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

by Eiji Yoshikawa

  Although Ranmaru looked like a child, it was clear that he was a man.

  "Is that right, Mitsuhide?" Nobunaga asked.

  With Nobunaga looking directly at him, Mitsuhide was unable to remain calm. He stammered out, "Yes." Neither was he able to control his resentment of Ranmaru. He had purposely withheld his own opinions and spoken up for Ranmaru's erudition because he knew of Nobunaga's affection for the young man and was secretly expressing his own goodwill toward him. He had not only been letting Ranmaru hand the flower to his lord but had taken pains not to embarrass him.

  Mitsuhide had told Ranmaru all he knew of donjon and castle construction during the leisure hours of a night watch. It was absurd that Ranmaru had related it all to Nobunaga as though it were his own idea. If he plainly said that now, however, Ranmaru would be all the more embarrassed, and Nobunaga would really be disgusted. Thinking that avoiding such an unhappy situation would also be to his own benefit, he had given the credit to Ranmaru. But the result had been exactiy the opposite of what he had planned. At this point he could not help feeling a chill move down his back at the perversity of this adult in child's clothing.

  Seeing his perplexity, Nobunaga seemed to understand what was going on in Mitsuhide's mind. Suddenly he laughed out loud. "Even Mitsuhide can be unbecomingly prudent. At any rate, do you have those illustrations at hand?"

  "I have a few, but I wonder if they will suffice."

  "They will. Loan them to me for a little while."

  "I'll get them for you right away."

  Mitsuhide blamed himself for having told even the smallest lie to Nobunaga, and though the matter had ended, he was the one who had suffered. When the subject changed to the castles of the various provinces and other chitchat, however, Nobunaga's mood was still good. After dinner was served, Mitsuhide withdrew without any ill feeling.

  The next morning, after Nobunaga had left Nijo, Ranmaru went to see his mother.

  "Mother, I heard from both my younger brother and the other attendants that Lord Mitsuhide had told His Lordship that because you go in and out of temples, you might leak military secrets to the warrior-monks. So yesterday, when he was in attendance on his Lordship, I sent him a little arrow of retribution. At any rate, since my father passed away, our family has received far more kindness from His Lordship than others have, so I’m afraid people are jealous. Be careful and don't trust anyone."

  * * *

  Immediately after the New Year's celebrations of the fourth year of Tensho, the construction of the castle at Azuchi was begun, along with a project for a castle town of unprecedented size. Craftsmen gathered at Azuchi with their apprentices and workmen. They came from the capital and Osaka, from the faraway western provinces, and even from the east and north: smiths, stonemasons, plasterers, metalworkers, and even wallpaper hangers—representatives of every craft in the nation.

  The famous Kano Eitoku was selected to illustrate the doors, sliding partitions, and ceilings. For this project, Kano did not simply rely on the traditions of his own school. Rather, he consulted with the masters of each school and then created the masterpieces of a lifetime, sending brilliant shafts of light into the world of the arts, which had been in decline during the many years of civil war.

  The mulberry fields disappeared in a single night, becoming a well laid-out street plan, while on top of the mountain, the framework of the donjon appeared almost before people were aware of it. The main citadel, modeled after the mythical Mount Meru, had four towers—representing the Kings of the Four Directions—around the central five-story donjon. Below it stood a huge stone edifice, and leading off from this were annexes. Above and below there were more than one hundred related structures, and it was diffi­cult to tell how many stories each structure comprised.

  In the Plum Tree Room, the Room of the Eight Famous Scenes, the Pheasant Room, and the Room of Chinese Children, the painter applied his art with no time for sleep. The master lacquerer, who hated even the mention of dust, lacquered the vermilion handrails and the black walls. A Chinese-born ceramicist was appointed master tilemaker. The smoke from his lakeside kiln rose into the air day and night.

  A solitary priest mumbled to himself as he gazed at the castle. He was only a traveling monk, but his heavy brow and wide mouth gave him an unusual look.

  "Isn't it Ekei?" Hideyoshi asked, patting the man gently on the shoulder so as not to startle him. Hideyoshi had detached himself from a group of generals standing a little way off.

  "Well, well, now! Lord Hideyoshi!"

  "I wouldn't have expected to find you here," Hideyoshi said cheerfully. He patted Ekei's shoulder again, and then smiled affectionately. "It's been a long time since we last met. I believe it was at Master Koroku's house in Hachisuka."

  "Yes, that's right. Not long ago—I think it was at the end of the year at Nijo Palace— I overheard Lord Mitsuhide say that you had come to the capital. I came with an envoy from Lord Mori Terumoto, and stayed in Kyoto for a while. The envoy has already re­turned home, but since I'm just a country priest with no urgent business, I've been stop­ping here and there at temples both in and out of Kyoto. I thought Lord Nobunaga's present construction project would make a good travel story back home, so I stopped to take a look. I must say I'm very impressed."

  "Your Reverence is involved in some construction, too, I hear," Hideyoshi remarked abruptly. Ekei looked startled, but Hideyoshi laughed, adding, "No, no. Not a castle. I understand you're building a monastery, called Ankokuji."

  "Ah, the monastery." Ekei's face relaxed, and he laughed. "Ankokuji has already been completed. I'll hope you'll find time to visit me there, though I fear that as the master of Nagahama Castle your schedule will not allow it."

  “I may have become the lord of a castle, but my stipend is still low, so neither my position nor my mouth carries much weight. But I'll bet I look a little more grown up than when you last saw me in Hachisuka."

  "No, you haven't changed a bit. You're young, Lord Hideyoshi, but then almost everyone on Lord Nobunaga's field staff is in the prime of life. I've been struck from the very first by the grandeur of the plan for his castle and by the spirit of his generals. He seems to have the force of the rising sun."

  "Ankokuji was paid for by Lord Terumoto of the western provinces, was it not? His own province is wealthy and strong, and I suspect that even in terms of men of talent, Lord Nobunaga's clan is no match."

  Ekei seemed anxious not to become involved in such a conversation, and once again he praised the construction of the donjon and the superb view of the area.

  Finally, Hideyoshi said, "Nagahama is on the coast just north of here. My boat is berrthed nearby, so why don't you come and stay for a night or two? I've been granted some leave, and I thought I'd go back to Nagahama."

  Ekei used this invitation to make a hasty withdrawal. "No, perhaps I'll call on you at another time. Please give my regards to Master Koroku, or rather Master Hikoemon, that is, now that he's one of your retainers." And he suddenly walked off.

  As Hideyoshi watched Ekei go, two monks, who seemed to be his disciples, came out from a commoner's house and chased after him.

  Accompanied only by Mosuke, Hideyoshi went to the construction site, which had the look of a battlefield. As he had not been assigned important responsibilities in the building work, he did not have to stay permanently in Azuchi, nevertheless he made frequent trips from Nagahama to Azuchi by ship.

  "Lord Hideyoshi! Lord Hideyoshi!" Someone was calling him. Looking around, he saw Ranmaru, displaying a beautiful line of white teeth in his smiling mouth, running toward him.

  "Well now, Master Ranmaru. Where is His Lordship?"

  "He was at the donjon all morning, but he's now resting at the Sojitsu Temple."

  "Well, let's go over there."

  "Lord Hideyoshi, that monk you were just now talking to—wasn't he Ekei, the famous physiognomist?"

  "That's right. I've heard that from someone else. I wonder if a physiognomist can real­ly see a man's
true character," Hideyoshi said, pretending that he had little interest in the subject.

  Whenever Ranmaru spoke with Hideyoshi, he did not guard his words as he did with Mitsuhide. This did not mean Ranmaru thought that Hideyoshi was an easy mark, but there were times when the older man played the fool, and Ranmaru found him easy to get along with.

  "A physiognomist really can tell!" Ranmaru said. "My mother says that all the time. Just before my father died in battle, one of them predicted his death. And the fact is, well, I’m interested in something Ekei said."

  "Have you had him look at you?"

  "No, no. It's not about me." He looked up and down the street, and said confidentially, "It's about Lord Mitsuhide."

  "Lord Mitsuhide?"

  "Ekei said there were some evil signs: that he looked like a man who would turn against his lord."

  "If you look for that quality, you'll find it. But not just in Lord Mitsuhide."

  "No, really! Ekei said so."

  Hideyoshi listened with a grin. Many people would have censured Ranmaru for being an unscrupulous rumormonger, but when he talked like this, he seemed not much more than a freshly weaned child. After Hideyoshi had humored him for a while, he asked Ranmaru more seriously, "Who in the world did you hear these things from?"

  Ranmaru prompdy took him into his confidence, replying, "Asayama Nichijo."

  Hideyoshi nodded his head as though he could well imagine.

  "Asayama didn't tell you this himself, did he? Certainly it must have gone through someone else. Let me see if I can guess."

  "Go ahead."

  "Was it your mother?"

  "How did you know?"

  Hideyoshi laughed.

  "No, really. How did you know?" Ranmaru pressed.

  "Myoko would believe such things from the outset," Hideyoshi said. "No, it might be better to say that she's fond of such things. And she's on familiar terms with Asayama. If it were up to me, however, I would say that Ekei is more proficient at looking into the physiognomy of a province than into that of a man."

  "The physiognomy of a province?"

  "If judging a man's character from observing his features can be called physiognomy, then judging a province's character by the same method could be called the same thing. I've realized that Ekei has mastered that art. You shouldn't get too close to men like him. He may look like nothing more than a monk, but he's really in the pay of Mori Terumoto, lord of the western provinces. What do you think, Ranmaru? Aren't I much better man Ekei at the study of physiognomy?" he laughed.

  The gate to the Sojitsu Temple came into view. The two men were still laughing as they climbed the stone steps.

  The construction of the castle was progressing visibly. By the end of the Second Month of that year, Nobunaga had already vacated Gifu and moved. Gifu Castle was given to Nobunaga's eldest son, the nineteen-year-old Nobutada.

  However, while Azuchi Castle—incomparable in strength and announcing the beginning of an entirely new epoch in castle construction—towered so loftily over this strategic crossroads, there were those who were greatly concerned about its military value—among them the warrior-monks of the Honganji, Mori Terumoto of the western provinces, and Uesugi Kenshin of Echigo.

  Azuchi stood on the road that ran from Echigo to Kyoto. Kenshin, of course, also had designs on the capital. If the right opportunity presented itself, he would cross the mountains, come out north of Lake Biwa, and, at a stroke, raise his banners in Kyoto.

  The ousted shogun, Yoshiaki, of whom there had been no news for some time, sent letters to Kenshin, trying to incite him to action.

  Only the exterior of Azuchi Castle has been finished. Realistically, the completion of its interior will take another two and a half years. Once the castle is built, you might as well say that the road between Echigo and Kyoto will have ceased to exist.

  Now is the time to strike. I will tour the provinces and forge an alliance of all the anti-Nobunaga forces, which will include Lord Terumoto of the western provinces, the Hojo, the Takeda, and your own clan in Echigo. If you do not take a spirited stand as the leader of this alliance first, however, I do not anticipate any success at all.

  Kenshin forced a smile, thinking, Does this little sparrow plan to dance until he's a hundred years old? Kenshin was not the kind of soft-witted leader who would fall for such a ploy.

  From the New Year into the summer, Kenshin moved his men into Kaga and Noto, and began to threaten the Oda borders. A relief army was dispatched from Omi with the speed of lightning. With Shibata Katsuie in command, the forces of Takigawa, Hideyoshi, Niwa, Sassa, and Maeda chased the enemy and burned the villages they would use as protection as far as Kanatsu.

  A messenger came from Kenshin's camp and shouted loudly that the letter he brought should be read only by Nobunaga.

  "This is undoubtedly written in Kenshin's own hand," Nobunaga said as he broke the seal himself.

  I have long heard of your fame and regret that I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting you. Now would seem the best opportunity. If we should miss each other in the fighting, we would both regret it for many years to come. The battle has been set for tomorrow morning at the Hour of the Hare. I will meet you at the Kanatsu River. Everything will be settled when we meet man to man.

  It was a formal challenge to battle.

  "What happened to the envoy?" Nobunaga asked.

  "He left right away," the retainer replied.

  Nobunaga was unable to conceal a shudder. That night he suddenly announced that he would strike camp, and his forces withdrew.

  Kenshin got a big laugh out of this later on. "Isn't that just what you'd expect from Nobunaga! If he had stayed where he was, the next day he could have left everything to my horse's hooves, and along with meeting him, I could have done him the favor of cutting his head off right there at the river."

  But Nobunaga quickly returned to Azuchi with a squad of his soldiers. When he thought about Kenshin's old-fashioned letter of challenge, he couldn't help grinning.

  "That's probably how he lured Shingen at Kawanakajima. He certainly is a fearless man. He has great pride in that long sword of his, fashioned by Azuki Nagamitsu; I don't think I'd want to see it with my own eyes. How sad for Kenshin that he wasn't borrn during the colorful olden days when they wore scarlet-braided armor with gold plates. I wonder what he thinks of Azuchi, with its mixture of Japanese, Southern Barbarian, and Chinese styles? All of the changes in weaponry and strategy in the last decade have brought us into a new world. How could anyone say the art of war hasn't changed too? He's probably laughing at my retreat as cowardice, but I can't help laughing at the fact at his outdated thinking is inferior to that of my artisans and craftsmen."

  Those who truly heard this learned a great deal. There were those, however, who were taught, but never learned a thing.

  After Nobunaga returned to Azuchi, he was told that something had occurred during the northern campaign between the commander-in-chief, Shibata Katsuie, and Hideyoshi. The cause was unclear, but a quarrel had been brewing between the two of them over strategy. The result of it was that Hideyoshi had collected his troops and returned to Nagahama while Katsuie quickly appealed to Nobunaga, saying, "Hideyoshi felt it unnecessary to comply with your orders and returned to his own castle. His behavior is inex­cusable, and he should be punished."

  No word came from Hideyoshi. Thinking that Hideyoshi must have had some plau­sible explanation for his actions, Nobunaga planned on handling the matter by waiting until all the generals had returned from the northern campaign. Rumors, however, came in one after another.

  "Lord Katsuie is extraordinarily angry."

  "Lord Hideyoshi is a bit quick-tempered. Pulling out one's troops during a campaign is not something a great general can do and keep his honor."

  Finally, Nobunaga had an attendant look into the matter.

  "Has Hideyoshi really returned to Nagahama?" he asked.

  "Yes, he seems to be quite definitely in Nagahama," the attenda
nt replied.

  Nobunaga was provoked to anger, and sent an envoy with a stern rebuke. "This is insolent behavior. Before anything else, show some penitence!"

  When the messenger returned, Nobunaga asked, "What kind of expression did he have when he heard my reprimand?"

  "He looked as though he were thinking, ‘I see.'"

  "Is that all?"

  "Then he said something about resting for a while."

  "He is audacious, and he's becoming presumptuous." Nobunaga's expression did not show real resentment toward Hideyoshi, even though he had censured him verbally. Nevertheless, when Katsuie and the other generals of the northern campaign had finally returned, Nobunaga became truly angry.

  First of all, even though Hideyoshi had been ordered to remain under house arrest in Nagahama Castle, instead of manifesting his penitence, he was having drinking parties every day. There was no reason for Nobunaga not to be angry, and people conjectured that at worst, Hideyoshi would be ordered to commit seppuku, and at best he would probably be ordered to Azuchi Castle to face a court-martial. But after a while Nobunaga seemed to forget all about it and later never even mentioned the incident.

  * * *

  In Nagahama Castle, Hideyoshi had gotten into the habit of sleeping late. Certainly, by the time Nene saw her husband's face every morning, the sun was high in the sky.

  Even his mother seemed worried and commented to Nene, "That boy just isn't him­self these days, is he?"

  Nene had trouble finding an answer. The reason he was sleeping late was that he was drinking every night. When he drank at home, he would quickly turn bright red after four or five small cups, and hurry through his meal. Then he would gather together his veterans and, as everyone's spirits rose, would drink late into the night, unmindful of the hour. The result was that he would fall asleep in the pages' room. One night, when his wife was walking down the main corridor with her ladies-in-waiting, she saw a man walking slowly toward her. The man looked like Hideyoshi, but she called out, "Who is that over there?" pretending not to know him.