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

by Eiji Yoshikawa

  Katsuyori turned to his son, less with displeasure than with a nervous preoccupation. “Why?"

  "Well, if the women come here, they'll just get in the way. And if the men see them crying, even the bravest samurai may become disheartened." Taro was still a boy, but he inisted on giving his opinion. He continued to argue that Kai had been their ancestral land since the time of Shinra Saburo, and it should be their land to the very end, even if they have to fight and die. To abandon Nirasaki and flee, as one general had just recommnded, would bring the greatest shame to the Takeda clan.

  A general argued the opposite position: "Nevertheless, the enemy is on all four sides, and Kofu is situated in a basin. Once the enemy invades, it will be like water rushing into a lake. Wouldn't it be better to escape to Agatsuma in Joshu? If you got to the Mikuni mountain range, there would be any number of provinces where you might find asylum.

  Once you called together your allies, you could certainly reestablish yourself."

  Nagasaka Chokan agreed, and Katsuyori's mind was inclined in that direction. He set his eyes on Taro and was silent for a moment. He then turned toward the lady-in-waiting and said, "We will go."

  Taro's advice was thus refused by his father. Taro turned away silently and hung his head. The remaining question was whether to flee to Agatsuma or to entrench themselves in the area of Mount Iwadono. But whichever route they chose, abandoning their new capital and fleeing was the unavoidable fate to which both Katsuyori and his generals were resigned.

  It was the third day of the Third Month. If it had been any other year, Katsuyori and his retinue would have been enjoying the Doll Festival in the inner citadel. But on this bright day, the entire clan was driven from behind by black smoke as they abandoned Nirasaki. Katsuyori, of course, also left the castle, as did every samurai that served him. But as he turned and looked at his entire force, his expression was one of amazement.

  "Is this all?" he asked. At some point, senior retainers and even kinsmen had disappeared. He was told that they had taken advantage of the confusion during the darknes of dawn, and had fled each to his own castle with his retainers.

  "Taro?"

  "I'm here, Father." Taro drew his horse up to the solitary figure of his father. With all the retainers, the common samurai, and the foot soldiers combined—there were less than a thousand men. There were large numbers, however, of lacquered palanquins and litters for his wife and her court ladies, and the pathetic figures of veiled women, both walkin and on horseback, filled the road.

  "Oh! It's burning!"

  "The flames are so high!"

  The crowd of women could hardly stand to leave, and when they had traveled only about a league from Nirasaki, they turned to look even as they walked. Flames and black smoke rose high in the morning sky as the castle at the new capital burned. They had set the fires at dawn.

  "I don't want to live a long life," said one of the women. "What kind of future would I see? Is this the end of Lord Shingen's clan?" The nun who was Katsuyori's aunt, the charming young girl who was Shingen's granddaughter, the wives of the clan members and their servant ladies—all of them were drowning in their tears, holding each other as they cried, or calling out the names of children. Golden hairpins and other ornaments were left on the road, and no one even bothered to pick them up. Cosmetics and jewelry were smeared with mud, but no one gazed at them with regret.

  "Hurry up! Why are you crying? This is what it is to be born a human being. You're going to shame yourselves in front of the farmers!" Katsuyori rode in among the slow-moving palanquins and litters, urging them on, to escape farther and farther to the east.

  Hoping to reach Oyamada Nobushige's castle, they looked at the old castle in Kofu as they passed by but could only walk on toward the mountains. As they walked on, the carriers who shouldered the palanquins gradually disappeared, the menials who carried the baggage and litters ran off one after another, and their number was reduced by half and then by half again. By the time they had entered the mountains near Katsunuma, their entire force numbered only two hundred men, and less than twenty of those were mounted, counting Katsuyori and his son. When Katsuyori and his followers had struggled along as far as the mountain village of Komagai, they found that the one man they had been relying upon had suddenly had a change of heart.

  "Take refuge somewhere else!" Obstructing the summit path to Sasago, Oyamada Nobushige prevented Katsuyori's party from passing through. Katsuyori, his son, and the entire group were at a complete loss. There was nothing they could do but change their direction, and they now fled toward Tago, a village at the foot of Mount Temmoku. Spring was in full bloom, but the mountains and fields, as far as the eye could see, held neither comfort nor hope. So now the small group that remained put all their trust in Katsuyori, as they might in a staff or a pillar. Katsuyori himself was at his wits' end. Huddling together in Tago, his followers waited in a daze, swept over by the mountain wind.

  The combined forces of the Oda and the Tokugawa entered Kai like raging waves. Led by Anayama, Ieyasu's army marched from Minobu to Ichikawaguchi. Oda Nobutada attacked upper Suwa and burned the Suwa Myojin Shrine and a number of Buddhist temples. The common people's homes along the road he burned to ashes as he hunted for surviving enemy soldiers and pushed on—day and night—toward Nirasaki and Kofu. Finally, the end came. It was the morning of the eleventh day of the Third Month.

  One of Katsuyori's personal attendants had gone to the village the night before and returned after reconnoitering the enemy positions. That morning he gave the report to his lord as he gasped for breath.

  "The vanguard of the Oda forces has entered the nearby villages and seems to have learned from the villagers that you and your family are here, my lord. It appears that the Oda have surrounded the area and cut off all the roads, finally starting their last push in this direction."

  Their group now numbered only ninety-one—the forty-one remaining samurai with Katsuyori and his son, and Katsuyori's wife and her ladies-in-waiting. In the preceding days they had ensconced themselves in a place called Hirayashiki and had even erected a sort of palisade. But when they heard the report, every one of them knew that the time had come, and they hurried to prepare themselves for death. Among them, Katsuyori's wife sat as though she were still in the mansion of the inner citadel. Her face was like a white flower as she looked off in a daze. The women who surrounded her had broken into tears.

  "If it was going to come to this, it would have been better to stay in the new castle at Nirasaki. How pitiful. Is this how the wife of the lord of the Takeda should look?"

  Left to themselves, the women cried miserably and lamented to each other without end.

  Katsuyori went to his wife and pressed her to leave. "I've just ordered my attendant to bring you a horse. Even if we could stay here for a long time, our regrets would never end, and now the enemy is closing in on the foothills. I've heard that we're close to Sagami, so you should go there as quickly as possible. Cross the mountains and go back to the Hojo clan." His wife's eyes were filled with tears, but she made no move to leave. Rather, she looked as though she resented her husband's words.

  "Tsuchiya! Tsuchiya Uemon!" Katsuyori called, summoning a retainer. "Get my wife on the back of a horse."

  The attendant strode up to Katsuyori's wife, but she suddenly turned to her hus­band and said, "It is said that a true samurai will not have two masters. In the same way, once a woman has taken a husband, she should not go back to live with her family again. Though it may seem to be compassionate of you to send me back to Odawara by myself, just those words feel so unsympathetic…I'm not moving from this place. I'll be at your side until the very end. Then, perhaps, you will let me go with you to the here­after." Just at that moment, two retainers rushed up with the information that the enemy was closing in.

  "They've reached the temple in the foothills."

  Katsuyori's wife strictly scolded her attendants for their sudden wailing. "There is no time to do anything but grie
ve. Come here and help with the preparations."

  This woman was not yet twenty years old, yet she did not lose her sense of propriety even as death pressed in. She was as serene as a pool of water, and Katsuyori himself felt reproved by her composure.

  Her attendants went off but returned shortly with an unglazed cup and a sake flask, and set them down in front of Katsuyori and his son. It appeared that his wife had thought far enough ahead to prepare even for this moment. Silendy she offered her hus­band the cup. Katsuyori held it in his hand, took a sip, and passed it to his son. He then shared it with his wife.

  "My lord, a cup for the Tsuchiya brothers," his wife said. "Tsuchiya, you must say farewell while we are all still in this world."

  Tsuchiya Sozo, Katsuyori's personal attendant, and his two younger brothers had truly been devoted to their lord. Sozo was twenty-six years old, the next oldest was twenty-one, and the youngest brother was only eighteen. Together they had protected their ill-fated lord with fidelity all along the way, from the fall of the new capital to their last stand on Mount Temmoku.

  "With this, I can leave without regrets." Emptying the cup he had received, Sozo turned and smiled at his younger brothers. Then he turned to Katsuyori and his wife. "Your misfortune this time is due entirely to the defection of your kinsmen. It must be fearful and unsettling for both you, my lord, and your wife to go through this without knowing what was in people's hearts. But the world is not filled only with people like those who betrayed you. Here at your final moment, at least, everyone with you is of one heart and one body. You can now believe in both man and the world, and walk through the portals of death with grace and an easy mind." Sozo stood straight up and walked over to his wife, who was with her ladies.

  Suddenly there was the heartrending shriek of a child, and Katsuyori yelled out frantically, "Sozo! What have you done?"

  Sozo had stabbed his own four-year-old son to death right before his wife's eyes, and now she was sobbing. Without even putting away his bloody sword, Sozo prostrated him­self toward Katsuyori from a distance.

  "As proof of what I have just declared to you, I have sent my own son ahead on the road of death. Certainly he would have been an encumbrance otherwise. My lord, I am going to accompany you; and whether I be first or last, it will take only an instant."

  How sad to see the flowers

  I knew would fall

  Departing before me,

  Not one to remain

  Until the end of spring.

  Covering her face with her sleeves, Katsuyori's wife chanted these lines and cried pathetically. One of her ladies-in-waiting choked back her tears and continued:

  When they bloomed,

  Their numbers were beyond measure;

  But with the end of spring

  They fell without one blossom left behind.

  As her voice trailed off, a number of women unsheathed their daggers and cut through their own breasts or stabbed their own throats, the flowing blood soaking their black hair. Suddenly the hum of an arrow sounded close by, and soon arrows were thudding into the ground all around them. The echo of guns could be heard in the distance.

  "They've come!"

  "Prepare yourself, my lord!" The warriors stood up together. Katsuyori looked at his son, ascertaining Taro's resolution.

  "Are you ready?" Taro bowed and stood up. "I am ready to die right here at your ide," he answered.

  "This is good-bye, then." As father and son seemed ready to dash into the enemy, Katsuyori's wife shouted to her husband from behind, "I will depart before you."

  Katsuyori stood stock-still and fixed his eyes on his wife. Holding a short sword, his wife looked up and closed her eyes. Her face was as pure and white as the moon rising over the edge of the mountain. She calmly intoned a verse from the Lotus Sutra, which he had loved to recite in former times.

  "Tsuchiya! Tsuchiya!" Katsuyori called out.

  "My lord?"

  "Assist her."

  But Katsuyori's wife did not wait for the man's blade, and pressed her own dagger straight into her mouth as she recited the sutra.

  The instant the figure of his wife fell forward, one of her attendants began to encourage those left behind. "Her Ladyship departed ahead of us. None of us should be late in ccompanying her on the road of death." With these words, she bared her throat to her own dagger and fell.

  "It's time." Crying and calling to each other, the fifty remaining women were soon scattered like flowers in a garden blown by a winter storm. They lay either sideways or face down, or stabbed themselves while embracing one another. In the midst of this pathetic scene, one could hear the crying of infants not yet weaned or too small to leave their mothers' laps.

  Sozo desperately put four women and the infants on horseback and lashed them to the saddles.

  "It will not be counted as disloyalty if you do not die here. If you can get away with your lives, bring up your children and see that they hold memorial services for their pitiful former master's clan." Thus reprimanding those mothers who were crying so loud with their children, Sozo ruthlessly beat the three horses he had set them on with the shaft of his spear. The horses galloped away as the mothers and their children sobbed and wailed.

  Sozo then turned to his younger brothers. "Well, then, let's go." By that time they could see the faces of the Oda soldiers coming up the mountain. Katsuyori and his son were surrounded by the enemy. As Sozo ran to their side to assist them, he saw one of his lord's retainers running in the opposite direction in flight.

  "You traitor!" Sozo shouted, chasing after the man. "Where are you going?" And he stabbed the man in the back. Then, wiping the blood from his sword, he ran straight into the midst of the enemy.

  "Give me another bow! Sozo, give me another bow!" Katsuyori had broken the string of his bow twice already, and now took hold of a new one. Sozo stood close to his lord’s side, shielding him as well as he could. When Katsuyori had loosed all his arrows, he threw down the bow and picked up a halberd, and then brandished a long sword. By this time the enemy was right in front of him, and a battle of naked cutting blades would last no more than a moment.

  "This is the end!"

  "Lord Katsuyori! Lord Taro! I'm going to precede you!"

  Calling back and forth to one another, the remaining Takeda men were struck down. Katsuyori's armor was stained in red.

  "Taro!" He called for his son, but his vision was blurred by his own blood. All the men around him looked like the enemy.

  "My lord! I'm still here! Sozo is still at your side!"

  "Sozo, quickly… I'm going to commit seppuku."

  Leaning on the man's shoulder, Katsuyori retreated about a hundred paces. He knelt but having received so many spear and arrow wounds, he could not use his hands at all. The more he hurried, the less his hands were able to function.

  "Forgive me!" Unable to watch any more, Sozo quickly acted as second and cut off his lord's head. As Katsuyori fell forward, Sozo snatched up his head and held it, wailing in grief.

  Handing Katsuyori's head to his eighteen-year-old brother, Sozo told him to take it and flee. But in tears, the younger man declared that he would die with his brother no matter what.

  "Fool! Go now!" Sozo thrust him away, but it was too late. The enemy soldiers were now like an iron ring around them. Covered with wounds from numberless swords and spears, the Tsuchiya brothers died gloriously.

  The middle brother had stayed with Katsuyori's son from beginning to end. The young lord and retainer were also struck down and killed at the same time. Taro was regarded as a beautiful youth, and even the writer of The Chronicles of Nobunaga, who showed no sympathy in describing the death of the Takeda clan, praised his wholehearted and beautiful death.

  As he was but fifteen and from an illustrious family, Taro's face was quite refined and his skin was as white as snow. He had excelled others in manliness, had been reluctant to stain the family name, and had kept this spirit right up to the death of his father. There was no one who felt th
at his actions could be matched.

  The entire affair was finished by the Hour of the Serpent. It was thus that the Takeda clan met its end.

  * * *

  The Oda soldiers who had attacked Kiso and Ina assembled at Suwa, eventually filling the city. Nobunaga's quarters were located at the Hoyo Temple, which had now become the headquarters for the entire campaign. On the twenty-ninth day of the month, the distribution of awards for the entire army was posted at the temple gate, and on the next day Nobunaga met with all his generals and held a congratulatory banquet in honor of their victories.

  "It seems that you've done some heavy drinking today, Lord Mitsuhide. Quite rare for you, I think," Takigawa Kazumasu said to his neighbor.

  "I'm drunk, but what am I going to do?" Mitsuhide looked completely inebriated, a condition he was never in. His face, which Nobunaga liked to compare to a kumquat, was bright red all the way up to his slightly receding hairline.

  "How about another cup?" Pressing Kazumasu for more, Mitsuhide continued to talk in an excessively cheerful manner. "We don't often experience happy occasions like the one today, even if we live a long time. Look at that. We've gotten results from all our years of taking pains—not just on the other side of these walls or even just in all of Suwa—but now both Kai and Shinano are buried in the flags and banners of our allies. The desire we've cherished for so many years is being realized right before our eyes." His voice, as usual, was not very loud, but his words were heard quite distinctly by every person there. All those who had been talking noisily had fallen silent and were looking back and forth between Nobunaga and Mitsuhide.

  Nobunaga was staring fixedly at Mitsuhide's bald head. There are times when the eye that is too perceptive discovers an unfortunate state of affairs that would have been better left unnoticed; this creates unnecessary disasters. Nobunaga had been perceiving Mitsuhide in just such a fashion for two days now. Mitsuhide had been doing his best to affect a bright and loquacious manner that did not fit him at all, and in Nobunaga's view there was absolutely no good reason for him to be doing that. There was a reason, however, for Nobunaga's view, which was quite clearly that at the distribution of awards he had intentionally excluded Mitsuhide.