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

by Eiji Yoshikawa

  "Bring me a brush," he ordered. Dipping the brush in the ink, he artlessly drew a line through three or four clauses and wrote in his own opinions. With this revision, he sent it back.

  Once again it was sent to Katsuie, and Katsuie looked displeased. He thought silently for some time; the clause containing his own hopes was still wet with the ink that had been drawn across it. Hideyoshi, however, had also inked a line through the section al­lotting himself Sakamoto Castle, which he had replaced by the province of Tamba.

  Exhibiting a lack of selfishness, he was proposing that Katsuie exhibit the same quality. Finally, a good portion of the Akechi domain was allotted to Nobuo and Nobutaka,

  And the rest was assigned as allotments to men according to their merits at the battle of Yamazaki.

  “There will be more business tomorrow," Katsuie began. "And with this long conference taking place in such heat, I'm sure you're all tired. I certainly am. Shall we adjourn, my lords?"

  Katsuie finally refused to make a quick reply to Hideyoshi's new proposals. There was no objection to that. The afternoon sun was shining brightly, and the heat was becoming more and more severe. The first day was finished.

  On the following day Katsuie presented the senior retainers with a compromise. The night before he had gathered his own retainers, and they had put their heads together in a discussion at their lodgings. Hideyoshi, however, turned down the new proposal as well.

  On that day again the clause containing the allotments came between the two men and opposition between them seemed to be intensifying. The general trend, however, was already supporting Hideyoshi. No matter how Katsuie persevered, Hideyoshi's conditions were followed in the end.

  At noon there was a break, and at the Hour of the Ram the decisions were presented to all the generals.

  The territory being distributed was the Akechi's confiscated land as well as Nobunaga’s personal domain.

  The first on the list for the division of the Oda provinces was Lord Nobuo, who received the entire province of Owari, followed by Lord Nobutaka, who was given Mino. One was the cradle of the Oda clan; the other, Nobunaga's second home.

  There were two clauses, however, that added a good bit more to the original proposal: Ikeda Shonyu was given Osaka, Amagasaki, and Hyogo, which were worth one hundred tweny thousand bushels; Niwa Nagahide received Wakasa and two districts of Omi. Hideyoshi received the province of Tamba.

  Katsuie's only grant was Hideyoshi's own castle of Nagahama. It was the strategic bottleneck on the road leading from Katsuie's home province of Echizen to Kyoto. Katsuie requested the province forcibly and had hoped for three or four other districts, but Hideyoshi had scratched out all other grants. Hideyoshi's only condition was that Nagahama would be given to Katsutoyo, Katsuie's adopted son.

  The night before, the retainers of the Shibata clan had surrounded Katsuie and advocated a protest against such a humiliating share. They even encouraged him to reject the conditions and leave, and Katsuie was of the same mind right up to the time of his arrival on the second day of the conference. When he faced the men seated there, however, it was evident that the general trend was not to accept what he alone was demanding.

  “It wouldn't be right to humble myself, but I shouldn't be viewed as selfish, either. A majority are going to approve of these articles anyway, so if I don't show sympathy for them, it might get worse later on."

  In view of the opinions of those seated at the conference, he could naturally do nothing more than restrain himself.

  If I can only take the strategic area of Nagahama from Hideyoshi, he thought. In the end, he hoped to realize his secret intentions on another day, and accepted the conditions as they were.

  In contrast to Katsuie's vacillation, Hideyoshi's attitude seemed to be one of uncon­cern. From the time of the campaign in the western provinces to the victory at Yamazaki, Hideyoshi had taken the leadership in both military and administrative policies, and peo­ple naturally thought he would expect to receive more than the others. Despite those no­tions, however, what he did receive was nothing more than the province of Tamba. He gave up his domain of Nagahama and granted Sakamoto—which everyone would have thought it proper for him to take—to Niwa.

  And Sakamoto was the key to Kyoto. Did he purposely not take Sakamoto, hoping to indicate that he had no desire to take the reins of the government? Or did he simply feel that he should leave such small matters up to the opinions of the group, because it would fall into the right person's hands? Nobody understood yet what was in his heart.

  Midnight Warning

  The conference had finally agreed that the province for Nobunaga's heir, Samboshi, would be three hundred thousand bushels in Omi. The protectors of the young lord were to be Hasegawa Tamba and Maeda Geni, but they were to be assisted by Hideyoshi. Azuchi had been lost to the flames, and until a new castle could be built, Samboshi's residence would be Gifu Castle.

  Samboshi's two uncles, Nobuo and Nobutaka, were to act as his guardians. In addition to these articles, there was the matter of the structure of the administration. It would responsibility of Katsuie, Hideyoshi, Niwa, and Shonyu to send generals to Kyoto as representatives of the Oda.

  The proposals were quickly decided upon. At a closing ceremony, pledges of loyalty to the new lord were signed and sworn to in front of the altar to Nobunaga.

  It was the third day of the Seventh Month. The ceremony marking the first anniversary of Nobunaga's death should have been held the day before. If the conference had gone smoothly, the ceremony might have been conducted on the day itself, but because of Katsuie's reservations, the night had passed by and the memorial service had been postponed until the following day.

  Wiping the sweat from their bodies and changing into mourning dress, the generals waited for the appointed hour for the memorial service in the castle's chapel.

  The hum of mosquitoes was thick around the eaves, and a thin new moon hung in the sky. Quietly the generals crossed over to the secondary citadel. Red and white lotuses depicted on the sliding doors of the chapel. One by one the men came in and sat down.

  Only Hideyoshi did not appear. Eyes were strained in doubt. But as the generals looked in the direction of the faraway altar, among the austere articles such as the shrine, the mortuary tablet, the golden screen, the offertory flowers, and the incense burner, they could see Hideyoshi sitting coolly and smugly beneath the altar, holding the young Samboshi on his lap.

  Each one of them wondered what he was doing. When they thought it over, however, they remembered that it had been the judgment of the majority at the conference that afternoon that Hideyoshi would be recognized as an aide to the young lord, along with his two guardians. On those grounds he could not be accused of being presumptuous.

  And, simply because he could not find any reason to censure Hideyoshi, Katsuie looked extremely displeased.

  "Please go up to the altar in the proper order," Katsuie growled at Nobuo and Nobutaka, twisting his chin. His voice was low, but it was boiling over with vexation.

  "Pardon me, please," Nobuo said to Nobutaka, and stood up first.

  Now it was Nobutaka's turn to look displeased. He seemed to feel that being placed behind Nobuo in front of the assembled generals would place him in a subordinate posi­tion in the future.

  Nobuo faced his father's mortuary tablet, closed his eyes, and put his hands to­gether in prayer. Offering incense, he prayed once again in front of the shrine and then withdrew.

  Seeing that the man was about to return directly to his own seat, Hideyoshi cleared his throat once as if to bring attention to the child, Samboshi, who was sitting on his lap. Without actually saying "Your new lord is over here!" he attracted Nobuo's attention.

  Nobuo seemed almost startled at Hideyoshi's deliberate gesture, and hurriedly turned in their direction on his knees. He was by nature a weak man, and his alarm seemed al­most pitiful.

  Looking up at Samboshi, Nobuo bowed reverently. In fact, he was too polite.

 
It was not the young lord who nodded his approval; it was Hideyoshi. Samboshi was a fretful, spoiled child, but for some reason, seated on Hideyoshi's lap, he was as quiescent as a little doll.

  When Nobutaka stood up, he likewise prayed in front of the soul of his father. But having witnessed Nobuo's precedent and apparently not wanting to be laughed at by the other generals, he bowed reverently toward Samboshi with a truly correct demeanor. He then went back to his seat.

  The next was Shibata Katsuie. When his large frame knelt before the shrine, almost hiding it from view, both the red and white lotuses on the partitions and the flickering lamps tinted his figure in what seemed like red flames of wrath. Perhaps he was giving Nobunaga's soul a lengthy report on the conference and pledging his support for his new lord. But with the offering of incense, Katsuie remained a long time in silent prayer with his palms pressed solemnly together. Then, withdrawing about seven paces, he straight­ened his back and turned in the direction of Samboshi.

  Since Nobuo and Nobutaka had already bowed reverently to Samboshi, Katsuie could not very well be negligent in that regard. Very likely feeling that it was unavoidable, he swallowed his pride and bowed.

  Hideyoshi looked as though he were nodding in approval of Katsuie as well. Katsuie jerked his short, thick neck to the side and returned with a rustle back to his own seat.

  After that, he looked angry enough to spit.

  Niwa, Takigawa, Shonyu, Hachiya, Hosokawa, Gamo, Tsutsui, and the other generals paid their respects. Then they moved to the banquet room used for such affairs and, at the invitation of Nobutada's widow, settled down to a meal. The tables were set for more than forty guests. The cups were passed around, and the lamps flickered in the cool night breeze. As the men made themselves comfortable with pleasant words for the first time in two days, each was feeling a little drunk.

  The banquet that evening was a bit unusual in that it was given after a memorial service, and so no one got very drunk. Nevertheless, as the sake began to be felt, the generals left their seats to talk to others, and laughter and animated conversations could be heard here and there.

  A particularly large number of cups and men gathered in front of Hideyoshi. And then one more man stepped into the crowd. "How about a cup?" asked Sakuma Genba.

  Genba's matchless valor in the battles in the north had been highly praised, and it was said that no enemy ever encountered him twice. Katsuie's love for the man was extraordinary. He was fond of describing him as "my Genba," or "my nephew." In his pride he spoke publicly and freely about Genba's martial virtues.

  Katsuie had a great number of nephews, but when he said "my nephew," he meant Genba alone.

  Even though Genba was only twenty-eight years old, he held Oyama Castle as a general of the Shibata clan and had received a province and rank hardly inferior to the great generals gathered in the banquet room.

  "Say, Hideyoshi," Katsuie said. "Give a cup to that nephew of mine, too." Hideyoshi looked around as though he had just noticed Genba. "Nephew?" Hideyoshi said, studying the younger man. "Ah, you." Certainly, he did appear to be the hero everyone talked about, and his sturdy frame overshadowed the short-statured, frail-looking Hideyoshi.

  Genba did not, however, have his uncle's pockmarked face. He was fair-skinned but ribust, and at a glance seemed to have the brows of a tiger and the body of a leopard. Hideyoshi presented the man with a cup. "It's understandable that Lord Katsuie has such fine young men in his clan. Here, have a cup."

  But Genba shook his head. "If I'm going to receive a cup, I'd like that big one." The cup in question still contained some sake.

  Hideyoshi artlessly emptied it out and called, "Somebody come serve him." The mouth of the gold-lacquered flask touched the edge of the vermilion cup, and even though the bottle was quickly emptied, the cup itself was not yet full. Someone brought in another flask, and the cup was finally filled to the brim. The handsome young hero narrowed his eyes, raised the cup to his lips, and drank it in one gulp.

  "Well then. What about you?"

  "I haven't got that kind of talent," Hideyoshi said, smiling. At Hideyoshi's refusal to drink, Genba pressed harder. "Why won't you drink?"

  "I'm not a strong drinker."

  "What! Just this little bit."

  "I drink, but not a lot."

  Genba roared with laughter. Then he said, loudly enough so that everyone would hear, "The rumors that you hear are certainly true. Lord Hideyoshi is good at making ex­cuses, and he's certainly modest. A long time ago—over twenty years—he was an under­ling sweeping up horse droppings and carrying Lord Nobunaga's sandals. It's admirable of him not to have forgotten those days."

  He laughed at his own effrontery. The others must have been startled. The chattering stopped suddenly, and everyone looked back and forth from Hideyoshi, who was still sit­ting across from Genba, to Katsuie.

  In an instant, everyone forgot about his cup and suddenly sobered up. Hideyoshi only smiled as he looked at Genba. His forty-five-year-old eyes simply gazed at the youth of twenty-eight. Their dissimilarity was not just a matter of a difference of age. The life Hideyoshi had lived the first twenty-eight years after his birth and the path Genba had followed for his twenty-eight years were extremely different in terms of both environment and experience. Genba might have been considered as just a little boy who knew nothing of hardships in the real world. For this reason he had a reputation for arrogance as well as for bravery. And apparently he was a man who did not employ caution in a place that was more dangerous than any battlefield—a room in which the leading men of the day were gathered.

  "But, Hideyoshi, there is just one thing I can't stand. No, listen, Hideyoshi. Do you have ears to hear?" At that point he was yelling at Hideyoshi disrespectfully. It appeared to be less a matter of being drunk than of something eating at him from inside. Hideyoshi, however, looked at his drunken state and spoke to him almost with affection.

  "You're drunk," he said.

  "What!" Genba shook his head violently and straightened his posture. "This is no small problem to be written off to drunkenness. Listen. Just a little while ago in the chapel, when Lord Nobuo and Lord Nobutaka and all the other generals came to do rev­erence to the soul of Lord Nobunaga, didn't you sit in the seat of honor with Lord Samboshi on your lap and make them bow in your direction, one after another?"

  "Well, well," Hideyoshi said, laughing.

  "What are you laughing about? Is something funny, Hideyoshi? I don't doubt that your shrewd design was to hold up Lord Samboshi as an ornament for your own in­significant self so that you could receive the bows of the Oda family and its generals. Yes, that's it. And if I had been present, I would have had the pleasure of pulling your head right off. Lord Katsuie and the distinguished men sitting here are so good-natured that I get impatient, and—"

  At that moment Katsuie, who was sitting about two seats away from Hideyoshi, drained his cup and looked around at the other men. "Genba, what do you mean by talk­ing in such a way about another man? No, Lord Hideyoshi, my nephew is not speaking out of malice. So just ignore him," he said, laughing.

  Hideyoshi was unable to show his anger and unable to laugh. He had been placed in a predicament in which he could only force a subtle smile, but his own particular

  appearance was well fitted for such situations.

  "Lord Katsuie, don't let this upset you. It's all right," Hideyoshi said ambiguously. He was clearly pretending to be drunk.

  "Don't pretend, Monkey. Hey, Monkey!" Tonight Genba was acting even more arrogantly than usual. "'Monkey!' Now that was a slip, but it's not so easy to change a name that was commonly used for twenty years. That's right, it's that 'Monkey' that comes to mind. A long time ago, he was the monkeylike underling being chased around and around from job to job in Kiyosu Castle. At that time, my uncle occasionally served on night duty. I heard that one night when he was bored, he invited Monkey over and gave him sake, and when my uncle got tired from drink he lay down. Then, when he asked Monkey to come over
and massage his legs, the tactful Monkey happily did so."

  All the men present had lost their pleasant feelings of intoxication. Each man's face turned pale while his mouth went sour. This was not a simple situation. It was very likely that beyond the walls not so far removed from the banquet, in the shadows of the trees and under the floors, were swords, spears, and bows hidden by the Shibata. Were they not persistently trying to provoke Hideyoshi? A weird sensation, shared by everyone, began to grow out of the feelings of distrust, and that sensation rode the inklike evening breeze and the shadows of the lamps that flickered throughout the hall. It was the middle of the summer, but every man felt a chill along his spine.

  Hideyoshi waited until Genba had finished and then laughed out loud.

  "No, Lord Nephew, I wonder from whom you heard that. You've reminded me of a pleasant memory. Twenty years ago, this old monkey had the reputation of being good at massage, and the entire Oda clan had me rub them down. Lord Katsuie's legs were not the only ones to get massaged. And then, when I was given some sweets in reward, how good they tasted! That makes me nostalgic now, nostalgic for the taste of those sweets." Hideyoshi laughed again.

  "Did you hear that, Uncle?" Genba asked grandiosely. "Give something nice to Hideyshi. If you ask him to massage your legs now, he might even do it."

  "Don't go too far in this game, Nephew. Listen, Lord Hideyoshi, he's just being playful."

  "That's all right. Why, even now I still occasionally massage a certain person's legs."

  "And who would that be?" Genba asked with a sneer.

  "My mother. She's seventy years old this year, and massaging her legs is a unique pleasure for me. Since I've been on the battlefield for so many years, however, I haven't had that pleasure at all recently. Well, I'll take my leave now, but the rest of you stay as long as you like."

  Hideyoshi was the first to leave the banquet. As he left and walked down the main corridor, no one got up to stop him. On the contrary, the other lords thought it wise of him to have left, and were all relieved of the sensation of intense danger they had felt.