Taiko. Part 80

Giving vent to the resentment that was so hard to control, Katsuyori mumbled to himself as his horse took him along the road. But the voices of indignation that traveled with him-the voices of resentment over Kiso's betrayal-were few.

Katsuyori was as confident as always. When he had cut off his relations with the Hojo, he had abandoned an ally without even looking back at the strength of the clan that been such a great support to him.

At the suggestion of those around him, Katsuyori had returned n.o.bunaga's son- who had been a hostage with the Takeda for many years-to Azuchi; but there was still plenty of contempt left in his heart for the lord of the Oda clan, and even more for Tokugawa Ieyasu in Hamamatsu. He had displayed this aggressive att.i.tude since the battle of Nagashino.

There was nothing wrong with the strength of his spirit. He was extremely positive. Certainly, strength of spirit is a substance that should fill the jar of the heart to the brim. And during this period of warring provinces, the samurai cla.s.s as a whole could be said to have possessed that kind of spirit. But in the situation in which Katsuyori found himself, there was an absolute need for unerring adherence to a composed strength that, at a glance, might be taken for weakness. A reckless show of strength would not intimidate an opponent. On the contrary, it only encouraged him. For a number of years, Katsuyori's manliness and courage had been looked down upon for this reason by both n.o.bunaga and Ieyasu.

And not only by these men, his enemies. Even in his own province of Kai there were voices expressing the wish that Shingen were still alive.

Shingen had insisted on a strong military administration of the province. And because he had given both his retainers and the people of Kai the feeling that they would be absolutely secure as long as he was there, they depended on him completely.

Even during Katsuyori's reign, military service, tax collection, and all other phases of administration were conducted according to Shingen's laws. But something was missing.

Katsuyori did not understand what that something was; regrettably, he did not even notice that something was missing. But what he lacked was a reliance on harmony and ability to inspire confidence in his administration. Thus it was Shingen's powerful government, now lacking in these two qualities, that began to cause conflict within the clan.

In Shingen's time, there was a general article of faith shared by the upper and lower cla.s.ses, one of which they were very proud: no enemy had ever been permitted to take even one step inside the boundaries of Kai.

But misgivings seemed to be springing up everywhere now. It is hardly necessary to mention that it was obvious to everyone that a line had been drawn with the great defeat of Nagashino. That disaster had not been simply a matter of the failure of the Kai army's equipment and strategy. It had resulted from the shortcomings of Katsuyori's character; and those around him-even the general population, who looked to him as their mainstay-felt a horrible disappointment. Katsuyori, they realized, was not Shingen.

Although Kiso Yoshimasa was Shingen's son-in-law, he was plotting to betray Katsuyori and did not believe that he could survive. He was beginning to tally up Kai's prospects for the future. Through an intermediary in Mino, he had secretly been in touch with n.o.bunaga for already two years now.

The Kai army split up into a number of lines and marched to f.u.kushima.

As the soldiers marched they were confident, and they could often be heard to say, "We'll crush Kiso's forces right under our feet."

But as the days pa.s.sed, the news relayed to headquarters did not make Takeda Katsuyori smile in satisfaction. On the contrary, the reports were all disturbing.

"Kiso is being stubborn."

"The terrain is hilly, and they have good defenses, so it will take a number of days for our vanguard to approach it."

Every time Katsuyori heard these kinds of things, he bit his lip and muttered, "If I went there myself..."

It was part of his character to become angry and exasperated when a war situation was going badly.

The month pa.s.sed, and it was now the fourth day of the Second Month.

Horribly distressing news came to Katsuyori: n.o.bunaga had suddenly given the order for the Oda troops to mobilize in Azuchi, and he himself had already left Omi.

Another spy brought more bad news: "The forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu have left Suruga; Hojo Ujimasa's troops have left the Kanto; and Kanamori Hida has left his castle. All of them are marching toward Kai, and it's said that n.o.bunaga and n.o.butada have split their troops into two and are about to invade. When I climbed a high mountain and looked out, I could see columns of smoke in every direction."

Katsuyori felt as if he had been hurled to the ground. "n.o.bunaga! Ieyasu! And even Hojo Ujimasa?"

According to these secret reports, his own situation was about the same as that of a mouse in a trap.

Dusk was approaching. New reports came in that Shoyoken's troops had deserted during the previous night.

"That can't be true!" Katsuyori said. But it was a fact that such a thing had occurred during the night, and the urgent messages that came in one after another brought proof that could not be denied.

"Shoyoken! Isn't he my uncle, and an elder of the clan? What's the idea of leaving the battlefield and running away without permission? And all those others. It only sullies my mouth to speak about such disloyalty and ingrat.i.tude."

Railing against heaven and against humankind, Katsuyori should instead have felt such rancor against himself. Ordinarily he was not so weak-minded. But even a man with tremendous courage could not have helped being frightened by such a turn of events.

"It can't be helped. You must give the order to strike camp."

So advised by Oyamada n.o.bushige and the others, Katsuyori suddenly retreated. How desolate he must have felt! Although the twenty thousand soldiers he had counted on at the time of his departure had not engaged in a single battle, the retainers and men returning to Nirasaki with him now numbered no more than four thousand.

Perhaps trying to find an outlet for feelings he hardly knew how to deal with, he ordered the monk Kaisen to come to the castle. His bad luck seemed to be increasing, for even after he returned to Nirasaki, he received one depressing report after another. The worst, perhaps, was the news that his kinsman Anayama Baisetsu had deserted him and as if that weren't enough, had not only given up his castle at Ejiri to the enemy but had been engaged to guide Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was now said to be in the vanguard of the troops invading Kai.

So his own brother-in-law had openly betrayed him and was even trying to destroy him. With this knowledge, he was now forced to reflect a little on himself in the midst of his agony. Where have I gone wrong? he asked himself. While on the one hand he had made his indomitable spirit more and more unyielding and had ordered more defenses everywhere, when he received Kaisen at his new castle he displayed a willingness to engage in self-examination that was, for him, quite a gentle att.i.tude. The change was probably too late.

"It has been just ten years since my father pa.s.sed away, and eight years have gone by since the battle of Nagashino. Why have the generals of Kai so suddenly lost fidelity to their principles?" Katsuyori asked the priest.

Kaisen, however, sat facing him in silence, and Katsuyori continued, "Ten years ago, our generals weren't like this. Each of them had a sense of shame and was careful of his own reputation. When my father was still in this world, men rarely betrayed their lord, much less left their own clan."

Kaisen sat silently with his eyes closed. In comparison with the priest, who seemed like cold ashes, Katsuyori talked on like a wildfire.

"But even the men who were poised and ready to strike down the traitors have all scattered without having engaged in a single battle or waited for their lord's command. Is This behavior worthy of the Takeda clan and its generals-who would not even allow the great Uesugi Kenshin to take one step into Kai. How can there be such deterioration of discipline? How degraded can they be? Many of the generals under my father, like Baba, Yamagata, Oyamada, and Amakasu either are old or have pa.s.sed away. The ones that remain are completely different people: they're either the children of those generals or warriors who were not directly connected with my father."

Kaisen still said nothing. The monk had been more intimate with Shingen than had anyone else, and he must have been over seventy years old. From beneath his snowlike brow, he had observed Shingen's heir very carefully.

"Venerable teacher, you may think it's too late because things have already come to This pa.s.s, but if my way of administering the government has been remiss, please show me how. If my command of military discipline has not been correct, give me some strict way of enforcement. I'm anxious to correct myself. I have heard that you were taught a great deal by my father, who was your friend in the Way. Could you not teach some good strategies to his unworthy son as well? Please don't be stingy with what you have to teach. Consider me as Shingen's son. Please tell me, without reserve, what I've done wrong and how I can correct myself by doing things this way or that. Well then, let me say it. Have I offended the people after my father pa.s.sed away by suddenly raising the tariffs at river crossings and barriers in order to strengthen the province's defenses?"

"No," Kaisen said, shaking his head.

Katsuyori became even more agitated.

"Then there must have been some failing in rewards and punishments."

"None at all." The old man shook his snowy brow once again.

Katsuyori prostrated himself and was on the verge of tears. In front of Kaisen, the fierce warlord who had so much self-esteem could only cry in agony.

"Don't cry, Katsuyori," Kaisen finally said. "You are certainly not unworthy, and neither are you an unworthy son. Your only error has been lack of awareness. It is a cruel age that has made you stand face to face with Oda n.o.bunaga. You are not his enemy, after all. The mountains of Kai are far away from the center, and n.o.bunaga has the advantage of geography, but that is not a great cause of your problem, either. Although n.o.bunaga has fought battle after battle and has administered the government, in his heart he has never forgotten the Emperor. The construction of the Imperial Palace is just a single instance of all the things he has done."

Kaisen and Shingen had had a deep understanding of the heart, and Shingen's reverence for the old abbot had been extraordinarily deep. But Kaisen had also believed strongly in Shingen-he was a dragon among men; a mythical fiery horse from the heavens. But while he praised Shingen so highly, he never compared him with his son, Katsuyori, or considered the latter to be unworthy by contrast.

On the contrary, he viewed Katsuyori with sympathy. If someone criticized Katsuyori's mistakes, Kaisen always responded that it was unreasonable to expect more; his father had simply been too great a man. Kaisen did, perhaps, feel one small dissatisfaction: certainly if Shingen had lived on until now, his influence would not have been restricted to the province of Kai; he would have put his great ability and genius to work on something of greater significance. And now Kaisen regretted that Shingen had not survived. The man who had perceived something of greater significance was n.o.bunaga. It was he who had broadened the provincial role of the samurai to one of national importance. And it was n.o.bunaga who had even showed himself to be a model retainer. Kaisen's expectations for Katsuyori, who did not have the character of his father, had absolutely disappeared. The abbot clearly perceived that the long civil war was over.

So, to help Katsuyori force the troops of the Oda to kneel to him, or to plan some safe solution was impossible. The Takeda clan had been founded centuries before, and Shingen's name had shone too brightly in the sky: Katsuyori was not going to beg for capitulation at n.o.bunaga's feet.

Takeda Katsuyori had a strong will and knew a sense of shame. Among the common people of the province, there were voices saying that the government had declined since the time of Shingen, and the levying of heavy taxes was perceived as a major cause of the complaints. But Kaisen knew that Katsuyori had not levied taxes for his own luxury or pride. Every tax had been directed toward military expenditure. In the last few years, military tactics and technology had been progressing in rapid strides in the capital and even in the neighboring provinces. But Katsuyori could not afford to spend as much money on new weapons as his rivals.

"Please take care of yourself," Kaisen told Katsuyori as he prepared to leave.

"Are you going back to the temple already?" There were still many questions Katsuyori wanted to ask, but he knew that the answers to whatever he asked would be the same. He pressed his palms to the floor in reverence. "This is, perhaps, the last time I will see you."

Kaisen put his hands, draped with a string of prayer beads, to the floor and left without another word.

The Fall of the Takeda "Let's spend this spring in the Kai mountains," n.o.bunaga said as he rode out of Azuchi at the head of his army. "We can view the cherry blossoms, pick flowers, and then sightsee around Mount Fuji on the coast on our way back."

The success of the expedition against Kai seemed a.s.sured this time, and the army's departure was almost leisurely. By the tenth day of the Second Month, the army had reached Shinano and had completed the disposition of men at the entrances to Ina, Kiso, and Hida. The Hojo clan would enter from the east, while the Tokugawa would attack from Suruga.

In comparison with the battles of the Ane River and Nagashino, n.o.bunaga was invading Kai as serenely as he might have gone out to pick vegetables from a garden. In the middle of the enemy province were forces that were no longer considered to be enemies at all. Both Naegi Kyubei of Naegi Castle and Kiso Yoshimasa of f.u.kushima were men who were eagerly waiting for n.o.bunaga's arrival, not Katsuyori's; and the troops that marched from Gifu into Iwamura did so without encountering any resistance. The various fortresses of the Takeda had been abandoned to the wind. When night turned to dawn, both Matsuo Castle and the castle at Iida were nothing but empty sh.e.l.ls.

"We have advanced to Ina and found barely an enemy soldier to defend it."

That was the report n.o.bunaga received at the entrance to Kiso. There the soldiers also joked among themselves that their advance was almost too easy to be satisfying. What had made the Takeda so fragile? The cause was complicated, but the answer could be put into simple terms. This time the Takeda would not be able to preserve Kai.

Everyone a.s.sociated with the Takeda clan was convinced of its inevitable defeat. Some, perhaps, had even been disposed to look forward to this day. Traditionally, however, samurai-of no matter what clan-did not display an unseemly att.i.tude at such times, even when they knew defeat was inevitable.

"We're going to let them know that we are here," said Nishina n.o.b.u.mori, commander of Takato Castle and Katsuyori's younger brother.

n.o.bunaga's son n.o.butada, whose forces had poured into the region, estimated that his prospects were generally good. After writing a letter, he summoned a strong archer and had the man shoot the message into the castle. It was, of course, an invitation to surrender.

An answer from the castle came quickly. "I have read over your letter..." From the opening line to the ending, the letter had been written in an extremely stately style.

The men in this castle will one day compensate Lord Katsuyori's favors with their lives, and not one of them is likely to be a coward. You should have your men attack immediately. We will show you the tempered prowess and valor that has been ours since the time of Lord Shingen.

n.o.b.u.mori had answered with a resolution that almost scented the ink. n.o.bunaga had made his son a general, even though he was still quite young. "Well, if that's the way they want it," n.o.butada said, ordering the a.s.sault. The attacking forces were divided into two divisions, and they a.s.saulted the castle simulltaneously from the mountain at the rear and from the area leading to the front gate. It was a battle worthy of the name. The one thousand defending soldiers expected to die. As might be imagined, the valor of the Kai warriors had not yet declined. From the beginning of the Second Month to the beginning of the Third, the stone walls of Takato Castle were drenched with the blood of both the attacking and the defending armies. After breaking through the first palisades, which stood fifty yards from the moat, the attacking troops filled the moat with stones, shrubs, trees, and earth. Then they crossed over very quickly to the base of the stone walls.

"Come on!" shouted the men from the clay bulwarks and roofed mud walls as they threw spears, timbers, and rocks and poured hot oil onto the men below. The attacking soldiers that had scrambled up the stone wall went tumbling down under the rocks, timbers and sprays of oil. But no matter how far they fell, they were even more gallant. Even ley tumbled to the earth, as long as they were conscious, they would jump to their feet and start to climb again.

The soldiers who came up behind these men shouted in admiration for their comrades' resolute courage, and clambered up the walls behind them. They were not going to be outdone. As they climbed and fell, climbed once again, and grasped the stone walls, it seemed that nothing could stand before their fury. But the defenders of the castle were not the least bit inferior in their own united, desperate effort. Those who accepted the challenge, who could be glimpsed above the clay bulwarks and the roofed dirt walls, gave the illusion that the castle was filled only with the st.u.r.dy warriors of Kai. But if the attacking forces had been able to see the activity inside, they would have known that the entire castle was involved in a pathetic but wholehearted struggle. While the castle was being besieged, the many people inside-the old and young, and even pregnant women-each worked desperately along with the soldiers to help in the defense. The young women carried arrows, while the old men swept away the burnt refuse from the guns. They tended the wounded and worked at cooking the soldiers' meals. No one had given them any commands, but they worked in perfect order and without a single word of complaint.

"The castle will fall if we throw everything we've got at them." Thus spoke Kawajiri, one of the generals of the attacking troops, who had gone to see n.o.butada.

"We've had too many dead and wounded," n.o.butada said; he had been reflecting on the matter himself. "Do you have any good ideas?"

"It seems to me that the strength of the soldiers in the castle is dependent on their belief that Katsuyori is still in his new capital. With that in mind, we might withdraw from this field of action for the time being and attack Kofu and Nirasaki instead. That, however, would require a complete change in strategy. It would be better, perhaps, to convince the defenders of the castle that Nirasaki has fallen and that Katsuyori is dead." n.o.butada nodded his agreement. On the morning of the first day of the Third Month, another message was tied to an arrow and shot into the castle.

Upon reading it, n.o.b.u.mori laughed. "This letter is such a transparent deception that a child might have written it. It shows how disheartened the enemy has become with the siege."

The message read read as follows: On the twenty-eighth day of the last month, Kai fell and Lord Katsuyori committed suicide. The other members of the clan either committed suicide with him or were taken prisoner. It is meaningless for this castle to continue to demonstrate its martial valor, for it is nothing more than a single fortress in a conquered domain. You should surrender the castle immediately and put your efforts into the relief of the province.

Oda n.o.butada "How sweet. Do they really think a transparent little trick like this is the art of war?" That night, n.o.b.u.mori held a drinking party and showed the letter to his retainers. "If this moves anyone here, he can leave the castle without hesitation before dawn."

They beat the drum, intoned chants from Noh plays, and pa.s.sed the evening happily. That night, the wives of all the generals were also called and offered a round of sake. Everyone quickly realized what n.o.b.u.mori's intentions were. On the following morning, just as everyone had expected, he picked up a large halberd to use as a staff, fastened a straw sandal to his swollen left foot-injured in the battle for the castle-and hobbled over to the castle gate.

He summoned the defenders to a.s.semble, climbed up inside the roofed gate tower, and surveyed his forces. He had less than a thousand soldiers, excluding the very young, old men, and the women, but there was not one fewer than the night before. He bowed his head for a while, as if in silent prayer. In fact, he was praying to the soul of his father, Shingen: Look! We still have such men in Kai. Finally he looked up. He could see his entire army from where he was.

He did not have his brother's full face and broad features. As he had contented himself for a long time with the simplicity of country life, he knew nothing of extravagant food or luxury. He had been endowed with looks like those of a young hawk brought up on the whistling winds that blew over the mountains and plains of Kai. At the age of thirty-three, he resembled his father, Shingen: thick hair, bushy brows, and a wide mouth.

"Well, I thought it was going to rain today, but it's cleared up nicely. With the cherry blossoms on the distant mountains, the season is giving us a beautiful day to die. We're certainly not going to throw away our reputations, hoping for the promise of material reward. As you have seen, I was wounded in the fighting two days ago. Because my mobility is so limited, I'm going to watch each of you fight your last battle as I wait here calmly for the enemy. Then I can finish it up by fighting to my heart's content. So go out! Force your way through the gates at both the front and the rear, and bravely show them how the mountain cherry blossoms fall!"

The responding shouts of the fierce warriors, proclaiming that they would do exactly as he commanded, were like a whirlwind. All of them looked up at the figure of their lord atop the entrance gate, and for a while the same proclamation was heard over and over: "This is our farewell."

It was not a question of living or dying. It was an desperate rush toward death. The front and rear gates of the castle were defiantly pushed wide open by the men inside, and a thousand warriors rushed out, war cries rising from their throats.

The besieging troops were routed. For a moment the confusion was such that even n.o.butada's headquarters were threatened.

"Fall back! Regroup!" The commander of the castle forces watched for the proper moment, and called for a retreat into the castle.

"Fall back! Fall back!"

The men turned back toward the castle, each warrior displaying to n.o.b.u.mori, who was still seated up in the roofed castle gate, the heads he had taken.

"I will come in and drink, then go out again," one of the warriors shouted. And so it went on. Resting for a moment at either the front or the back gate, then dashing back out and cutting through the enemy-the men repeated this pattern of violent attack and retreat six times until four hundred thirty-seven heads had been taken. As the day came to a close, the numbers of the defenders were reduced conspicuously, and those who remained were covered with wounds. Almost no one was uninjured. Flames shot up with a roar from the burning trees around the castle. The enemy had already been flowing into the fortress from every direction. n.o.b.u.mori unblinkingly watched the final moments of each of his warriors from the top of the gate.

"My lord! My lord! Where are you?" a retainer called out as he ran around at the bottom of the gate.

"I'm up here," n.o.b.u.mori called, letting his retainer know he was alive and well. "My final hour is near. Let me see where you are." And he looked down from his seat. The retainer looked up through the smoke at the figure of his master.

"Nearly all the men have been killed. Have you made preparations for suicide, my lord?" he asked, panting for breath.

"Come up here to a.s.sist me."

"Yes, my lord." The man staggered around to the stairway inside the gate, but he never made it up to the balcony. Thick flames lapped at the entrance to the stairway n.o.b.u.mori pushed in the shutters of another window and peered down. The only soldier: he could see beneath him belonged to the enemy. Then he saw one person fighting hard in the middle of a huge crowd of enemy soldiers. Amazingly, it was a woman, the wife of one of his retainers, and she was brandishing a halberd.

Even though n.o.b.u.mori was about to die, he struggled to accept the unexpected emotion in which he was suddenly enveloped.

That woman is so shy she usually can't even speak in front of men, much less hold a halberd up to them, he thought. But now he was pressed by something he had to do, and he shouted out to the enemy from the narrow window by which he stood.

"All you men fighting for n.o.bunaga and n.o.butada! Listen to the voice of the Void. n.o.bunaga is taking pride right now in his one moment of triumph, but every cherry blossom falls and every ruler's castle will burn. I'm going to show you something now that won't fall or burn for all eternity. I, Shingen's fifth son, n.o.b.u.mori, am going to show you!"

When the Oda soldiers were finally able to climb up, they found a corpse with it stomach cut open in the pattern of a cross. But the head was no longer there. Then, an instant later, the spring night sky was enveloped by red and black pillars of flame and smoke.

The confusion at Nirasaki Castle in the new capital was as great as if people were proclaiming the end of the world.

"Takato Castle has fallen and everyone, including your brother, has been killed."

As he listened to his retainer, Katsuyori seemed completely unmoved. Still, his expression showed that he clearly perceived that his own strength was no longer sufficient The next report came in.

"The soldiers of Oda n.o.butada have already broken into Kai from Suwa, and our men are being killed without mercy, whether they fight or surrender. Their severed heads are exposed on the roadside, and the enemy is flowing in this direction like a tide."

Another urgent message arrived. "Shingen's kinsman, the blind priest Ryuho, was captured and butchered by the enemy."

This time Katsuyori raised his eyes and spoke abusively of the enemy.

"The Oda forces have no compa.s.sion. What fault could they find in a blind priest? How could he even have had the power to resist?" But now he was able to think more deeply about his own death. He bit steadily on his lip and repressed the waves roiling at the bottom of his heart. If I give vent to my anger like this, he thought, they may think I've become distracted, and even the retainers around me will feel disgraced. There were many people who saw nothing more than Katsuyori's manly exterior and who considered him bold and even coa.r.s.e. But the truth was that he was very deliberate in his actions toward his retainers. In addition, he was extremely strict in adhering to his own principles-to his honor as a lord and to self-reflection. He had continued in his father's tradition and had been taught the principles of Zen by Kaisen. But although he had had the same teacher and had studied Zen, he was unable to bring it to life as Shingen had done.

How could Takato Castle have fallen? I was sure it could hold out for another two weeks to a month, Katsuyori thought, which showed that the situation had resulted less from a miscalculation of defensive strategy than from a lack of human maturity. Now, however, regardless of what his natural temperament might be, he had to meet this new tide of fortune.

The sliding part.i.tions had been taken from the wide conference room and even from the outlying rooms of the main citadel; and now the entire clan lived together as though they were refugees from a great cataclysm that continued day and night. Naturally, curtains were set up even in the garden, shields were set up side by side, and soldiers went without sleep, holding large paper lanterns and policing the area at night. Messengers with reports of the situation were taken hourly directly from the entrance through the central gate to the garden, so that Katsuyori listened to the dispatches in person. Everything that had just been part of the construction the year before-the scent of new wood, the gold and silver inlay, the beauty of the furniture and utensils-now seemed only to be in the way.

Accompanied by a maid and binding up the train of her kimono, a lady-in-waiting with a message from Katsuyori's wife stepped out of the confusion of the garden and into the dark hall, and bravely looked through the crowd of men. At that time, the room was full of generals, both young and old, all noisily expressing their opinions about what to do next.

The woman finally came before Katsuyori and appealed to him with the message from his wife. "The women are all standing around crying in confusion, and won't stop no matter how we console them. Your wife has said that our last moment comes only once, and she thinks that perhaps the women would be a little more easily resolved if they could be here with the samurai. If she has your permission, she will move here immediately. What are my lord's wishes?"