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

by Eiji Yoshikawa

  The mist was thick.

  Suddenly a rainbow-colored light appeared in the middle of the lake. That in itself might have made the men think that it would shortly be dawn. But they could hardly see the tails on the horses in front of them, and the path through the grassy plain was still dark.

  As the mist swirled by the banners, armor, and spears, the men all appeared as though they were walking through water.

  They were oppressed by thoughts that tightened their chests. The cold mist gathered on their eyebrows and on the hairs of their nostrils.

  A splashing noise and laughter and animated voices could be heard from the lake shore. Scouts from the attacking troops quickly got down on all fours and crept forward to investigate who might be out in the middle of the mist. It turned out to be two samurai and maybe ten grooms from the fortress at Mount Iwasaki; they had just walked into the shallows of the lake and were washing horses.

  The scouts waited for troops from the vanguard to move up and signaled to them silently with waves of the hand. Then, when they were sure the enemy was trapped, they suddenly yelled, "Take them alive!"

  Caught unawares, the warriors and grooms splashed through the water in surprise and ran along the shore.

  "The enemy! It's the enemy!"

  Five or six men escaped, but the rest were captured.

  "Well, well, the season's first game."

  The Shibata warriors grabbed the prisoners by their collars and took them to their commander, Fuwa Hikozo, who questioned them from horseback.

  A message was sent to Sakuma Genba, asking what should be done with the prisoners.

  The response spurred them to quick action: "Do not be delayed by these men. Kill them at once and continue immediately to Mount Oiwa."

  Fuwa Hikozo dismounted, drew his sword, and personally decapitated one man. He then shouted out a command to all the members of the vanguard. "Here! have a festival of blood! Hack off the heads of the others and present them as an offering to the god of war. Then raise your war cries and move on to attack the fortress at Oiwa!"

  The soldiers around Hikozo almost fought over the chance to cut off the heads of the grooms. Raising their bloody swords high in the morning sky, they offered the lifebood of their prisoners and yelled to the demons. The entire army raised war cries in response.

  Billowing waves of armor shook and trembled through the morning mist as each man competed to be first. Sweating horse brushed past sweating horse in the struggle to take the lead, and one spear corps after another rushed forward in the confusion of glittering spearheads.

  Gunfire could already be heard, spears and long swords flashed in the morning light, and a strange sound was coming from the area of Mount Oiwa's first palisade. How deep the lingering dreams of the short summer night! The slopes of Mount Oiwa, defended by Nakagawa Sebei, and Mount Iwasaki, held by Takayama Ukon—the center of Hideyoshi's fortifications—were bound by the mist and as quiet, as if no oneknew yet of the oncoming flood of men.

  The construction of the fortress at Mount Oiwa had been quick and simple. Nakagawa Sebei slept in a rest hut along the ramparts halfway up the mountain.

  Not yet fully conscious, he suddenly raised his head and muttered. "What's going on?

  On the border between dream and reality, and without knowing why, he got up abruptly and put on the armor that had been placed near his bed.

  As he was finishing, someone knocked at the door of the rest hut and then seemed to be pushing against it with his body as well.

  The door fell inward, and three or four retainers tumbled in.

  "The Shibata!" they cried.

  "Calm down!" Sebei reprimanded them.

  From the incoherent reports of the surviving grooms, Sebei was unable to find out where the enemy had broken through or who was leading them.

  "It would be an extraordinary feat for even a daring enemy to break this far through the lines. These men will not be easy to deal with. I don't know who's leading them, but I suspect that of all the commanders of the Shibata forces it's most likely to be Sakuma Genba."

  Sebei had quickly grasped the situation, and a shudder ran through his entire frame. It would be difficult to deny that the man is a powerful enemy, he thought. But opposed to that overwhelming feeling, a different kind of strength bubbled up from within, and he rebounded.

  Grabbing his long spear, he yelled, "Let's go fight!"

  Sporadic gunfire could be heard in the distance, from the foot of the mountain. Then suddenly it was heard unexpectedly close, from a wooded area on the southwest slope.

  "They've taken the shortcuts too."

  Because of the thickness of the mist, the enemy banners could not be seen clearly, and that had the effect of making the Nakagawa forces even more fretful.

  Sebei called out once again. His voice echoed in the heart of the mountain.

  The thousand-man Nakagawa corps defending the mountain was now awakened by the attack coming in right before its eyes. It had been taken completely by surprise. As far as the men knew, the main Shibata position was a great distance away—a belief that had put them off their guard. The enemy would surely not attack such a safe place! But before they even realized that their belief had been mistaken, the enemy had already descended like a gale.

  Sebei stamped the earth and upbraided his men for their complacency and negligence. One by one his officers sought him out and, either sighting his commander's standard or recognizing his voice, they and their soldiers hurriedly gathered around him and formed a real army.

  "Is Genba in command?"

  "Yes, my lord," a retainer replied.

  "How many men does he have?" Sebei continued.

  "Fewer than ten thousand."

  "One line of attack or two?"

  “There appear to be two armies. Genba is attacking from Niwatonohama, and Fuwa Hikozo has taken the path from Mount Onoji."

  Even with all of its men assembled, the fortress was defended by no more than a thousand men. The attacking forces of the enemy were reported to be close to ten thouand.

  Both shortcuts and the barrier gates at the foot of the mountain were inadequate. It was easy to see that it would only be a matter of time before they were annihilated. “Confront the enemy at the shortcut!" Sebei sent his right-hand man off first with three hundred soldiers, and then encouraged his own men. "The rest of you come with me. The Nakagawa forces have never been bested since coming out of Ibaraki in Settsu. Don’t step back a single pace from the enemy in front of us now!"

  At the head of the commander's standard and the banners, Nakagawa Sebei took the lead and whipped his horse toward the foot of the mountain at full speed.

  * * *

  On the morning of the same day, six or seven warships moved north across Lake Biwa like a flock of water birds. On the curtain enfolding the bridge of one of the ships, a large iris crest fluttered in the wind.

  Niwa Nagahide was standing on the bridge of the ship when he suddenly saw black smoke rising from a mountain on the north side of the lake and yelled out to the men around him. "Is that near Oiwa or Shizugatake?" he asked.

  “It looks like Shizugatake," one of the members of his staff replied.

  In fact, as one looked out in that direction, the mountains appeared to be piled one on top of another, so that the flames from Mount Oiwa looked quite convincingly as though they were rising from Shizugatake.

  It's hard to understand." Niwa knitted his brow and continued to gaze steadily out onto the distance.

  It was surprising how overly accurate his premonition was. At dawn that day—the twentieth of the month—he had received a message from his son, Nabemaru:

  There have been suspicious movements in both Katsuie's and Genba's camps during the night.

  At that time he had guessed that what he must be seeing was an enemy attack. Hideyoshi was busy attacking Gifu. And if their enemies were aware of it, they would know it was the moment to strike at Hideyoshi's unguarded position.

  Niwa felt appre
hensive as soon as he heard his son's report. Boarding his meager force of a thousand men aboard five or six ships, he had them cross the lake to the vicinity of Kuzuo.

  Just as he had feared, there were flames from the direction of Shizugatake, and when they finally approached the shore at Kuzuo, he could hear gunfire.

  “The enemy seems to have overrun the fortress at Motoyama. Shizugatake is also in danger, and I doubt if Mount Iwasaki will be able to hold out."

  Niwa asked two of the staff officers for their opinions.

  "The situation certainly doesn't look good," one of the men answered. "The enemy has sent in a large force, and it would appear that our numbers are not going to be sufficient to help our allies in this emergency. The best plan would be to return to Sakamoto and entrench ourselves in the castle there."

  "You're talking nonsense," Niwa said, dismissing the suggestion. "Disembark the entire army immediately. Then take the ships to Kaitsu and bring a third of Nagamaru's forces."

  "Will there be time, my lord?"

  "Everyday calculations have absolutely no value when it comes to war. Our mere presence will have an effect. It will take them some time to realize how few of us there are And that will delay them. Get the troops landed, and hurry back to Kaitsu."

  The army landed at Ozaki, and the ships set sail immediately. Niwa brought his horse to a stop in a village to question the locals.

  The villagers told him that the battle had begun at dawn and was completely unexpected. Just as they had seen the flames from Mount Oiwa, they had heard war cries like the sound of tidal waves. Then, warriors from the Sakuma forces, perhaps a reconnoitering party, had whipped their horses through the village from the direction of Yogo. Rumor had it that Nakagawa Sebei's forces defended the fortress but were cut down to the last man.

  When asked if they knew anything about Kuwayama's men in the area of Shizugatake, the villagers answered that just moments ago, Lord Kuwayama Shigeharu had led all of his forces from the fortress at Shizugatake and was now hurrying along the mountain road in the direction of Kinomoto.

  This information left Niwa in openmouthed surprise. He had come with reinforcements, ready to entrench himself here with his allies, but the Nakagawa forces had been annihilated and the Kuwayama forces had abandoned their posts and were fleeing as fast as they could. What disgraceful conduct! What had they been thinking? Niwa pitied Kuwayama's confusion.

  "And this happened just now?" he asked the villagers.

  "They couldn't be much farther than half a league away," the farmer replied.

  "Inosuke!" he called out to a retainer. "Run after the Kuwayama corps and talk with Lord Shigeharu. Tell him that I've come and that we'll defend Shizugatake together. Tell him to turn back immediately!"

  "Yes, my lord!"

  The man whipped his horse and hurried off in the direction of Kinomoto.

  Kuwayama had tried two or three times that morning to persuade Nakagawa to retreat, but had offered him no help at all and had completely lost his head at the onslaught of the Sakuma forces. As soon as he heard of the destruction of the Nakagawa corps, he wavered all the more. Then, in the face of the rout of the central camp of his allies, he abandoned Shizugatake without firing a single bullet or wielding a spear in resistance, fleeing with a pace that left every man for himself.

  His intentions were to join up with their allies at Kinomoto and then wait for Hidenaga's orders. But now, en route, here was a man from the Niwa clan informing him of

  Niwa’s reinforcements. Suddenly gaining courage, he reorganized his troops, made a turnaround, and went back to Shizugatake.

  In the meantime Niwa had reassured the villagers. Ascending Shizugatake, he was finall united with Kuwayama Shigeharu.

  He wrote a letter at once, sending it by dispatch to Hideyoshi's camp in Mino, informing him of the urgency of the situation.

  The Sakuma forces at Mount Oiwa made a provisional camp there and, secure in their feeling of triumph, rested quietly for more than two hours from about the Hour of the Hrse. The warriors were weary after the intense battle and the long march that had started the night before. After eating their provisions, however, they took pride in their blood-soaked hands and feet; lighthearted talk arose here and there, and their fatigue was forgotten.

  Orders were given, and the officers were told to relay them from corps to corps.

  “Sleep! Sleep! Close your eyes for a while. No one knows what's going to happen tonight!"

  The clouds overhead looked like the clouds of summer, and the cries of the season's first cicadas could be heard in the trees. The wind wafted pleasantly over the mountains from lake to lake, and the soldiers—who had now satisfied their empty stomachs—finally felt themselves becoming drowsy. Still holding their firearms and spears, they sat down.

  In the shade of the trees, the horses closed their eyes as well, and even the group commanders leaned against the trunks and fell asleep.

  Everything was quiet, but it was the kind of silence that comes after an intense fight. The camp of their enemies—who had been wrapped in dreams until just before dawn—had been turned to ashes, and all of its soldiers become corpses left to the clusters of grass. It was now fully day, but death was in the air. Except for the alertness of the sentries everything was subdued, even the atmosphere in the staff headquarters was hushed,

  The loud snores of the commander-in-chief, Genba, leaked happily through the curtains. Suddenly, five or six horses came to a halt somewhere, and a group of men in helmets and armor ran in the direction of the field staff headquarters. The members of the staff, who had sat sleeping around Genba, quickly looked outside.

  “What's up?" they yelled.

  “It's Matsumura Tomojuro, Kobayashi Zusho, and the other scouts."

  “Come on in."

  The man who invited them in was Genba. Awakened unexpectedly, his eyes were wide with surprise and still red from a lack of sleep. It appeared that just before taking a nap, he had gulped down a good deal of sake. A large red sake cup lay empty next to his seat

  Matsumura knelt in a corner of the curtained enclosure and then reported what they had observed.

  “There's no longer even a single enemy soldier at Mount Iwasaki. We thought there was a chance that they had hidden their banners and were planning to lie in wait for us, so we looked around to make sure. But the commanding general, Takayama Ukon, and everyone under his command have gone to Mount Tagami."

  Genba clapped his hands.

  "They ran away?" He laughed out loud and looked around at his staff officers. "He says Ukon ran away! He's a fast one, isn't he!" He laughed again, sending his entire body into convulsions of glee.

  It seemed he had not yet sobered up from the drunken state he had fallen into after the victory sake. Genba could not stop laughing.

  Just then, the messenger who had been sent to Katsuie's main camp to report on the war situation returned with Katsuie's instructions.

  "Are there no enemy movements in the area of Kitsunezaka?" Genba asked.

  "Nothing in particular. Lord Katsuie seems to be in very fine spirits."

  "I imagine he was quite pleased."

  "Yes, he was." The messenger continued to answer Genba's repeated questions without even the chance to wipe the sweat from his brow. "When I described the details of this morning's battle to him, he said, 'Is that so? Well, that's just like that nephew of mine.

  "Well, what about Sebei's head?"

  "He examined it immediately and said that it was definitely Sebei's. Looking around at the men who were with him, he declared it to be a good omen, and his mood seemed to improve even more."

  Genba was in a very good mood himself. Hearing of Katsuie's happiness, he exulted in his own triumph and burned with the desire to surprise his uncle with even greater joy.

  "I suppose that the lord of Kitanosho still doesn't know that the fortress at Mount Iwasaki has also fallen into my hands," he laughed. "He gets satisfied just a little too quickly."

 
"No, the capture of Iwasaki was reported to him at about the time I was taking my leave."

  "Well then, there's no need to send another dispatch, is there?"

  "If that were the only thing."

  "At any rate, by tomorrow morning Shizugatake is going to be mine."

  "Well, as for that…"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Lord Katsuie said you might get carried away with this victory and start viewing the enemy as being too easy to deal with, and this might begin to put you off guard."

  "You're talking foolishness," Genba said, laughing. "I'm not going to get drunk on this one victory."

  "But just before you left, Lord Katsuie gave you that one warning in particular, telling you to make a clean retreat when you've entered deep into the enemy's territory. It's dangerous to stay here very long. Today again, he told me to tell you to return right away."

  "He said to withdraw immediately?"

  "His words were that you should withdraw quickly and unite forces with our allies to the rear."

  "How weak-willed!" Genba grunted, showing a thin derisive smile. "Well, all right.'

  At that point, several scouts entered with their reports. Niwa's three thousand men had joined forces with the Kuwayama corps, and together they were reinforcing the defenses at Shizugatake.

  That simply threw oil on the fire of Genba's eagerness to attack. Such news will make a truly brave general want to fight all the more.

  “This will be interesting."

  Genba brushed aside the camp curtain and went outside. Looking out over the new greenery of the mountains, he could see Shizugatake at a distance of about two leagues to the south. Closer and below where he stood, a general was climbing up from the foot of the mountain, accompanied by a number of attendants. The defending commander of the wooden barrier gate was hurrying ahead to show him the way.

  Genba clicked his tongue and muttered, "That must be Dosei."

  As soon as he recognized a general always at his uncle's side, he guessed the man's errand. before meeting him.