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

by Eiji Yoshikawa

  Thus, festering discord had become the weak point of the allied army. More than that, the main advocate of this great battle had been Nobuo, not Ieyasu. Nobuo had preached the cause of duty to Ieyasu, and the lord of Mikawa had risen up to help him. His standpoint, therefore, was one of an ally, and so it was all the more difficult to control Nobuo. Finally he made a suggestion. "While Hideyoshi is in Osaka, sooner or later he will move on Ise. Indeed, for our allies, some worrisome signs have already appeared. I think you should return to your main castle at Nagashima as soon as possible."

  Taking this opportunity, Nobuo quickly returned to Ise. Ieyasu remained at Mount Komaki for a little while, but he too finally departed for Kiyosu, leaving Sakai Tadatsugu in command. The people of Kiyosu came out to greet Ieyasu with cheers of victory, but not in the same numbers as the people of Osaka had for Hideyoshi.

  The citizens and soldiers hailed the battle of Nagakute as a great victory for the Tokugawa clan, but Ieyasu cautioned his retainers against frivolous pride and sent the following message to his troops:

  Militarily, Nagakute was a victory, but in terms of castles and land, Hideyoshi has taken the real advantage. Do not be so happily dull-headed as to get drunk on a false reputation.

  During the stalemate at Mount Komaki, the fact was that in Ise, where there had been no battles for a while, Hideyoshi's allies had taken the castles at Mine, Kanbe, Kokufu, and Hamada, and attacked and destroyed the castle at Nanokaichi. Before anyone was aware of it, most of Ise had fallen into Hideyoshi's hands.

  Hideyoshi was at Osaka Castle for about one month, looking to the affairs of its internal administration, making plans for regulating the areas around the capital, and enjoying his own private life. For the present, he regarded the Mount Komaki crisis as someone else's concern.

  During the Seventh Month he traveled to Mino and back. Then, in about the middle of the Eighth Month he said, "It's boring to drag this out for too long. This autumn I’llhave to finish the matter up once and for all."

  Once again, he announced that a great army would depart for the front. For two days before the departure, the flutes and drums of Noh plays resounded through the depths of the main citadel. From time to time the boisterous laughter of a large crowd of people could be heard.

  Engaging a troupe of Noh actors, Hideyoshi invited his mother, his wife, and his kinsmen in the castle to share one day of enjoyment together.

  Among the guests were the three princesses who were being raised in seclusion in the citadel. Chacha was seventeen that year; the middle sister was thirteen; and the youngest of the three was going to be eleven.

  Just one year before, on the day Kitanosho Castle fell, the girls had looked behind them at the smoke enshrouding the death of their foster father, Shibata Katsuie, and their mother. They had been moved from the camp in the northern provinces and had seen no one but strangers, no matter where they looked. For a while their eyes were swollen with tears day and night, and not a single smile appeared on the youthful faces that ordinarily would have been full of mirth. But the three princesses finally got used to the people in the castle and, humored by Hideyoshi's easygoing style, became fond of him as "our interesting uncle."

  That day, after a number of performances, that "interesting uncle" went into the dressing room enclosure, changed into costume, and came out on the stage himself.

  “Look! It's uncle!" one of the girls called out.

  “ My, he looks so funny!"

  Ignoring the presence of the others, the two younger princesses clapped their hands and pointed, unable to stop laughing. As might be expected, the eldest sister, Chacha, reprimanded them. "You shouldn't point. Just watch quietly," she said. She did her best to sit modestly, but Hideyoshi's antics were so funny that, in the end, Chacha hid her mouth behind her sleeve and laughed as though her sides would burst.

  “What's this? When we laugh, we get scolded. But you're laughing now."

  With her two sisters poking fun at her, Chacha could only laugh more and more.

  Hideyoshi's mother also laughed from time to time as she watched her son's comic dance, but Nene, used to her husband's antics and his constant joking inside the family circle, did not look particularly amused.

  What interested Nene today was the peaceful observation of her husband's concubines, who were sitting here and there, surrounded by maids.

  While they were still in Nagahama, he had had only two mistresses, but after they had moved to Osaka Castle, before she knew it there was a concubine in the second citadel, and another in the third.

  It was hard to believe, but in his triumphal return from the siege of the north, he had brought back Asai Nagamasa's three orphaned daughters and was lovingly raising them in the second citadel.

  It pained the ladies who served Nene—Hideyoshi's true wife, after all—that the eldest sister, Chacha, was even more beautiful than her mother.

  “Lady Chacha is already seventeen years old. Why does His Lordship gaze at her the way he'd look at a flower in a vase?"

  They only added fuel to the fire with comments like that, but Nene simply laughed.

  "There's nothing to be done; it's like a scratch on a pearl," she'd say.

  Formerly, she, too, had been as jealous as any other wife might be, and when she was living in Nagahama she had gone as far as to complain to Nobunaga, who had sent her a written reply:

  You were born a woman, and have chanced to meet an extremely unusual man. I imagine that there must be faults in such a man, but his good points are numerous. When you are looking out from the midst of a large mountain, you can't understand how big that mountain truly is. Be at peace, and enjoy living with this man in the way he wants to live. I am not saying that jealousy is a bad thing. To a certain extent, jealousy adds depth to the life of a married couple.

  So in the end, it was she who had been reprimanded. Having learned by that experience, Nene had set her mind on self-control and had planned on becoming a woman who could overlook her husband's affairs. Recently, however, there were days when she felt threatened, wondering if her husband wasn't beginning to indulge himself too much.

  At any rate, he was now approaching the age of forty-seven, the most prosperous time for a man. While he had his hands full with external problems like the battle at Mount Komaki, he was also very busy with internal affairs like the administration of his bedroom. And so he lived insatiably, day by day, with the vitality of a healthy man—so much so that an observer might have wondered how he was able to sort out the common from the uncommon, the magnanimous gesture from the discreet, and grand public actions from the ones that should be totally hidden away.

  "Watching the dance is amusing, but when I go out and perform on stage, it's not so much fun at all. In fact, it's hard."

  Hideyoshi had come up behind his mother and Nene. He had just a moment ago left the stage at the applause of the spectators and appeared not to have sobered up from the excitement of the act.

  "Nene," he said, "let's spend a quiet evening in your room tonight. Would you prepare a banquet?"

  As the performance ended, the bright light of the lamps flooded the area, and the guests made their way back to the third and second citadels.

  Hideyoshi now dropped in at Nene's room, accompanied by a large crowd of actors and musicians. His mother had retired to her quarters, so husband and wife were alone with their guests.

  It was customary for Nene to pay attention to such people and their servants, and to all her subordinates. Especially after today's gathering, she enjoyed thanking them for their services and seeing them frivolously exchanging sake cups, and making conversation with their audience.

  Hideyoshi had been sitting by himself from the very beginning, and since everyone seemed to be ignoring him, he looked a little morose.

  "Nene, I suppose it would be all right if I had a cup too," he said.

  "Do you think you should?"

  "Do you think I'm not going to drink? Why do you think I came to your room?"

>   "Well, your mother said, 'That boy will be heading for Mount Komaki again the day after tomorrow,' and she strictly ordered me to apply the usual moxa to your shins and hips before you leave for the front."

  "What! She said to apply moxa ?"

  "She worries that the lingering heat of autumn will still be over the battlefield, and if you drink bad water, your liable to fall ill. I'll apply the moxa and give you a cup of sake after that."

  "That's ridiculous. I don't like moxa!'

  "Whether you like it or not, those are your mother's orders."

  "Well, just for that I'm staying away from your room. Of all the people watching my performance this afternoon, you were the only one who didn't laugh. You looked so serious."

  "That's my nature. Even if you tell me to behave like the pretty girls, I can't." Nene showed a little anger. Then, suddenly, tears welled up in her eyes as she recalled the old days when she herself was Chacha's age and Hideyoshi was the twenty-five-year-old Tokichiro.

  Hideyoshi looked curiously at his wife and asked, "Why are you crying?"

  "I don't know," Nene said, looking away, and Hideyoshi turned to face her directly.

  "Are you saying that it's going to be lonely when I go to the front again?"

  "Since the beginning of our married life, how many days have you spent at home?"

  "There's nothing to be done until we put the world at peace, even if you don't like war," Hideyoshi replied. "And if the unforeseen hadn't happened to Lord Nobunaga, I'd probably be in charge of some countryside castle, sitting out my life and forced to be at your side exactly the way you like it."

  "People are going to hear the nasty things you're saying. I understand exactly what's in a man's heart."

  "And I understand a woman's heart too!"

  "You always make fun of me. I'm not speaking out of jealousy, like some ordinary woman."

  "Any wife would say that."

  "Will you listen to me without making this into a joke?"

  "All right. I'm listening with great respect."

  "I resigned myself a long time ago. So I'm hardly going to tell you that I'm lonely taking care of your castie when you're on a campaign."

  "A virtuous woman, a faithful wife! This is why the Tokichiro of so long ago put his mark on you."

  "Don't carry your joking too far! That is why your mother spoke to me."

  "What did my mother say?"

  "She said I was so submissive that you were going to get carried away and become dissipated. She told me I should speak up to you from time to time."

  "Is that the reason for the moxa?" Hideyoshi laughed.

  "You don't have a thought about her worries. Your self-indulgent intemperance has led you to be unfilial."

  "When was I intemperate?"

  "Weren't you making a lot of noise about something in Lady Sanjo's room right up until dawn two nights ago?"

  The attendants and actors drinking in the next room pretended not to listen to this rare—well, perhaps not so rare—argument between husband and wife. Just at that point however, Hideyoshi raised his voice and yelled, "Hey, now! What does the audience think of this couple's performance?"

  One of the actors answered, "Yes indeed, it looks to me like a game of kickball between blind people."

  "Even a dog wouldn't nibble at that," Hideyoshi laughed.

  "Come on. There's no end to such winning and losing."

  "You there, the flutist, what did you think?"

  "Well, I was watching it as I might my own business. Who's to blame, who's to fault Blame! Fault! Blam! Foom! Blam! Foom!"

  Hideyoshi suddenly snatched Nene's over-kimono and threw it out as a prize.

  On the following day Hideyoshi's family was unable to get even a glimpse of him, even though they were in the same castle. Throughout the day Hideyoshi was pressed with the work of giving instructions to his retainers and generals.

  On the twenty-sixth day of the Eighth Month, Ieyasu received an urgent report that Hideyoshi was coming. He hastened from Kiyosu to Iwakura with Nobuo, and set up a position opposing Hideyoshi. Ieyasu again took up a totally defensive position and warned his men not to initiate any movement or challenge on their own.

  "This is a man who doesn't know the meaning of enough."

  Hideyoshi had already found Ieyasu's patience difficult to deal with, but he was not completely without such resources himself. He knew that it was impossible to open the wreath shell's cap, even with a hammer, but if the tail end of its shell was roasted, however, the meat could be taken out easily. It was this sort of ordinary reasoning that now occupied his thinking. Quietly sending Niwa Nagahide to see about concluding a peace agreement was like heating the wreath shell's tail.

  Niwa was the most senior among the Oda clan's retainers and was a dependable and popular character. Now that Katsuie was dead and Takigawa Kazumasu was in reduced circumstances, Hideyoshi did not forget the necessity of winning over that warm, good man as his own "chessman in reserve" before the hostilities at Mount Komaki began.

  Niwa was in the north with Inuchiyo, but Niwa's generals, Kanamori Kingo and Hachiya Yoritaka, were participating in the war on Hideyoshi's side. Before anyone even knew it, those two generals had gone back and forth a number of times between Hideyoshi and their home province of Echizen.

  The content of the letters that were being sent was unknown even to the envoys, but finally Niwa himself made a secret journey to Kiyosu and had an interview with Ieyasu.

  Such talks, however, were conducted in extreme secrecy. The only men who knew about them on Hideyoshi's side were Niwa and his two generals. At Hideyoshi’s suggestion, Ishikawa Kazumasa became his go-between.

  Eventually, however, someone within the Tokugawa clan leaked a rumor that secret peace talks had been initiated. That set off great agitation in Ieyasu's defenses centered at Mount Komaki.

  When rumors leak out, they are always accompanied by malicious gossip. In this case the name that surfaced was one that was already held in suspicion by his fellow retainers—that of Ishikawa Kazumasa.

  “It's being said that Kazumasa is the mediator. Somehow there's always something that smells funny between Hideyoshi and Kazumasa."

  There were some people who spoke about it directly to Ieyasu, but he rebuked whoever spoke to him and never doubted Kazumasa in the least.

  But once that kind of doubt had arisen among the retainers, the morale of the whole clan began to suffer.

  Ieyasu, of course, was in favor of holding peace talks, but when he saw the internal condition of his forces, he suddenly rejected Niwa's messenger.

  “I have no desire for peace," Ieyasu said. "I have no hopes for a settlement with Hideyoshi, no matter what conditions he offers. We're going to fight a decisive battle here, I'm going to take Hideyoshi's head, and we'll let the nation know what true duty is."

  When this was announced officially throughout Ieyasu's camp, the soldiers were d, and the dark rumors about Kazumasa were swept away.

  “Hideyoshi's started to break down!"

  Their spirits revitalized, they became all the more aggressive.

  Hideyoshi received the bitter cup with resignation. To him, the result seemed not altogether bad. So he did not venture to use military strength that time either, but ordered his forces to occupy strategic areas. Toward the middle of the Ninth Month, he sent his soldiers back once more and entered the castle at Ogaki.

  How many times was it now that the citizens of Osaka had watched Hideyoshi and his army leave for the front and then return, going back and forth between the castle and Mino?

  It was now the twentieth day of the Tenth Month—already late autumn. Hideyoshi's army, which usually passed through Osaka, Yodo, and Kyoto, suddenly changed its route atSakamoto and this time passed through Koga in Iga and went on toward Ise. There it left the Mino Road and took the one that led to Owari.

  Dispatch after urgent dispatch was sent out from Nobuo's branch castles and spies in Ise, almost as though a dike had unexpectedl
y opened in a number of places and the muddy waters of a turbulent river were rushing that way.

  “It's Hideyoshi's main force!"

  “These are not soldiers under the command of a single general, as we've seen until now.”

  On the twenty-third of the month Hideyoshi's army camped at Hanetsu and built fortifications at Nawabu.

  With Hideyoshi's army closing in on his castle, Nobuo was unable to keep his composure. For about a month now he had had forebodings that the storm was approaching Which is to say that Ishikawa Kazumasa's actions—which had been kept an absolute secret by the Tokugawa clan—had been mysteriously exaggerated and discussed bysomeone, though nobody could quite say who.

  The rumor went that the inner circle of the Tokugawa clan was not really united. It appeared that a number of Ieyasu's retainers were hostile to Kazumasa and were just waiting for the right moment.

  It was also being widely rumored that the Tokugawa had been negotiating with Hideyoshi, that Ieyasu was trying to make peace quickly, before news of the rupture of his inner circle leaked out, but that negotiations had been broken off because the conditions set by Hideyoshi were too severe.

  Nobuo was frankly pained. What, after all, would happen to him if Ieyasu made peace with Hideyoshi?

  "If Hideyoshi changes direction and heads out on the Ise Road, you had better be resigned to the fact that there is already a secret understanding between Hideyoshi and Ieyasu to sacrifice your clan, my lord."

  And, just as Nobuo had feared, Hideyoshi's army suddenly confirmed his worse nightmares. There was no plan he could follow other than to report the emergency to Ieyasu and call for his help.

  Sakai Tadatsugu was in charge of Kiyosu Castle during Ieyasu's absence. When he received the urgent report from Nobuo, he immediately had a runner relay it to Ieyasu, who raised all his forces on the same day and marched to Kiyosu. He then quickly sent reinforcements under Sakai Tadatsugu to Kuwana.

  Kuwana is the geographical neck of Nagashima. Nobuo also took soldiers there and placed them facing Hideyoshi, who had set up his headquarters in the village of Nawabu.

  Nawabu was on the bank of the Machiya River, about one league to the southwest of Kuwana, but the mouths of the Kiso and Ibi rivers were close by, and it was an excellent place from which to threaten Nobuo's headquarters.