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

by Eiji Yoshikawa

  Certainly the road leading to the capital from Echizen was longer and more difficult than the one leading from Takamatsu, but the difficulties that faced Hideyoshi and those tht Katsuie confronted were not of the same order. Katsuie had the clear advantage. In managing his troop movements and in disengaging himself from the battlefield, his circumstances were far easier than Hideyoshi's. Why, then, was he so late? It was simply that Katsuie put prudence and abiding by the rules ahead of speed.

  The experience that he had gained by participating in so many battles, and the self-confidence that had come about as a result, had created a shell around his thinking and power of discrimination. Those qualities were actually a hindrance to swift action when national affairs were at a turning point, and they contributed to Katsuie's inability to go beyond conventional tactics and strategies.

  The mountain village of Yanagase was full of horses and men. West of it was the direction of the capital. Going east, the army would pass Lake Yogo and enter the road to Nagahama Castle. Katsuie had set up his temporary headquarters in the compound of a small mountain shrine.

  Katsuie was extremely sensitive to the temperature, and appeared to be suffering from the intense heat and the climb on that day in particular. When he had had his camp stool set up in the shade of the trees, he had a curtain stretched from tree to tree, and he took off his armor behind it. He then turned his back to his foster son, Katsutoshi, and said, “Wipe off my back, Katsutoshi."

  Twopages held large fans and cooled Katsuie's sides. When the sweat dried, his body began to itch.

  “Katsutoshi, rub harder. Much harder," he fretted.

  The boy was still only fifteen years old. It was rather touching to see him acting with such filial piety in the middle of a march.

  Something like a rash covered Katsuie's skin. And Katsuie was not the only one to suffer that summer. Many of the soldiers who were wearing leather and metal armor developed a skin condition that might be called an armor rash, but Katsuie's case was particularly severe.

  He told himself that his weakness during the summers was the result of having spent the greater part of the past three years at his post in the northern provinces. But the undeniable truth was that the older he got, the weaker he seemed to become. Katsutoshi rubbed harder, as he had been told, until he drew fatty red blood from Katsuie's skin.

  Two messengers arrived. One was Hideyoshi's retainer, the other a retainer of Nobutaka. Each carried a letter from his lord, and together they presented their letters to Katsuie.

  Hideyoshi and Nobutaka, both whom were encamped at the Mii Temple in Otsu,

  had written their letters personally. Both were dated from the fourteenth of the month. Hideyoshi's letter said:

  I have today inspected the head of the rebel general, Akechi Mitsuhide. With this, the requiem for our late lord has ended with appropriate results. We wished to announce this quickly to all the Oda retainers residing in the northern provinces and to send a summary immediately. Needless to say, while His Lordship's passing was the cause of unbearable grief for all of us, the rebel general's head has been exposed and the rebel troops exterminated to the last man, all within eleven days of his death. We do not take pride in this, but believe that it will placate our lord's soul in the underworld, if only a little.

  Hideyoshi had concluded in his letter that the outcome of the tragedy should be a matter for great rejoicing, but Katsuie did not rejoice in the least. On the contrary, the very opposite emotion appeared on his face even before he had finished reading. In his answer, however, he naturally wrote that nothing could have made him happier than Hideyoshi's news. He also emphasized the fact that his own army had gotten as far as Yanagase.

  Contemplating what he knew now from both the reports of the messengers and the contents of the letters, Katsuie felt unsure about what to do next. When the messengers left, he selected a number of young men with stout legs and sent them from Otsu to Kyoto to investigate the real conditions of the area. He seemed to be resolved to stay camped where he was until he knew the full story.

  "Is there any reason to think this might be a false report?" Katsuie asked. He was even more surprised than he had been when he received the tragic report about Nobunaga some days before.

  If someone were to have faced Mitsuhide's army in a "requiem battle" ahead of Ka­tsuie himself, it should surely have been Nobutaka or Niwa Nagahide, or even one of the Oda retainers in the capital who might have joined forces with Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was, after all, in Sakai at the time. And, in that case, the victory would not have been won in one day and one night. No one in the Oda clan was of a higher rank than Katsuie, and he knew quite well that if he had been there, everyone would have had to look up to him as commander-in-chief in the battle against the Akechi. That would have been a matter of course.

  Katsuie never considered Hideyoshi to be as insignificant as he appeared. On the contrary, he knew Hideyoshi quite well and had never made light of his abilities. Nevertheless, it was a mystery to Katsuie how Hideyoshi had been able to leave the western provinces so quickly.

  Katsuie's camp was fortified the following day. Roadblocks were set up, and travelers from the capital were stopped by sentries and questioned thoroughly.

  Any information was immediately relayed from the various officers to headquarters in the main camp. From the talk that was gathered from the streets, one could no longer doubt both the complete destruction of the Akechi and the fall of Sakamoto Castle. Moreover, according to some travelers, flames and black smoke had been rising in the

  Area of Azuchi that day and the day before, and someone reported that Lord Hideyoshi had led a section of his army toward Nagahama.

  The next day Katsuie's mind was no more at peace than before. He was still having trouble deciding what he should do next. He was distraught by shame. He had brought his army from the north this far, and he could not bear to stand aside while Hideyoshi into action.

  What was to be done? The natural responsibility of the senior retainer of the Oda would have been to attack the Akechi, but that work had been finished by Hideyoshi. Under the present conditions, then, what would be his greatest and most urgent business? And what strategy would he use in the face of Hideyoshi's present upper hand?

  Katsuie was obsessed by Hideyoshi. Moreover, his thoughts were strongly dominated by a dislike that bordered on outright hatred. Summoning his senior advisers, he deliberated on the subject until the late hours of the night. On the following day, couriers and secret messengers hurried out in all directions from the staff headquarters. At the same time Katsuie himself addressed a particularly friendly letter directly to Takigawa Kazumasu.

  Athough he had already sent the messenger from Nobutaka back to his master carrying a special response, he now wrote and sent yet another letter to Nobunaga's son. He selected a senior retainer as the envoy and sent two more clever retainers along with him, indicating the importance of their mission.

  As for contacting the other close retainers, two scribes took down Katsuie's words and then spent half a day writing out more than twenty letters. The gist of the letters was that first day of the Seventh Month they were to meet in Kiyosu to discuss such important problems as who would be the successor to Nobunaga, and how the former domain of the Akechi was to be divided.

  As the initiator of the conference, Katsuie would recover some of his dignity as senior retainer. Certainly it was fully acknowledged that without him such important problems could not be resolved. With this leverage as his "key," Katsuie changed direction and turned toward Kiyosu Castle in Owari.

  On the way, from what he heard and from the reports of his scouts, he discovered that many of the surviving Oda retainers had been heading toward Kiyosu before his letters had even been delivered. Samboshi, the son of Nobunaga's heir, Nobutada, was already there, and naturally the common view was that the center of the Oda clan would be there too. Katsuie, however, suspected that Hideyoshi had taken a presumptuous lead and had orchestrated this as well.
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  Every day Kiyosu Castle presented the extraordinary spectacle of magnificent processions of mounted men going up the hill to the castle gate.

  The land from which Nobunaga had begun his life's work was now regarded as the conference ground where the settlement of the clan's affairs would be discussed.

  On the surface, the surviving Oda retainers who had gathered claimed that they had come to pay their respects to Samboshi. No one mentioned that he had received Shibata Katsuie's letters or that he had come at Hideyoshi's invitation.

  But everyone knew that a conference would soon begin in the castle. The subject of the conference was also common knowledge. Only the public notice of the day and time needed to be posted. Once the retainers had payed their respects to Samboshi, not one of them would be returning to his home province. Each had a good number of soldiers waiting at their lodgings in the castle town.

  The population of the castle town had swollen tremendously, and that, combined with the midsummer heat and the town's small size, created an atmosphere of extraordi­nary confusion and noise. With horses running furiously through the streets, fights among servants, and frequent outbreaks of fire, there was no time for boredom.

  Toward the end of the month Nobunaga's two surviving sons, Nobutaka and Nobuo, and his former generals, including Katsuie and Hideyoshi, arrived.

  Only Takigawa Kazumasu had not yet made an appearance. Because of his absence, he was the object of frank and unfavorable criticism in the streets.

  "Takigawa was happy enough to accept posts when Lord Nobunaga was alive and was even appointed to the important position of governor-general of eastern Japan, so why is he so late in arriving in this present crisis? It's a shameful display on his part."

  There were others even more unabashed in their criticism.

  "He's a clever politician, and he is not a man of unshakable loyalty. That's probably why he hasn't stirred yet."

  That sort of talk made the rounds of the taverns.

  Soon thereafter, criticism concerning Katsuie's lateness in attacking Mitsuhide was also heard here and there. Of course, the various clans residing in Kiyosu heard it as well, and Hideyoshi's retainers quickly brought it to his attention.

  "Really? So that's started too? It's criticism of Katsuie, so no one is going to think that the rumors are being spread by Katsuie himself, but to me it looks like an attempt on his part to cause dissension among us—a battle of scheming before the big confer­ence. Well, let them have their little tricks. Takigawa has been won over by Katsuie any­way, so let it be."

  Before the conference, each man conjectured about his own future and groped for what was in the others' minds. In the meantime there were the usual unspoken under­standings and antagonisms, spreading false rumors, winning over others, splitting the op­position, and every other stratagem.

  The communication between Shibata Katsuie and Nobutaka was particularly conspicuous; the one man was of the highest rank among the clan's elders, while the other was the third son of Nobunaga. The intimacy between these two went beyond official business and could not be kept secret.

  The general opinion was that Katsuie planned to ignore Nobunaga's second son, Nobuo, and establish Nobutaka as the next heir. They all took it for granted, however, that Nobuo would oppose Nobutaka.

  There was little reason to doubt that Nobunaga's successor would naturally be either Nobutaka or Nobuo, the younger brothers of Nobutada, who had died at Nijo Castle at the time of his father's death. Everyone, however, was confused over which one of these two should be supported.

  Nobuo and Nobutaka: both were born in the First Month of the first year of Eiroku and were now twenty-four years old. Though it seems strange that they could be born in the same year and still be called older and younger brothers, the explanation is that they had different mothers. Although Nobuo was considered the elder brother and Nobutaka the younger, Nobutaka had actually been born twenty days earlier than Nobuo. It would have been natural, then, for Nobutaka to be called the elder brother, except for the fact that his mother was a woman from a small, obscure clan, and so he was designated Nobunaga's third son while Nobuo was established as the second.

  Therefore, while these men were called brothers, the intimacy between true flesh-and-blood relatives was absent. Nobuo's disposition was lethargic and negative, and the only positive feeling he displayed was his constant opposition to Nobutaka, whom he looked down upon as his subordinate "younger brother."

  When these two were fairly compared, everyone recognized that Nobutaka had far more the disposition to be Nobunaga's successor. On the battlefield he was much more like a general than was Nobuo; he displayed an ambitious spirit in his everyday words and actions, and, more than anything else, he was not retiring like his brother.

  So it was natural that he began to show an aggressive attitude quite suddenly after going to Yamazaki and displaying a dominating presence in Hideyoshi's camp. His will­ingness to bear the responsibilities of the Oda heir were manifested clearly in his recent words and behavior, and as striking proof of the ambition he was entertaining, after the battle of Yamazaki he began to detest Hideyoshi.

  For Nobuo, who had panicked when the Akechi had attacked and whose own army had set fire to Azuchi Castle, Nobutaka had some harsh words.

  "If punishments are going to be clearly imposed, they will have to ask him about his responsibility. Nobuo is a fool." Although those sentiments were not spoken publicly, the atmosphere in Kiyosu was tense, and it was certain that someone must have repeated the words to Nobuo. It was a situation in which covert schemes brought out the most repug­nant aspects of human nature.

  The conference was supposed to begin on the twenty-seventh of the month, but be­cause Takigawa Kazumasu was late in arriving, it was postponed one day after another until finally, on the first day of the Seventh Month, an announcement was circulated to all of the important retainers staying in Kiyosu: "Tomorrow, at the second half of the Hour of the Dragon, everyone should proceed to the castle, there to determine who will be the ruler of the nation. The chairman of this great conference will be Shibata Katsuie."

  Nobutaka lent prestige to Katsuie, while Katsuie provided influence for Nobutaka, and they boasted that they would have their own way at this conference. Moreover, when the conference finally opened, it appeared that a great number of men were already lean­ing in their direction.

  All of the many partitions in Kiyosu Castle had been opened that day, no doubt be­cause the sun continued to shine and the heat and stuffiness would otherwise have been unbearable. That action, however, also implied that a certain amount of care was being taken not to allow private conversations. Almost all the guards inside the castle were retainers of Shibata Katsuie.

  By the Hour of the Snake, all of the lords were seated in the great hall.

  Their seating arrangements were as follows:

  Katsuie and Takigawa sat on the right, facing Hideyoshi and Niwa on the left. Lesser retainers, such as Shonyu, Hosokawa, Tsutsui, Gamo, and Hachiya, were seated behind them. At the very front in the seats of highest rank were Nobutaka and Nobuo. But from the side, Hasegawa Tamba could be seen holding a small boy.

  That was, of course, Samboshi.

  Waiting modestly beside them was Maeda Geni, the retainer who had received Nobutada's last order when the latter was about to die in the battle at Nijo Castle. Apparently he did not feel it an honor to be the only survivor present.

  Samboshi was only two years old, and as his guardian held him on his lap directly in front of the assembled lords, he could barely keep still. He stretched out his hand and pushed Tamba's chin and then stood up in his lap.

  To help the perplexed Tamba, Geni tried to humor the child by whispering some­thing from behind; at that, Samboshi reached over Tamba's shoulder and pulled Geni's ear. Bewildered, Geni did not protest, and once again the wet nurse who had been kneel­ing behind them placed a folded paper crane into Samboshi's hand. Geni's ear was saved.


  The eyes of all the assembled generals fixed on the innocent child. Some showed a faint smile, while others shed silent tears. Only Katsuie looked out over the great hall with a sullen face. He appeared as though he would have liked to mutter something about a "nuisance."

  As the chairman of the conference and as the dignified and solemn spokesman, he should have begun the proceedings by speaking first. Nevertheless, now everyone was distracted and he had lost the opportunity to speak. He seemed to be almost unbearably distraught at his own vain efforts.

  At length Katsuie opened his mouth and said, "Lord Hideyoshi."

  Hideyoshi looked straight at him.

  Katsuie forced a smile. "What shall we do?" he asked, exactly as though he were opening negotiations. "Lord Samboshi is an innocent child. Being confined to his guard­ian's knee must be trying for him."

  "That could be so," Hideyoshi said in a noncommittal tone.

  Katsuie must have thought that Hideyoshi was becoming conciliatory, and he quickly mustered a confrontational attitude. Antipathy mixed with dignity stiffened his entire frame, and he now displayed an expression that showed his extreme displeasure.

  "Well, Lord Hideyoshi. Are you not the person who requested Lord Samboshi's pres­ence? I really have no idea, but—"

  "You're not mistaken. I'm the one who advocated it of necessity."

  "Of necessity?"

  Katsuie smoothed the wrinkles from his kimono. It was still before noon so the heat was not too oppressive, but because of the thickness of his garments and his skin condi­tion, he seemed to be very uncomfortable. Such a thing might seem trivial, but it influ­enced the tone of his voice and gave him a grim expression.