My veins run with the blood of the Tokugawa, and yet I am here. My retainers in Okazaki somehow maintain my castle; the province of Mikawa continues to exist, but its lord and its retainers are separated Tokugawa Ieyasu meditated on these things day and night, but he could never speak of them openly. He pitied his retainers. But when he reflected on his own situation, he was thankful to be alive.
Ieyasu was only seventeen, but he was already a father. Two years before, after his coming-of-age ceremony, Imagawa Yoshimoto had arranged his marriage to the daughter of one of his own kinsmen. Ieyasu's son had been born the previous spring, so he was not yet six months old, and he often heard the baby's cries from the room in which he had set up his desk. His wife had not fully recovered from the birth and was still in the delivery room.
When this seventeen-year-old father heard his baby son crying, he was listening to his own flesh and blood. But he rarely went to see his family. He did not understand the feelings of tenderness toward children that other people talked about. When he searched his own heart for this emotion, he found it not just diminished, but totally lacking. Knowing that he was this kind of man and father, he felt sorry for his wife and child. Every time he felt this way, however, his compassion was not for his own family, but rather for his impoverished, humiliated retainers in Okazaki.
When he forced himself to think about his child, he was always sad. Soon he will set out on a journey through this bitter life and suffer the same privations I have.
At the age of five, Ieyasu had been sent as a hostage to the Oda clan. When he looked back over the trials he had suffered, he could not help but sympathize with his newborn son. The sorrow and tragedy of human life were certain to be his, too. Right now, however, on the surface, people saw that he and his family lived in a mansion no less splendid than those of the Imagawa.
What was that? Ieyasu went out onto the veranda. Someone outside had pulled on the vines that grew from the trees in the garden and wound up the mud walls. Recoiling from the torn vines, the twigs trembled faintly.
"Who is it?" Ieyasu called out. If it was a mischief-maker, the man would probably run away. He could hear no footsteps, however. Putting on a pair of sandals, he went out through the back gate in the mud wall. A man had prostrated himself as though waiting for him. A large wicker basket and staff lay by the man's side.
"Jinshichi?"
"It's been a long time, my lord."
Four years before, when he had finally received Yoshimoto's permission, Ieyasu had returned to Okazaki to visit his family graves. Along the way one of his retainers, Udono Jinshichi, had disappeared. Ieyasu was moved to pity when he saw the basket and staff and the changed figure of Jinshichi.
"You've become an itinerant priest."
"Yes, it's a convenient disguise for traveling around the country."
"When did you get here?"
"Just now. I wanted to see you in secret before setting off again."
"It's been four years, hasn't it? I've received your detailed reports, but not having heard from you after you went to Mino, I feared the worse."
"I ran into the civil war in Mino, and security at the border checkpoints and relay stations was tight for a while."
“You were in Mino? It must have been a good time to be there."
“I stayed in Inabayama for a year during the civil war. As you know, Saito Dosan’s castle was destroyed, and Yoshitatsu is now lord of all Mino. When the situation had settled down, I moved on to Kyoto and Echizen, passed through the northern province and went on to Owari."
"Did you go to Kiyosu?"
"Yes, I spent some time there."
"Tell me about it. Even though I am in Sumpu, I can guess what will happen to Mino, but the Oda clan's situation isn't very easily surmised."
"Shall I write a report and bring it to you this evening?"
"No, not in writing." Ieyasu turned to the rear entrance of the mud wall, but he seemed to be having second thoughts about something.
Jinshichi was his eyes and ears to the outside world. From the time he was five, Ieyasu had lived first with the Oda and then with the Imagawa, a wandering exile in enemy provinces. Living as a hostage, he had never known freedom, and this had not changed even now. The eyes, ears, and mind of a hostage are closed, and if he himself made no effort, there was no one to scold or to encourage him. In spite of this, or perhaps because of the restraint that had been imposed on him since childhood, Ieyasu had become extremely ambitious.
Four years before, he had sent Jinshichi to the other provinces so that he would be able to know what was going on—an early sign of Ieyasu's burgeoning ambition. "We'll be seen here, and if we talk in the mansion, my retainers will be suspicious. Let's go over there." Ieyasu walked away from the mansion with long strides.
Ieyasu's residence was in one of the quietest quarters of Sumpu. Walking a little way from the mud wall, they came to the bank of the Abe River. When Ieyasu was a child still carried on the backs of his retainers, it was to the Abe River that he was taken when he said that he wanted to go outside to play. The water in the river seemed to flow on eternally, and the riverbank never seemed to change. It brought back memories for Ieyasu.
"Jinshichi, untie the boat," Ieyasu said as he quickly stepped into the small fishing boat. When Jinshichi got into the boat with him and pushed on the pole, the boat floated away from the shallows like a bamboo leaf in the current. Master and retainer talked, knowing that they were hidden from the eyes of others for the first time. In the space of an hour, Ieyasu absorbed the information that Jinshichi had collected by traveling around for four years. Yet, more than what he had learned from Jinshichi, there was some distant, great thing hidden in Ieyasu's heart.
"If the Oda haven't attacked other provinces so much in the past few years—unlike in Nobuhide's time—it must be to put their house in order," Ieyasu said.
"It didn't matter whether the people against him were relatives or retainers, Nobunaga resigned himself completely to the task. He struck down the people he had to strike down and ran off the people he had to run off. He's nearly swept Kiyosu clean of them."
"The Imagawa laughed at Nobunaga for a time, and it was rumored that he was just a spoiled, stupid brat."
"There is nothing of the fool about him," Jinshichi said.
"I've long thought that it was only malicious gossip. But when Lord Yoshimoto speaks of Nobunaga, he believes the gossip and doesn't see him as a threat at all."
"The martial spirit of the men of Owari is completely different from what it was a few years ago."
"Who are his good retainers?" Ieyasu asked.
"Hirate Nakatsukasa is dead, but he has a number of able men like Shibata Katsuie, Hayashi Sado, Ikeda Shonyu, Sakuma Daigaku, and Mori Yoshinari. Just recently he's been joined by an extraordinary man by the name of Kinoshita Tokichiro. He's very
low-ranking, but for some reason his name is often on the lips of the townspeople."
"How do the people feel about Nobunaga?"
"That's the most extraordinary thing. It's common for the ruler of a province to devote himself to governing his people. And people obey their masters as a rule. But in Owari, it's different."
"In what way?"
Jinshichi thought about this for a moment. "How can I put it? He doesn't do anything out of the ordinary, but as long as Nobunaga's there, the people are confident of the future—and while they know that Owari is a small, poor province with a penniless lord, the strange thing is that, like the people of a powerful province, they are not afraid of war or worried about their future."
"Hm. I wonder why?"
"Maybe because of Nobunaga himself. He tells them what is going on today and what will happen tomorrow, and he sets the goals toward which they all work."
Deep down, without really meaning to, Jinshichi was comparing the twenty-five-year old Nobunaga with the seventeen-year-old Ieyasu. In some ways, Ieyasu was far more mature than Nobunaga—there was nothing of the child in him. Bot
h men had grown up under difficult circumstances, but there was really no comparison between them. Ieyasu had been handed over to enemies at the age of five, and the cruelty of the world had chilled him to the very marrow.
The little boat carried Jinshichi and Ieyasu down the center of the river, the time passing during their secret conversation. When their talk was over, Jinshichi guided them back to the bank.
Jinshichi quickly shouldered his basket and took up his staff. Bidding Ieyasu farewell, he said, "I will pass on your words to your retainers. Is there anything else, my lord?"
Ieyasu stood on the bank, immediately anxious about being seen. "There's nothing more. Go quickly." Motioning Jinshichi off with a nod, he suddenly said, "Tell them that I am well—I haven't been sick once." And he walked back to his mansion alone.
His wife's attendants were looking for him everywhere, and when they saw him coming back from the riverbank, one of them said, "Her ladyship is waiting anxiously, ;and sent us to look for you several times. She's extremely worried about you, my lord."
"Ah, is that so?" Ieyasu said. "Calm her down and tell her I'm coming right away.” And he went to his own room. When he sat down, he found another retainer, Sakakibara Heishichi, waiting for him.
"Did you take a walk to the riverbank?"
"Yes… just to kill time. What is it?"
"There was a messenger."
"From whom?" Without answering, Heishichi handed him a letter. It was from Sessai. Before cutting open the envelope, Ieyasu raised it reverently to his forehead. Sessai was a monk of the Zen sect who acted as a military adviser to the Imagawa clan. To leyasu, he was the teacher from whom he had received instructions in both booklearning and martial arts. His letter was concise:
The customary lecture will be given to His Lordship and his guests tonight. I will wait for you at the Northwest Gate of the Palace.
That was all. But the word "customary" was a codeword well known to Ieyasu. It meant a meeting of Yoshimoto and his generals to discuss the march on the capital. "Where is the messenger?"
"He left already. Will you go to the Palace, my lord?"
"Yes," Ieyasu replied, preoccupied.
"I think the proclamation of Lord Yoshimoto's march on the capital is near at hand." Heishichi had overheard the important war councils that had touched on that subject a number of times. He studied Ieyasu's face. Ieyasu mumbled a reply, seeming to be uninterested.
The Imagawa clan's evaluations of Owari's strength and of Nobunaga were very different from what Jinshichi had just reported. Yoshimoto planned to lead a huge army, made up of the forces of the provinces of Suruga, Totomi, and Mikawa, to the capital, and they expected to meet resistance in Owari.
"If we advance with a large army, Nobunaga will surrender without bloodshed." This vas the superficial view expressed by some of the members of the war council, but alhough Yoshimoto and his advisers, including Sessai, did not have such a low estimate of Nobunaga, none of them took Owari as seriously as Ieyasu did. He had offered an opinon on this once before, but he had been laughed down. Ieyasu was, after all, a hostage and young; and among the field staff he counted for very little.
Is this something I should bring up or not? Even if I press the point… Ieyasu was deep in thought, with Sessai's letter in front of him, when an old lady-in-raiting who served his wife spoke to him with a worried look on her face. His wife was in terrible mood, she said, and she urged him to visit her for just a moment.
Ieyasu's wife was a woman who thought of nothing but herself. She was completely indifferent both to affairs of state and to her husband's situation. Nothing entered her head other than her own daily life and the attentions of her husband. The old lady-in-waiting understood this well, and when she saw that he was still talking with his retainer, she waited uneasily and silently, until another maid came in and whispered in her ear. There was nothing else the old lady-in-waiting could do. She interrupted them again, saying, "Excuse me, my lord…I'm terribly sorry, but Her Ladyship is very fretful." Bowing to Ieyasu, she timidly urged him once more to hurry.
Ieyasu knew that his wife's servants were troubled more than anyone else by this situation, and he himself was a patient man. "Ah, yes," he said, turning, and then, to Heishichi: "Well, make the necessary arrangements, and come and tell me when it's time." He stood up. The women ran in front of him with small steps, looking as though they had been saved.
The inner part of the house was some way off, so it was not unreasonable that his wife often longed to see him. Passing through the many turns of the central and bridged corridors, he finally got to his wife's private apartments.
On their wedding day, the clothes of the poor hostage husband from Mikawa could not compare with the luxury and brilliance of the dress of Lady Tsukiyama, an adopted daughter of Imagawa Yoshimoto. "The man from Mikawa"—known by this epithet, he was an object of contempt for the Imagawa clan. And living with such pride in her secluded quarters, she despised the retainers from Mikawa but showered her husband with all the devotion of her selfish, blind love. She was also older than Ieyasu. Considered within the limits of their shallow married life, Lady Tsukiyama saw Ieyasu as little more than a submissive youth who owed his existence to the Imagawa.
After giving birth in the spring following their wedding, she had become even more selfish and unreasonable. His wife taught him perseverance every day.
"Oh, you're up. Are you feeling a little better?" Ieyasu looked at his wife and, as he spoke, was about to open the sliding doors. He thought that if his sick wife could see the beauty of the autumn colors and the autumn sky, her mood might brighten.
Lady Tsukiyama had left the sickroom and was sitting in the middle of the reception room with a frigid look on her livid face. She narrowed her eyebrows as she spoke. "Leave them closed."
She was not exactly a beauty, but, as might be expected of a woman brought up the privileged environment of a wealthy family, her complexion had a fine sheen. Beyond that, both her face and her fingertips were almost translucently white, perhaps because her first delivery. She held her hands neady folded on her lap.
"Sit down, my lord. There is something I'd like to ask you." As she spoke, her words and eyes were as cold as ashes. But Ieyasu did not act at all as a young husband would be expected to behave—such mellow-spirited handling of one's spouse was more appropriate for a mature man. Or perhaps he held a certain opinion of women, and he was looking objectively at the person whom he should have loved the most.
"What is it?" he asked, sitting down in front of her as she had requested. But the more obedient her husband was, the more unreasonable she became.
"There's something I'd like to ask you. Did you go out somewhere a moment ago? Alone, without attendants?" Her eyes filled with tears. The blood was rising to her face, still thin from childbirth. Ieyasu knew both the state of her health and her character, and he smiled at her as if he were humoring a baby.
"Just now? I was tired of reading, so I took a leisurely walk along the riverbank. You should try taking a walk there. The autumn colors and the chirping of the insects—it’s pleasant at the riverbank this time of year."
Lady Tsukiyama was not listening. She was staring at her husband, rebuking him for his lie. She sat rigidly straight, with an air of indifference, but without her usual self-involvement. "That's strange. If you went out for a walk to listen to insects and look the autumn colors, why would you go out into the middle of the river in a small boat, hiding from people for such a long time?"
"Aha…you knew."
“I may be confined indoors, but I know everything you do."
“Is that so?" Ieyasu forced a smile, but did not speak of his meeting with Jinshichi.
Although this woman had become his bride, Ieyasu was never able to believe that she was really his wife. If retainers or relatives of her adoptive father called on her, she would tell them everything, and she was always exchanging letters with Yoshimoto's household.
Ieyasu had to be far more caref
ul of his wife's unintentional carelessness than of the eyes of Yoshimoto's spies.
"No, I got into that boat on the riverbank without thinking much about it, and tried to ply the oar with the flow of the water. I thought I could handle the boat, but when I out into the current, I couldn't do a thing." He laughed. "Just like a child. Where were you when you saw me?"
"You're lying. You weren't alone, were you?"
"Well, a servant ran after me later."
"No, no. There's no reason for you to have a secret meeting in a boat, with someone who appears to be a servant."
"Who in the world has told you such a thing?"
"Even though I'm stuck inside, there are loyal people who think of me. You're hiding a woman somewhere, aren't you? Or if that's not it, perhaps you've grown tired of me and planning to run away to Mikawa. There's a rumor going around that you've taken another woman as your wife in Okazaki. Why are you hiding that from me? I know that youonly married me out of fear of the Imagawa clan."
Just as her sobbing voice, driven by illness and distrust, finally found expression, Sakakibara Heishichi appeared at the door. "My lord, your horse is ready. It's almost time.
"Are you going out?" Before Ieyasu could respond, Lady Tsukiyama cut him off. You've been absent more and more at night recendy, so where in the world are you going now?"
"To the Palace." Paying her no heed, Ieyasu was beginning to stand up. But she was not satisfied with his brief explanation. Why was he going to the Palace so late? And was it going to take until midnight, like the other night? Who was going with him? She asked innumerable questions.
Sakakibara Heishichi was waiting for his master on the other side of the door, and although he was only a retainer, he was getting a little impatient with all of this. Ieyasu, however, cheerfully comforted his wife and finally took his leave. Lady Tsukiyama, unhecked by Ieyasu's admonition that she might catch cold again, came to the entrance and saw him off.
"Come back quickly," she begged, putting all her love and fidelity into these parting words.
TAIKO: AN EPIC NOVEL OF WAR AND GLORY IN FEUDAL JAPAN Page 27