagahama Castle before you mobilize the troops?" n.o.bunaga asked. "Or would you prefer to leave from Azuchi?"

"With your permission, my lord, I will depart from Azuchi this very day."

"You have no regrets about leaving Nagahama?"

"None. My mother, my wife, and my foster son are there. What is there for me to feel unhappy about?"

The foster son was n.o.bunaga's fourth son, Tsugimaru, whom Hideyoshi was brining up.

n.o.bunaga laughed and then asked, "If this campaign is prolonged and your home province falls into the hands of your foster son, where are you going to make your own territory?"

"After I subjugate the west, I'll ask for it."

"And if I don't give it to you?"

"Perhaps I could conquer Kyushu and live there."

n.o.bunaga laughed heartily, forgetting his earlier misgivings.

Elated, Hideyoshi returned to his quarters and quickly told Hanbei of n.o.bunaga's orders. Hanbei immediately sent off a courier to Hikoemon, who was in charge of Nagahama in Hideyoshi's absence. Hikoemon marched through the night, leading an army to join his master. In the meantime, an urgent dispatch was circulated to all of n.o.bunaga's generals, informing them of Hideyoshi's appointment.

When Hikoemon arrived in the morning and looked in at Hideyoshi's quarters, he found him alone, applying moxa to his shins.

"That's a good precaution for a campaign," Hikoemon said.

"I still have half a dozen scars on my back from when I was treated with moxa as a child," Hideyoshi answered, gnashing his teeth from the intense heat. "I don't like moxa because it burns, but if I didn't do this, my mother would worry. When you send news to Nagahama, please write that I'm applying moxa every day."

As soon as he finished the moxa treatment, Hideyoshi departed for the front. The troops that left the castle town of Azuchi that day were truly awe-inspiring. From his donjon, n.o.bunaga watched them leave. The Monkey from Nakamura has come far, he thought, countless deep emotions pa.s.sing through his breast as he watched Hideyoshi's standard of the golden gourd disappear into the distance.

The province of Harima was the jade pearl in this struggle between the dragon of the west and the tiger of the east. Would it ally itself with the newly arisen forces of the Oda? Would it side with the ancient power of the Mori?

Both the greater and the smaller clans of the western provinces that stretched from Harima to Hoki were now facing a difficult decision.

Some said, "The Mori are the mainstay of the west. Surely they will not fail."

Others, not so sure, countered, "No, we can't ignore the Oda's sudden rise to power."

People made up their minds by comparing the strength of the adversaries: territories on both sides, numbers of soldiers and of allies. In this case, however, given the immensity of Mori's influence and the vast possessions of the Oda, the strength of the two sides seemed about equally matched.

Which of them would make the future his own?

It was toward these western provinces lost between light and dark and unable to pick a course of action that Hideyoshi's troops marched on the twenty-third day of the Tenth Month.

To the west. To the west.

The responsibility was heavy. As Hideyoshi rode under his standard of the gold engourd, the face shaded by his visor was troubled. He was forty-one years old. His mouth was drawn into a large wordless frown as his horse trotted on stolidly. Wind-borne dust covered the entire army.

Periodically, Hideyoshi reminded himself that he was advancing on the western provinces. He would probably not have made so much of it himself, but when he had left Azuchi , n.o.bunaga's other generals had congratulated him.

"His Lordship has finally made up his mind and put you to use. Lord Hideyoshi, you've become second to none. You will have to repay His Lordship for his favors."

In contrast to this, Shibata Katsuie seemed extremely displeased. "What? He was made commander-in-chief of the western campaign!" Katsuie laughed derisively at the very idea.

It was easy to see why Katsuie thought that way. When Hideyoshi was still a servant, carrying n.o.bunaga's sandals and living in the stables with the horses, Katsuie had been a general of the Oda clan. Moreover, he had married n.o.bunaga's younger sister, and ruled a province of more than three hundred thousand bushels. Finally, when Katsuie was commander-in-chief of the northern campaign, Hideyoshi had disobeyed his orders and returned without warning to Nagahama. As a senior retainer, Katsuie now did a good bit of political maneuvering to put the invasion of the western provinces out of the limelight.

Mounted on his horse on the way to the western provinces, Hideyoshi chuckled to himself incessantly.

These things would suddenly come to mind as he lost interest in the peaceful westward road. Hideyoshi burst out laughing; Hanbei, who was riding along next to him, thought he had perhaps missed something and asked, "Did you say something thing, my Lord?" just to make sure.

"No, nothing," Hideyoshi answered.

His army had traveled a good distance that day, and they were already approaching the border of Harima.

"Hanbei, a certain pleasure awaits you when we enter Harima."

"Well now, what would that be?"

"I don't think you've met Kuroda Kanbei before."

"No, I haven't, but I've been hearing his name for a long time."

"He's a man of the times. When you meet him, you'll become fast friends, I think."

"I've heard a number of stories about him."

"He's the son of a senior retainer of the Odera clan, and is still in his early thirties."

"Wasn't this campaign conceived by Lord Kanbei?"

"That's right. He's an intelligent man with a keen eye."

"Do you know him well, my lord?"

"I've known him through letters, but I met him for the first time at Azuchi Castle a little while ago. We talked completely openly for half a day. Ah, I feel confident. With Takenaka Hanbei on my left and Kuroda Kanbei on my right, I've put together a field staff."

Just then, something caused a boisterous disorder among the troops behind them. Someone in the pages' corps was laughing loudly.

Hikoemon turned around and took Mosuke, the head page, to task. In turn, Mosuke yelled at the pages in the company. "Quiet! An army advances with dignity!"