The next day Mitsuharu waited in anticipation all day, but no orders were forthcoming. Even when night fell, there was no movement in the main citadel. When he sent one his retainers to ask about the situation, the answer came back that Mitsuhide had already gone to bed and was asleep. Mitsuharu was suspicious, but there was nothing he could do except go to sleep himself.
At about midnight Mitsuharu was awakened by the sound of whispering coming from the guardroom two doors down the hallway. Footsteps approached, and the door of his room slid open noiselessly.
"What is it?" Mitsuharu asked.
The guard, who must have thought Mitsuharu would be asleep, hesitated for a moment. Then he hurriedly prostrated himself and said, "Lord Mitsuhide is waiting for you in the main citadel."
Mitsuharu got up and began to dress; he asked what time it was.
"The first half of the Hour of the Rat," the guard replied.
Mitsuharu went out into the ink-black corridor. When he saw that Saito Toshimitsu was kneeling by the doorway, waiting for him, Mitsuharu wondered what the reason was for this unexpected summons in the middle of the night.
Toshimitsu walked ahead, holding a candle. They met no one during their long walk down the winding corridor. Almost everyone was peacefully asleep in the main citadel but an unusual atmosphere permeated this one part of the building, and it seemed that men were up and about in two or three rooms.
"Where is His Lordship?"
"In his sleeping quarters."
Toshimitsu put out the candle at the entrance to the corridor leading to Mitsuhide’s bedroom. With a look, he invited Mitsuharu to enter, and opened the heavy door. As soon as Mitsuharu had gone in, Toshimitsu shut the door behind him. It was only from the farthest room in the corridor—Mitsuhide's bedroom—that the faint light of a lamp leaked out.
When Mitsuharu looked into the room, he could see neither attendants nor pages. Mitsuhide was alone, dressed in a summer kimono of white gauze, his long sword beside him, his hand on an armrest at his side.
The light of the lamp was particularly pale because it was filtered through the green gossamer mosquito netting that hung around Mitsuhide. When he slept, the netting surrounded him on all four sides, but now the front was held up by a strip of bamboo.
"Come in, Mitsuharu," Mitsuhide said.
"What is this all about?" his cousin asked, after kneeling in front of Mitsuhide.
"Mitsuharu, would you risk your life for me?"
Mitsuharu knelt in silence, looking as though he had forgotten how to speak. Mitsuhide's eyes were ablaze with a strange light. His question had been simple and direct—the very words Mitsuharu had been afraid of hearing since Sakamoto. Now Mitsuhide had finally spoken, and though Mitsuharu was not surprised, the blood in his veins felt as though it had turned into ice.
"Are you against me, Mitsuharu?"
Still he did not answer. Mitsuhide, too, fell silent. His face displayed a certain paleness that was not due to the green netting or the guttering of the lamp, but to the reflection of some emotion in his heart.
Mitsuharu knew, almost by intuition, that Mitsuhide had prepared a contingency plan to use if he opposed him. Built into the wall beyond the mosquito netting, in the corner of a large alcove, was a secret chamber that could conceal an armed man. The flecks of gold on the surface of the hidden door shone ominously, as if glinting with the bloodthirsty intent of the hidden assassin.
To Mitsuharu's right was a large sliding door. He could hear nothing from behind it, but he could sense the presence of Saito Toshimitsu and several other men who had their weapons drawn, just waiting for Mitsuhide's word. Mitsuharu could not resent Mitsuide's heartless and underhanded behavior; pity came before that. Had the intelligent man he had known since his youth disappeared? He felt as though he were looking at nothing but the wreck of that man now.
"Mitsuharu, what is your answer?" Mitsuhide asked, edging closer.
Mitsuharu felt his cousin's hot breath burning like the fever of a sick man. "Why do you want me to risk my life?" he finally asked in reply. He knew very well what Mitsuhide was planning to do, so he was now deliberately feigning ignorance. He held on to the hope that somehow he could pull his cousin back from the brink.
At Mitsuharu's words, the veins on Mitsuhide's temples stood out even more. His voice became unusually husky as he said, "Mitsuharu, don't you know that something has been gnawing at me since I left Azuchi?"
"It's obvious."
"If that's so, then why are all these words necessary? A yes or a no will suffice."
"My lord, why are you the one who is refusing to speak? It is not only the fate of the Akechi clan that depends on what you say now but the future of the nation."
"What are you saying, Mitsuharu?"
"To think that you, of all people, should consider committing this outrage." Tears spilling down his cheeks, Mitsuharu drew closer to Mitsuhide and dropped both hands to the floor in supplication. "I have never understood human character less than I have tonight. When we were both young and studied together in my father's house, what was it that we read? Was there a single word in the books of the ancient sages that approved of killing one's own lord?"
"Speak more quietly, Mitsuharu."
"Who's going to hear me? All you have here is assassins behind secret doors, waiting for your command. My lord… I have never once doubted your wisdom. But you seem to have changed so much from the man I used to know."
"It's too late, Mitsuharu."
"I must speak."
"It's useless."
"I must, even if it's useless." Bitter tears fell on Mitsuharu's hands.
Just then something moved behind the hidden door. Perhaps the assassin had sensed that the situation had become tense and was eager to act. But there was still no signal from Mitsuhide. He turned away from his cousin's weeping figure.
"You have studied so much more than others, your intellectual powers are much greater than most people's, and you have reached the age of mature judgment. Is there anything you don't understand?" Mitsuharu pleaded. "I am so ignorant that I lack the words. But even someone like me can read the word 'loyalty' and meditate on it until it has become a part of me. Although you've read ten thousand books, it will all come to naught if you lose sight of that word now. My lord, are you listening? Our blood has been drawn from a line of ancient warriors. Would you stain the honor of our ancestors? And what of your own children and their descendants? Think of the shame you'll heap on endless generations."
"You could enumerate those kinds of things without end," Mitsuhide replied. "What I intend to do transcends them all. Forget about changing my mind. I've considered the good sense you've just spoken about night after night, turning them over again and again in my brain. When I look back over the road I've traveled for the past fifty-five years know I would not be this distraught if I had not been born a samurai. Nor would I be intent on such a thing."
"And it's precisely because you were born a samurai that you should not act against your lord, no matter how much you've had to bear."
"Nobunaga rose against the shogun. And everyone knows how much bad karma accumulated from burning down Mount Hiei. Look what befell his senior retainers-Hayashi, Sakuma, Araki. I cannot think of their tragic fates as other people's affairs."
"My lord, you've received a province. The clan lacks for nothing. Think of the favors he has bestowed upon us."
At this point Mitsuhide lost control, and his words burst forth like a river in flood. "What is the favor of an insignificant province like this? I would probably have this, even if I weren't talented. Once he has everything he needs from me, I'll be nothing more than a lapdog to be fed at Azuchi. Or maybe he'll consider me a useless luxury. He's even put me under Hideyoshi's command and ordered me to the Sanin. If that isn't a pronouncement of the Akechi clan's fate, I don't know what is. I was raised a samurai; I have inherited the blood of generations of warriors. Do you think I'm going to finish my days kowtowing while he orders me arou
nd? Can't you see through Nobunaga's black heart, Mitsuharu?"
Mitsuharu sat in stunned silence for a while, then asked, "To whom have you disclosed your intentions?"
"Besides you, a dozen of my most trusted retainers." Mitsuhide took a deep breath and listed the men's names.
Mitsuharu looked up to the ceiling and let out a long sigh. "What can I say now that you've told them?"
Mitsuhide suddenly moved forward and grabbed his cousin's collar with his left hand. "Is it no?" he asked. His right hand gripped the haft of his dagger, while his left shook Mitsuharu with terrifying strength. "Or is it yes?"
Every time Mitsuhide shook Mitsuharu, his head moved back and forth as though his neck contained no bones. Tears were streaming down his face.
"At this point it's no longer a matter of yes or no. But I don't know what it would have been if you had told me before you informed the others, my lord."
"Then you agree? You'll act with me?"
"You and I, my lord, are two men, but we are the same as one. If you were to die, I wouldn't want to live. Technically, we are lord and retainer, but we have the same roots and the same birth. We have lived our lives together until now, and I am naturally resolved to share whatever fate lies ahead."
"Don't worry, Mitsuharu. It's going to be all or nothing, but I feel our victory is certain. If we are successful, you won't be in charge of a minor castle like Sakamoto. I
promise you that. At the very least, you'll have the title next to mine and will be the lord of a great number of provinces!"
"What! That is not the issue." Casting off the hand that held his collar, Mitsuharu pushed Mitsuhide back. "I'd like to cry… my lord, please allow me to cry."
"What are you sad about, you fool?"
"You're the fool!"
"Fool!"
The two called each other names back and forth and then embraced, tears rolling down their cheeks.
* * *
It certainly felt like summer; the first day of the Sixth Month was hotter than it had been for many years. In the afternoon, columns of cloud covered a section of the sky in the north, but the slowly setting sun continued to scorch the mountains and rivers of Tamba until dusk.
The town of Kameyama was now totally deserted. The soldiers and wagons that had packed its streets were gone. Soldiers, carrying firearms, banners, and spears, were marching out of the town in a long line, their heads baking in iron helmets. The townspeople crowded by the roadside to watch the army depart. Searching out the benefactors who had patronized their shops in the past, they wished them luck as loudly as they could and urged them on to great deeds.
But neither the marching soldiers nor the cheering crowds knew that this setting out was not the beginning of a campaign in the west, but the first step toward Kyoto. Except for Mitsuhide and a dozen men on his field staff, not one single person knew.
It would soon be the Hour of the Monkey. Booming through the blood-red western sun, conch shells resounded high and low, one after another. The soldiers, who had been doing little more than crowding around various encampments, got up immediately to get into their proper columns. Dividing into three lines, they formed ranks, banners aloft.
The greenery of the surrounding mountains and the pale green foliage nearby rustled with fragrance as the slight evening breeze wafted across the innumerable faces. Once again the conch sounded—this time from the distant forest.
From the grounds of the shrine of the war god Hachiman, Mitsuhide and his generals moved forward in brilliant array through the slanting rays of the western sun. Mitsuhide reviewed his troops, who massed together resembled a wall of iron. Every soldier looked up as Mitsuhide passed by, and even the rank and file felt proud to be under the command of such a great general.
Mitsuhide wore black armor with light green threading under a white and silver brocade coat. His long sword and saddle were of exceptional workmanship. Today he appeared much younger than usual, but this was not true of Mitsuhide alone. When a man put on his armor, he was ageless. Even alongside a warrior of sixteen on his first campaign, an old man did not show or feel his age.
Today, Mitsuhide's prayers had been more beseeching than those of any other man in his army. And for that reason, as he passed each soldier, his eyes looked strained by his resolve. The countenance of the commander-in-chief did not go unreflected in the martial spirit of his men. The Akechi had gone to war twenty-seven times. Today, however, the men were feverish with tension, as if they had intuited that the battle they were heading for was out of the ordinary.
Every man felt that he was setting out never to return. That mass intuition filled the place like a bleak mist, so that the nine banners emblazoned with blue bellflowers fluttering above each division seemed to be beating against a bank of cloud.
Mitsuhide reigned in his horse, turned to Saito Toshimitsu who was riding by his side, and asked, "How many men do we have altogether?"
"Ten thousand. If we include the various carriers and packers, there must be more than thirteen thousand men."
Mitsuhide nodded then said after a pause, "Ask the corps commanders to come here.
When the commanders had assembled in front of Mitsuhide's horse, he pulled back momentarily, and in his place his cousin Mitsutada came forward, flanked by generals to his left and right.
"This is a letter that arrived last night from Mori Ranmaru, who is now in Kyoto. I am going to read it to you so that it will be understood by everyone."
He opened the letter and read: '"By command of Lord Oda Nobunaga you are to come to the capital, so that His Lordship may review the troops before their departure for the west."'
"We will leave at the Hour of the Rooster. Until then have your soldiers prepare their provisions, feed their horses, and rest."
If the sight of thirteen thousand men preparing their provisions in the field was quite a spectacle, it was a congenial one. In the meantime, the corps commanders who had been summoned were called once again—this time into the forest of the Hachiman shrine. There, enhanced by the shadows of dusk and the cries of the cicadas, the cool air felt almost like water.
A moment before, the sound of hands clapping in prayer could be heard from the shrine. It seemed as though Mitsuhide and his generals had been praying before the gods. Mitsuhide had persuaded himself that he was not acting purely out of the enmity and resentment he felt toward Nobunaga. The fear that he might end up like Araki or Sakuma had allowed him the rationalization that it was a matter of self-defense; he was like a cornered animal forced to strike first in order to stay alive.
From the shrine it was only five leagues to the Honno Temple, where his lightly protected enemy was staying. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Conscious that his treachery looked like opportunism, he could not concentrate on his prayer. But he had no trouble in justifying his actions: he enumerated Nobunaga's crimes over the past two decades. In the end, although he had served Nobunaga for many years, Mitsuhide was nostalgic for the old shogunate, with all of its stagnation.
The commanders waited, crowding together. Mitsuhide's stool was still unoccupied. His pages said that he was still praying at the shrine and would soon return. Not long thereafter, the curtain parted. Greeting the men who had gathered there, Mitsuhide's close retainers entered one by one. Mitsuhide, Toshimitsu, Mitsuharu, Mitsutada, and Mitsuaki were the last to appear.
"Are these all of the corps commanders?" Mitsuhide asked.
With alarming speed, the immediate area was completely surrounded by soldiers. Caution could be read on Mitsuhide's face, and a wordless warning was very clearly concentrated in the eyes of the generals.
Mitsuhide said, "You may think it rather cold of me to take these kinds of precautions when talking to my retainers, and especially to retainers on whom I rely. Don't take this measure in the wrong way; it's only in order to disclose to you a great, long-awaited event—an event that will affect the entire nation and that will mean either our rise or our fall."
Thus he beg
an the disclosure of his intentions. Mitsuhide enumerated his grievances against Nobunaga: the humiliations at Suwa and Azuchi and, the final indignity, an order to join the campaign in the west that implied he was subordinate to Hideyoshi. He went on to list the names of the men who had served Nobunaga for years, only to be driven to self-destruction. It was Nobunaga who was the enemy of righteousness, the destroyer of cullture, and the conspirator who had overthrown institutions and brought the nation to chaos. He ended his speech by reciting a poem he had written.
Let a person with no understanding
Say what he will;
I will have no regrets for either
Position or fame.
While reciting the poem, Mitsuhide began to feel the pathos of his own situation, and tears began to run down his cheeks. His senior retainers, too, began to weep. Some among them even bit the sleeves of their armor or fell face down on the earth. There was only one man who did not weep—the veteran Saito Toshimitsu.
In order to bind their tears in a pledge of blood, Saito Toshimitsu broke in and said, I think His Lordship has opened his heart to us because he considers us men he can trust. If a lord is shamed, his retainers die. Is it our lord alone who is being pained? These old bones of mine have little time left, but if I can witness the downfall of Lord Nobunaga and see my lord become the ruler of the nation, I will be able to die without any regrets."
Mitsuharu spoke next. "Each of us thinks of himself as His Lordship's right-hand man, so once he has spoken, there is only one road to take. We should not be late for our own deaths."
The corps commanders all answered in unison. The glint of emotion in every eye and open mouth seemed to say they knew no other word than yes. When Mitsuhide stood up, the men shook with their strong feeling. They congratulated him loudly, as was the time-honored custom when leaving for the front.
Yomoda Masataka looked up at the sky and then urged the men to prepare themselves mentally. "It will soon be the Hour of the Rooster. It's about five leagues to the capital. If we travel across country, we should be able to surround the Honno Temple by dawn. If we can take care of the Honno Temple before the Hour of the Dragon and then destroy the Myokaku Temple, everything should be settled before breakfast."
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