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

by Eiji Yoshikawa

  “Ah, here you are."

  Dosei wiped the sweat from his brow. Genba simply stood there without inviting the man inside the curtained enclosure. "Lord Dosei, what are you doing here?" he asked flatly.

  Dosei looked as though he did not wish to say anything there and then, but Genba spoke out first.

  "We'll camp here tonight and withdraw tomorrow. This was reported to my uncle already." He looked like he did not want to hear anything else about it.

  "I've been informed." Dosei politely introduced his remarks with a greeting. He then conratulated Genba at length on his great victory at Mount Oiwa, but Genba was not to bear his roundaboutness.

  "Did my uncle send you here because he's still anticipating trouble?"

  "As you've conjectured, he's extremely anxious about your plan to camp here. His wishes are for you to withdraw from enemy territory by tonight at the latest and return to his main camp."

  "Don't worry, Dosei. When my picked troops advance, they have explosive power; when they stand to defend a place, they're like steel walls. We have not been shamed yet."

  "Lord Katsuie has had faith in you from the very beginning, but when you look at from a military standpoint, to be delayed when you've penetrated deep inside enemy territory is not really the accomplishment of your strategy."

  "Wait a moment, Dosei. Are you saying that I don't understand the art of war? And those your words or my uncle's?"

  At that point even Dosei was getting nervous, and there was really nothing he could do but stay silent. He began to feel that his role as a messenger was putting him in danger.

  "If you say so, my lord. I shall report the extent of your conviction to Lord Katsuie."

  Dosei hurriedly took his leave, and when Genba returned to his seat he quickly sent out orders. Dispatching one corps of men to Mount Iwasaki, he also directed a number of small reconnaissance parties to Minegamine and the vicinity of Kannonzaka, between Shizugatake and Mount Oiwa.

  Soon thereafter, another voice was heard making an announcement. 'Lord Joemon has just arrived on orders from the main camp at Kitsune."

  The messenger this time had not come for simple conversation or to relay Katsuie's thoughts. Rather, he delivered formal military orders, the content of which was yet another request to retreat. Genba listened tamely, but his answer, as before, firmly upheld his own view and he showed no indication of submitting.

  "He has already given me the responsibility of supervising an incursion deep into enemy territory. To comply with what he asks now would be to omit the finishing touch to a military operation that has been successful so far. I would like him to trust me with the baton of command for just one more step."

  So Genba neither bowed to what the envoy had been sent to say nor submitted to his commander-in-chief's very explicit orders. He had used his ego as a shield. Standing before him now, even Joemon—who had been chosen to come here by Katsuie himself— was unable to prevail upon the man's rigidity.

  "There's nothing more I can do," Joemon said, washing his hands of the whole affair. His final words were accompanied by a slightly indignant look. "I cannot imagine what Lord Katsuie will think, but I will pass your answer on to him."

  Joemon quickly returned without further conversation. He naturally whipped his horse to quicken his return, just as he had in coming.

  Thus the third messenger returned, and by the time the fourth arrived, the sun was growing dim in the west. The old warrior, Ota Kuranosuke, a veteran retainer and personal attendant to Katsuie, talked at length. He spoke, however, more about the relationship between uncle and nephew than about the order itself, and did his best to soften the youthful Genba's rigid stance.

  "Now, now. I understand your resolve, but of all the members of your family, Lord Katsuie holds you in the highest esteem, and that's why he's so worried now. Particularly, now that you've destroyed one section of the enemy, we will be able to consolidate our position, continue to make one victory after another, and break down the enemy's weak points step by step. That is our larger strategy, and it's the one that has been decided upon in order to take control of the country. Listen, Lord Genba, you should stop here."

  "The road is going to be dangerous when the sun goes down, old man. Go back."

  "You won't do it, will you?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "What is your decision?"

  "I wasn't thinking of making that decision from the very beginning."

  Fatigued, the old retainer left.

  The fifth messenger arrived.

  Genba had become even more rigid. He had come so far, and he was not going to turn back. He refused to see the messenger, but the man was not some minor retainer. The messengers who had come that day had all been distinguished men, but the fifth one was a particularly powerful member of Katsuie's entourage.

  "I know that our envoys to you may not have been satisfactory, but now Lord Katsuie has talked about coming here himself. We, his close attendants, have urged him to stay in camp and I, as unworthy as I am, have come in his place. I implore you to think about this clearly and then strike camp and leave Mount Oiwa as quickly as possible."

  He made his plea while prostrating himself outside the curtained enclosure.

  Genba, however, had judged the situation thus: Even if Hideyoshi had been informed of the incident and had hurried from Ogaki, it was still a distance of thirteen leagues from there to here, and it would have taken until nightfall for the warning to arrive. It would also not be an easy matter to get away quickly from Gifu. Therefore, the soonest imaginable time for the completion of that shift in field positions would be tomorrow night or the day after.

  “That nephew of mine is not going to listen, no matter who I send," Katsuie complained. "I'll have to go there myself and make him withdraw by nightfall."

  The main camp at Kitsune had received word that day of the raiding army's happy success and was temporarily overjoyed. But the order for a swift retreat had not been carried out. In fact, Genba had dismissed all of the distinguished envoys with a refusal to obey and a derisive sneer.

  “Ah, that nephew of mine is going to be the end of me," Katsuie lamented, barely able to contain himself. When word leaked out about the internal discord within the field staff—that Genba's willfulness was being criticized by Katsuie—the martial spirit within the camp somehow lost its cheerfulness.

  “Another envoy has left camp."

  “What! Another?"

  The repeated comings and goings between the main camp and Mount Oiwa pained the hearts of the warriors.

  For half a day, Katsuie felt his life would be shortened. During the time he waited for the return of his fifth envoy, he could hardly stay seated on his camp stool. The camp was located at a temple in Kitsunezaka, and it was along the corridors of that building that Katsuie now wandered silently, looking in the direction of the temple gate.

  “Shichiza hasn't returned yet?" he asked his close attendants innumerable times. "It's already evening, isn't it?"

  As dusk pressed in, he became irritated. The evening sun was now casting its light on the bell tower.

  “Lord Yadoya has returned!" That was the message relayed by the warrior at the temple gate.

  “What happened?" Katsuie asked anxiously.

  The man delivered his report frankly. Genba had at first refused to meet him, but Yadoya had persisted. He had related his lord's view in detail, but in vain. Genba insisted that even if Hideyoshi rushed to Mount Oiwa from Ogaki, it would take him at least one or two days. Thus Genba would be able to destroy Hideyoshi's troops quite easily because they would be so fatigued from the long journey. For that reason, he had declared his resolution to remain on Mount Oiwa and in no way appeared ready to change his mind.

  Katsuie's eyes glistened with anger. "That fool!" he yelled, almost as if he were spitting blood. Then, beneath a heavy groan that shook his entire frame, he muttered, "Genba's behavior is outrageous."

  'Yaso! Yaso!" Looking all around him
and into the warriors' waiting area in the next room, Katsuie yelled out in a high-pitched voice.

  “Are you looking for Yoshida Yaso?" Menju Shosuke asked in return.

  “Of course!" Katsuie shrieked, venting his anger on Shosuke. "Call him here right now. Tell him to come here right away!"

  Running footsteps echoed through the temple. Yoshida Yaso received Katsuie's ordersand immediately whipped his horse toward Mount Oiwa.

  The long day finally darkened and the flames of the bonfires began to flicker in the shadows of the young leaves. They reflected what was now deep within Katsuie's breast.

  The return trip of two leagues could be completed in the twinkling of an eye by a fast horse, and Yaso returned in no time at all.

  "I told him that this was the last you had to say and admonished him thoroughly, but Lord Genba would not consent to a retreat."

  The sixth report was the same. Katsuie no longer had the energy to be angry and would have shed tears had he not been on the battlefield. Instead, he simply sank into grief and blamed himself, regretting the blind love he had held for Genba until now.

  "I'm the one who was wrong," he lamented.

  On the battlefield—where a man must act strictly according to military discipline— Genba had taken advantage of his close ties to his uncle. He had made a decision that could affect the rise or fall of the entire clan, and had insisted on his own selfish way without the least bit of reflection.

  But who was it who had allowed the young man to become accustomed to that kind of action? Wasn't this morass the result of his own heedless love for his nephew? Through it he had first lost his foster son, Katsutoyo, and Nagahama Castle. Now he was about to lose an enormous and irretrievable opportunity upon which rested the fate of the entire Shibata clan.

  When these thoughts came to him, Katsuie sank deep into a remorse for which there was absolutely no one else to blame.

  Yaso had more to report: the words that Genba had actually spoken. In response to Yaso's advice, Genba had laughed and even ridiculed his uncle:

  "Long ago, when people mentioned the name of Lord Katsuie, they called him the Demon Shibata, and said he was a general of devilish contrivances and mysterious schemes—at least from what I've heard. Today, however, his tactics come from an old head out of touch with the times. You can't wage war today with old-fashioned strategies. Look at our penetration into the enemy territory this time. At the beginning, my uncle wouldn't even give his permission for the plan. He should leave the whole thing to me and watch for the next day or two."

  Katsuie's gloom and wretchedness were unbearable to watch. He, more than anyone, knew Hideyoshi's true value as a general. The comments he had made to Genba and his other retainers had never been anything more than strategic remarks aimed at taking away their fear of the enemy. In his very bowels, Katsuie knew that Hideyoshi was a formidable adversary, especially after his withdrawal from the western provinces and his performance at the Battle of Yamazaki and the conference at Kiyosu. Now this powerful enemy was before him, and at the very opening of these all-or-nothing hostilities, he saw that his own ally was a stumbling block.

  "Genba's behavior is outrageous. Never once have I suffered a defeat or shown my back to the enemy. Ahh, this was inevitable."

  The night darkened, and Katsuie's anguish turned to resignation.

  Messengers were not sent out again.

  Genba's Stratagem

  That very same day—the twentieth of the month, at the Hour of the Horse—Hidenaga sent his first report to Hideyoshi's camp at Ogaki.

  This morning a Sakuma force of eight thousand men took to the mountain trails and entered deep into our territory.

  It was thirteen leagues from Kinomoto to Ogaki, and even for a mounted messenger, the courier had been amazingly fast.

  Hideyoshi had just come back from the bank of the Roku River, where he had gone to observe the level of the rising water. There had been violent rains in Mino for the past few days, and the Goto and Roku rivers, both of which flowed between Ogaki and Gifu, were flooding.

  The original plan had called for a general attack on Gifu Castle on the nineteenth, but the heavy rains and the floodwaters of the Roku River had obstructed Hideyoshi, and there were no prospects of crossing the river again that day. He had been waiting two days now for a chance to move on.

  Hideyoshi received the urgent letter from the messenger outside camp and read the note while still in the saddle. After thanking the messenger, he went back to his quarters without any visible show of emotion.

  "How about making me a bowl of tea, Yuko?" he asked. At about the time he was finishing his bowl of tea, a second messenger arrived:

  The twelve thousand-man main army under Lord Katsuie has taken up its positions. It is moving out of Kitsunezaka in the direction of Mount Higashino.

  Hideyoshi had moved to his camp stool in the curtained headquarters, and now he called in various members of his staff and told them, "An urgent message has just come from Hidenaga."

  Coolly, he read the letter aloud. The generals looked alarmed as they listened. The third dispatch was from Hori Kyutaro, who clearly detailed the brave fight and death of Nakagawa and the loss of Mount Iwasaki because of Takayama's retreat. Hideyoshi closed his eyes for a moment when he learned of Nakagawa's death in battle. For a moment, a desolate look came over the faces of the generals, and they blurted out pathetic questions. Every one of them stared at Hideyoshi, as if trying to read from his face how they would handle this dangerous situation.

  "Sebei's death is a great loss," Hideyoshi said, "but he did not die in vain." He spoke a little louder. "Be of good spirits, and thereby, you'll pay tribute to Sebei's spirit. More and more, heaven is prophesying that a great victory will be ours. Katsuie was entrenched in his mountain castle, withdrawn from the world and unable to find his way. Now he has left the fortress that was a prison for him and arrogantly drawn his formation out far and wide. That shows that his luck has run out. We should be able to destroy the bastard completely before he even quarters his troops. The time has come for us to realize our great desire and fight this decisive battle for the nation! The time has come, and not one of you should fall behind!"

  The dire news was suddenly transformed by Hideyoshi's few words into a reason for cheer.

  "The victory is ours!" Hideyoshi declared. Then, without losing any time, he began give out orders. The generals receiving his commands took their leave at once and each man almost flew back to his camp.

  These men, who had been pressed by the alarming feeling that they were in critical danger, now felt impatient and strained, waiting for their own names to be called as Hideyoshi gave out his commands.

  Except for Hideyoshi's pages and attendants, practically all the generals had withdrawn to make their preparations. But two local men, Ujiie Hiroyuki and Inaba Ittetsu, as well as Horio Mosuke, who was under Hideyoshi's direct command, had not received orders.

  Looking as though he could hardly contain himself, Ujiie came forward on his own and said, "My lord, I have a favor to ask: I would also like to prepare my own forces to go with you."

  "No, I want you to stay at Ogaki. I'll need you to keep Gifu under control." He then turned to Mosuke. "I want you to stay here too."

  With those last orders, Hideyoshi left the enclosure. He called for his page and asked him, "What about the couriers I ordered before? Are they ready?"

  "Yes, my lord! They're waiting for your instructions."

  The page ran off quickly and returned with fifty runners.

  Hideyoshi turned to the runners and addressed them directly. "Today is a day like no other in our lives. It is a great blessing for you to have been chosen to be the heralds of this day."

  He continued with individual orders. "Twenty of you will announce to the villagesOn the road between Tarui and Nagahama that torches should be set along the roads at nightfall. Also, no obstructions like handcarts, stock, or lumber should be left in the way. Children should be kept indoors and
bridges should be strengthened."

  The twenty men on his right nodded simultaneously. To the remaining thirty men he gave the following instructions: "The rest of you go to Nagahama at top speed. Have the garrison prepare itself, and tell the elders of the towns and villages that military provisions should be placed along the roads that we'll be traveling." The fifty men ran off right away.

  Hideyoshi immediately issued a command to the retainers around him and then mounted his black horse.

  Just then Ujiie ran up unexpectedly. "My lord! Wait a moment!" Clinging to Hideyoshi's saddle, the warrior was weeping silently.

  Leaving Ujiie alone in Gifu, with the possibility that he might communicate with Nobutaka and rebel, had been a source of anxiety for Hideyoshi. To forestall betrayal, he ordered Horio Mosuke to stay with Ujiie.

  Ujiie was mortified not only by the thought that he had been doubted but also by the realization that Mosuke would be left out of the most important battle of his life just because of him.

  It was in response to those deep emotions that Ujiie now clung to the bridle of Hideyoshi's horse. "Even if it's not right for me to accompany you, I beg you to allow General Mosuke at least to be at your side. I'll be happy to disembowel myself right here to remove your anxiety!"

  And he put his hand on his dagger.

  "Keep your head, Ujiie!" Hideyoshi shouted, striking the man's hand with his whip. “Mosuke can follow me if he wants to come with me that much. But he should come after the army has left. And for that matter, we can't just leave you. You should come along too."

  Almost insane with joy, Ujiie turned toward the staff headquarters and called out in a loud voice, "Lord Mosuke! Lord Mosuke! We've received permission to go! Come out and show your gratitude."

  The two men prostrated themselves on the ground, but all that remained was the sound of a whip in the wind. Hideyoshi's horse was already galloping off in the distance. Even his attendants were caught off guard and had to scramble to catch up.

  The men on foot, as well as those who quickly mounted their horses, chased after their master all at once without any formation or order.