TAIKO: AN EPIC NOVEL OF WAR AND GLORY IN FEUDAL JAPAN

by Eiji Yoshikawa

  "This battle will be a memorial service for Lord Nobuharu."

  "Did they think we wouldn't avenge the spirits of our dead comrades?"

  But when they came to the Mii Temple, there was not an enemy soldier to be seen. They had climbed Mount Hiei with all the speed of flight.

  Looking up at the mountain, they saw that the huge enemy army of more than twenty thousand men, in addition to the warrior-monks, stretched as far as Suzugamine, Aoyamadake, and Tsubogasadani. Their fluttering banners almost seemed to say, We haven't run away. This battle array will speak for itself from here on.

  Nobunaga looked at the towering mountain and thought, It's here. It's not the moun­tain that is my enemy; it's the mountain's special privileges. He saw it in a new light now. From ancient times, through the reigns of successive emperors, how much had the tradi­tion and special privileges of the mountain troubled and pained the country's rulers and the common people? Was there even the faintest glimmer of the real Buddha on the mountain?

  When the Tendai sect had been introduced to Japan from China, Saint Dengyo, who had built the first temple on Mount Hiei, had chanted, "May the light of the merciful Buddha give its divine protection to the timbers that we raise up in this place." Was the lamp of the Law lit on this holy peak so that the monks could force their petitions on the Emperor in Kyoto? Was it so that they could interfere with government and grow ever more powerful with special privileges? Was it so they could ally themselves with warlords, conspire with laymen, and throw the country into confusion? Was the lamp lit so that the Law of Buddha might be accoutered with armor and helmet, and line the entire mountain with warriors' spears, guns, and war banners?

  Tears of rage ran from Nobunaga's eyes. It was clear to him that this was all blasphemy. Mount Hiei had been established to protect the nation, and so had been granted special privileges. But where was the original purpose of Mount Hiei now? The main temple building, the seven shrines, the monasteries of the eastern and the western pagodas were nothing more than the barracks of armed demons in monks' robes.

  All right! Nobunaga bit his lip so hard that his teeth became stained with blood. Let them call me a demon king who destroys Buddhism! The magnificent beauties of the mountain are nothing more than the false allures of an enchantress, and these armored monks are nothing more than fools. I'm going to burn them with the flames of war and let the true Buddha be called forth from these ashes!

  On the same day he gave the order for the entire mountain to be surrounded. Naturally, it took several days for his army to cross the lake, pass over the mountains, and join him.

  "The blood of my brother and Mori Yoshinari has not yet dried. Let their unswervingly loyal souls sleep in peace. Let their blood be like lanterns that will light up the world!"

  Nobunaga knelt on the earth and folded his hands in prayer. He had made an enemy of the holy mountain and had ordered his army to surround it. Now, on a lump of earth, Nobunaga put his hands together in prayer and wept. Suddenly he saw one of his pages crying, with his hands together in the same way. It was Ranmaru, who had lost his father, Mori Yoshinari.

  "Ranmaru, are you crying?"

  "Please forgive me, my lord."

  "I'll forgive you. But stop crying, or your father's spirit will laugh at you."

  But Nobunaga's own eyes were becoming red. Ordering his camp stool moved to the top of a hill, he looked out over the disposition of the besieging troops. As far as the eye could see, the foothills of Mount Hiei were filled with the banners of his own men.

  Half of the month passed by. The siege of the mountain—an unusual strategy for Nobunaga—continued. He had cut off the enemy's supply of provisions and was going try to starve them out. His plan was in fact already working. With an army of over twenty thousand men, the granaries of the mountain had quickly been emptied. They had already started to eat the bark off the trees.

  Winter set in, and the cold weather on the mountaintop caused more suffering for the defenders.

  “It's about the right time, don't you think?" Hideyoshi said to Nobunaga.

  Nobunaga summoned a retainer, Ittetsu. Receiving Nobunaga's instructions and accompanied by four or five attendants, he climbed up Mount Hiei and met with Abbot Sonrin of the western pagoda. They met at the main temple, the warrior-monk’s headquarters.

  Sonrin and Ittetsu had known each other for some time, and as a mark of that friendship, Ittetsu had come to persuade him to surrender.

  “I’m not sure what your purpose was in coming here, but as a friend, I advise you not to carry this joke too far," Sonrin replied, shaking with laughter. "I agreed to meet you because I thought you had come to ask permission to surrender to us. How stupid to ask us to give up and leave! Don't you see that we are resolved to resist to the end? You must be mad to come here to talk such foolishness!"

  Excitement burned in the eyes of the other warrior-monks, and they glared at Ittetsu. Having allowed the abbot his say, Ittetsu began to speak deliberately. "Saint Dengyo established this temple for the peace and preservation of the Imperial House and the tranquillity of the nation. I suspect it is not the monks' most fervent prayer to put on armor, to marshal swords and spears, to involve themselves in political strife, to ally them­selves with rebel armies, or to make the people of the Empire suffer. The monks should return to being monks! Drive the Asai and Asakura from the mountain, throw down your weapons, and return to your original roles as disciples of the Buddha!" He spoke this from the very depths of his body, not giving the priests a moment to put in a single word. “Moreover," he went on, "if you do not follow his orders, Lord Nobunaga is determined o burn down the main temple, the seven shrines, and the monasteries, and kill everyone on the mountain. Please give this careful thought, and put away your stubbornness. Will you turn this mountain into an inferno or sweep away the old evils and preserve the single lamp of this hallowed ground?"

  Suddenly the monks with Sonrin began to shout. "This is pointless!"

  "He's just wasting time!"

  "Silence!" Sonrin commanded them with a sardonic smile. "That was an extremely boring, worn-out sermon, but I'm going to answer it politely. Mount Hiei is an authority into itself, and has its own principles. You are just meddling unnecessarily. Master Ittetsu, it's getting late. Leave the mountain right away."

  "Sonrin, can you say this on your own authority? Why don't you meet with the men of great learning and the elders, and discuss the matter carefully?"

  "The mountain is of one mind and one body. Mine is the voice of all of the temples on Mount Hiei."

  "Then, no matter what—"

  "You fool! We'll resist military aggression to the very end. We'll protect the freedom of our traditions with our very blood! Get out of here!"

  "If that's the way you want it." Ittetsu made no move to get up. "This is such a shame. How are you going to protect the infinity of Buddha's light with your blood? Just what is this freedom you're going to protect? What are these traditions? Aren't they nothing more than deceptions, convenient for the temples' prosperity? Well, those charms have no currency in the world today. Take a good look at the times. It is inevitable that greedy men, who close their eyes and obstruct the tide of the times with their selfishness, will be burned up together with the fallen leaves." With that, Ittetsu returned to Nobunaga's camp.

  The cold winter wind swirled the dry leaves around the mountain peaks. There was frost both morning and night. From time to time the cold wind was spotted with snow. About this time fires began to break out on the mountain almost every night. One night, fires broke out in the fuel storehouse of the Daijo Hall; the night before that, in the Takimido. This night again, although it was still early, there was a fire in the monks' quarters of the main temple, and the bell rang furiously. Since there were many large temples in the area, the warrior-monks worked frantically to keep the flames from spreading.

  The deep valleys of Mount Hiei were dark under the bright red sky.

  "What confusion!" one Oda soldier said
and laughed.

  "This happens every night," another added. "So they must never get a chance to sleep."

  The cold winter wind whistled through the branches of the trees, and the men clapped their hands. Eating their meal of dried rice, they watched the nightly conflagra­tions. These fires were planned by Hideyoshi, so rumor had it, and carried out by the re­tainers of the old Hachisuka clan.

  At night the monks were distressed by fires, and during the day they were exhausted by their preparations for defense. Also, their food and fuel were running low, and they had no protection against the cold.

  Winter finally came to the mountain, and the snow flew furiously. The twenty thou­sand defending soldiers and the several thousand warrior-monks were now drooping like frost-blighted vegetables.

  It was the middle of the Twelfth Month. Without armor and wearing only a monk's robes, a representative of the mountain approached Nobunaga's camp, accompanied by four or five warrior-monks.

  "I would like to speak with Lord Nobunaga," the emissary said.

  When Nobunaga appeared, he saw that it was Sonrin, the abbot who had previously met with Ittetsu. He brought the message that, because the views of the main temple had changed, he would like to plead for peace.

  Nobunaga refused. "What did you say to the envoy I sent before? Don't you know what shame is?" Nobunaga drew his sword.

  "This is an outrage!" the priest cried. He stood up and tottered sideways as Nobu­naga's sword flashed horizontally.

  "Pick up his head and go back. That's my answer!"

  The monks turned pale and fled back to the mountain. The snow and sleet that blew across the lake that day also blew hard into Nobunaga's camp. Nobunaga had sent Mount Hiei an unmistakable message of his intent, but thoughts of how to deal with yet another great difficulty were taxing his mind. The enemy that appeared before him was nothing more than the reflection of a fire on a wall. Throwing water on the wall was not going to put the fire out, and in the meantime the real flames would be burning at his back. This was a common admonition in the art of war, but in Nobunaga's case, he was unable to fight against the source of the fire even though he knew what it was. Just the day before, an urgent report had come from Gifu that Takeda Shingen of Kai was mobilizing his troops and was about to attack in Nobunaga's absence. And more: there had been an up­rising of tens of thousands of the Honganji's followers at Nagashima, in his own province of Owari, and one of Nobunaga's relatives, Nobuoki, had been killed and his castle taken. Finally, every possible evil rumor slandering Nobunaga had been let loose among the people.

  It was understandable that Takeda Shingen had broken out. Having arranged a truce with his traditional enemy of many years, the Uesugi of Echigo, Shingen had turned his attention toward the west.

  "Hideyoshi! Hideyoshi!" Nobunaga called.

  "Yes! I'm here!"

  "Find Mitsuhide, and the two of you take this letter to Kyoto immediately."

  "To the shogun?"

  "Correct. In the letter, I've asked the shogun to mediate, but it would be better if he heard it from your mouth, too."

  "But then why did you just decapitate the messenger from Mount Hiei?"

  "Don't you understand? If I hadn't done that, do you think we could wrap up a peace conference? Even if we had succeeded in coming to terms, it's clear that they would tear up the treaty and come chasing right after us."

  "You're right, my lord. I understand now."

  "No matter which side you pick, no matter where the flames are, the blaze has but a single source, and there's no mistake that this is the work of that two-faced shogun, who loves to play with fire. We need explicitly to make the shogun the mediator of peace accords and withdraw as quickly as possible."

  Peace negotiations were initiated. Yoshiaki came to the Mii Temple and made an effort to mollify Nobunaga and arrange a peace settlement. Delighted at what they saw as a happy opportunity, the armies of the Asai and the Asakura left for home on that very day.

  On the sixteenth, Nobunaga's entire army took the land route and, crossing the floating bridge at Seta, withdrew to Gifu.

  Shingen the Long-Legged

  Although Amakasu Sanpei was related to one of Kai's generals, he had spent the past ten years in a lowly position, because of a unique talent—his ability to run at high speed over long distances.

  Sanpei was the leader of the Takeda clan's ninja—the men whose job it was to spy on enemy provinces, form clandestine alliances, and spread false rumors.

  Sanpei's talent as a swift walker and runner had amazed his friends since his youth. He could climb any mountain and walk twenty to thirty leagues in a single day. But even he could not keep up this speed day after day. When hurrying back from some remote place, he rode wherever the terrain permitted, but when he encountered steep paths, he would rely on his own two strong legs. For this reason he always had horses stationed at essential points along the routes he traveled—often at the huts of hunters and woodsmen.

  "Hey, charcoal maker! Old man, are you at home?" Sanpei called as he dismounted in front of a charcoal burner's hut. He was covered with sweat, but no more so than the horse he had been riding.

  It was early summer. In the mountains the leaves were still a pale green, while in the lowlands the buzzing of cicadas could already be heard.

  He's not here, Sanpei thought. He kicked the broken-down door, which opened immediately. Sanpei led the horse that he planned on leaving here inside the hut and, fas­tening it to a post, went into the kitchen and helped himself to rice, pickled vegetables, and tea.

  As soon as he had filled his stomach, he found ink and a brush, wrote down a mes­sage on a scrap of paper, and stuck it to the lid of the rice tub with leftover grains of rice.

  This was not the work of foxes and badgers. It was I, Sanpei, who ate these things. I am leaving you my horse to take care of while I am gone. Feed him well and keep him strong until I pass through again.

  As Sanpei was leaving, his horse began to kick at the wall, unwilling for his master to leave. His heartless owner, however, did not even look back, but closed the door firmly on the sound of the hooves.

  It would be an exaggeration to say that he flew off on his gifted legs, but he did hurry toward the mountainous province of Kai at a speed that made him look nimble indeed. His destination from the start had been Kai's capital city of Kofu. And the speed at which he was traveling suggested that he was carrying a very urgent report.

  By the morning of the following day, he had already crossed several mountain ranges and was looking at the waters of the Fuji River right at his feet. The roofs that could be seen between the walls of the gorge were those of the village of Kajikazawa.

  He wanted to reach Kofu by afternoon, but since he was making good time, he rested awhile, gazing at the summer sun beating down on the Kai Basin. No matter where I go, and regardless of the inconveniences and disadvantages of a mountain province, there's just no place like home. As he said this to himself, hugging his knees with his arms, he saw a long line of horses loaded with buckets of lacquer being led up the mountain from the foothills. Well, I wonder where they're going, he asked himself.

  Amakasu Sanpei stood up and started down the mountain. Halfway down, he met the packhorse train of at least a hundred animals.

  "Heyyy!"

  The man on the leading horse was an old acquaintance. Sanpei quickly asked him, “That's an awful lot of lacquer, isn't it? Where are you taking it?"

  "To Gifu," the man answered, and at Sanpei's dubious expression, he added an explanation. "We finally manufactured the amount of lacquer ordered by the Oda clan the year before last, so I'm just now taking it to Gifu."

  "What! To the Oda?" Knitting his brow, Sanpei appeared unable even to smile and wish him a safe trip. "Be very careful. The roads are dangerous."

  "I hear that the warrior-monks are fighting too. I wonder how the Oda troops are doing."

  "I can't say anything about that until I report to His Lordship."

  "A
h, that's right. You're just coming back from there, aren't you? Well, we shouldn't be standing here chatting. I'm off." The packhorse driver and his hundred horses crossed the pass and went off to the west.

  Sanpei watched them go, thinking that a mountain province is, after all, exactly that. News of the rest of the world is always slow to arrive there, and even if our troops are strong and the generals clever, we are at a serious disadvantage. He felt the weight of his responsibilities even more, and ran down to the foothills with the speed of a swallow. Sanpei picked up another horse in the village of Kajikazawa and, with a stroke of the whip, galloped toward Kofu.

  In the hot and humid Kai Basin stood Takeda Shingen's heavily fortified castle. Faces that were rarely seen except in times of weighty problems and war councils were now entering the castle gates one after another, so that even the guards at the entrance knew something was afoot. Inside the castle, which was wrapped in the green of new leaves, it was silent except for the occasional buzzing of the summer's first cicadas.

  Since morning, not one of the many generals who had come to the castle had left. It was at this point that Sanpei hurried toward the gate. Dismounting beyond the moat, he ran across the bridge on foot, grasping the horse's reins in his hand.

  "Who's there?" The eyes and spearheads of the guards glittered from a corner of the iron gate. Sanpei tied the horse to a tree.

  "It's me," he replied, showing his face to the soldiers, and walked briskly into the cas­tle. He often passed back and forth through the castle gate, so while there may have been those who did not know exactly who he was, there was not a soldier at the gate who did not know his face and the nature of his work.

  There was a Buddhist temple inside the castle, called the Bishamondo after the guardian god of the north; it served as Shingen's meditation room, as a place to discuss governmental affairs, and from time to time as a place for war councils. Shingen was now standing on the veranda of the temple. His body seemed to flutter in the breeze that blew into the hall from the rocks and streams in the garden. Over his armor, he wore the red robe of a high priest, which looked as if it were made from the flaming flowers of the scarlet tree-peonies.