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“I’m told that there is a large Heike force seven or eight miles from here,
under Mount Mikusa, to the west.
What do you say? Attack tonight or wait for tomorrow?”
Tashiro stepped forward to reply,
“If we leave the battle until tomorrow, reinforcements will join the Heike.
There are three thousand of them,
but we ourselves have ten thousand.
We are by far the stronger force.
I advise attacking tonight.”
“Well said, Tashiro!” Sanehira exclaimed. “Then, if you will, sir, let us move out!” And off they rode.
The warriors murmured among themselves, “But it’s so dark! How will we find our way?”
“What about the usual torches—the great, big ones?” Yoshitsune asked.
“By all means!” Sanehira replied. He set fire to the houses of Onobara.
They went on to set fire to moor and mountain, grasses and trees,
so that they covered those seven or eight miles
over Mount Mikusa in light as bright as day.
This Tashiro was the last son
of the counselor Tametsuna,
the former governor of Izu—
born of his father’s love affair
with a certain lady, the daughter
of Kano-no-suke Mochimitsu.
His mother’s grandfather brought him up
and made a warrior of him.
Regarding his further ancestry:
He looked back five generations
to Prince Sukehito, the third son
born to Emperor Go-Sanj.
His was a noble lineage,
and he was a fine warrior, too.
As for the Heike, they never imagined an attack that night.
“We’ll fight tomorrow, no doubt about that,” they told themselves.
“Feeling drowsy in battle is dangerous—better get some proper sleep first.”
A few among the advance guard nonetheless stayed alert,
but those in the rear lay down, pillowed on helmets, armor sleeves, quivers,
and slept there the sleep of the just.
It was the middle of the night
when ten thousand Genji warriors
rode down on them with fearsome cries.
Such panic overwhelmed the Heike
that one took his bow but forgot arrows,
another arrows but forgot his bow.
Scrambling back to avoid charging hooves,
they left the enemy free passage.
The Genji pursued them as they fled
hither and yon, till five hundred Heike
lay dead, struck down by Genji archers.
Many more of them suffered wounds.
Sukemori, their senior commander,
Arimori, and Tadafusa
must have felt overcome by shame,
for they boarded a boat at Takasago
in Harima and sailed away
to Yashima, over in Sanuki.
Moromori gathered together
Heinaibye and Emi no Jir
and took both to Ichi-no-tani.
9. The Old Horse
Lord Munemori had an official named Yoshiyuki take the Heike nobles this message:
“It appears that Kur Yoshitsune has routed our men at Mikusa
and that he will burst into Ichi-no-tani at any moment.”
The nobles all excused themselves at once.
To Noritsune, Munemori sent this:
“Please forgive these repeated requests,
but would you be good enough to go out to face them?”
“War is my life,” Noritsune replied. “All will be well.
No one ever won victory by fighting only on his own ground,
like a fisherman or a hunter, and avoiding unfavorable terrain.
I will gladly face a powerful enemy as often as you like.
Victory will be mine this time. You may set your mind at rest.”
Buoyed by Noritsune’s confidence, Munemori assigned him
ten thousand mounted men under Moritoshi, the former governor of Etchū.
With his elder brother Michimori, Noritsune secured the side against the mountains—
in other words, the terrain below Hiyodori Ravine.
Michimori called his wife to Noritsune’s command post
and there bade her a tender farewell.
Lord Noritsune was furious. “This is the most dangerous side of the fort,” he objected, “and that is exactly why I was sent here. Yes, it is critical. The Genji could fall on us from up there at any moment. We might never have time to snatch up our bows, and if we did, we might still not get an arrow to the string—or, worse, never even get a chance to shoot it! And there you are, mooning about—you are a waste of time!”
Apparently Michimori got the point, because he hastily took up arms and sent his wife back where she came from.
On the fifth, toward sundown, the Genji started from Koyano
and little by little drove on to Ikuta Wood.
The view toward the Suzume Pines,
the Mikage Woods, and Koyano
revealed camp after Genji camp,
their fires plain to see from afar.
As darkness fell, they blazed so bright
the moon might have been coming up
over the nearby mountain ridge.
“Let us light some fires of our own!”
the Heike said, and managed a few
in Ikuta Wood. By the light of dawn,
those Genji fires shone like stars
glittering in a cloudless sky.
That old poem about fireflies
flitting around beside a river—
now they beheld that very scene.
As for the Genji, they camped here and rested their horses,
camped there and fed them. They were in no hurry.
The Heike meanwhile quivered with apprehension,
expecting attack at any moment.
On the sixth, at dawn, Yoshitsune divided his ten thousand into two.
Seven thousand, under Doi Sanehira, he sent to the west side of Ichi-no-tani.
Three thousand he took around by the Tanba road, in a flanking movement
behind Ichi-no-tani, with a view to charging down Hiyodori Ravine.
His men murmured among themselves,
“But everyone knows that Hiyodori is impassable!”
“If I’m going to die, I want at least to die fighting the enemy.
I don’t want to get myself killed just falling off a rock!”
“There must be someone around who knows these mountains!”
Hirayama Sueshige, from Musashi, came forward to say, “I do. I know them.”
“But you are from the east,” Yoshitsune objected.
“You have never even seen these mountains of the west.
You cannot possibly know anything about them.”
Hirayama insisted,
“And you cannot possibly mean that.
Poets know the cherry blossoms
of Yoshino and Hatsuse;
a true warrior knows all about the terrain behind the fortress where his enemy lurks.” His words reeked of insolence.
The next to speak was another Musashi man, Beppu no Kotar Kiyoshige,
a young fellow still in his eighteenth year:
“My father always used to say that when you are lost in the mountains,
never mind whether you have an enemy after you or are just out hunting,
the thing is to bridle an old horse and let it go ahead of you.
It will always find you a trail.”
“Well spoken!” said Yoshitsune.
Even when all is deep in snow,
they say, an old horse still knows the way.
On an old horse, a pale roan,
he placed a saddle with steel trim,
gave the creature a polished steel bit,
let the reins lie loose over its
neck,
and sent it ambling on ahead.
Off it went, among unknown mountains.
This was early in the second month.
High up, patches of snow lingered,
looking for all the world like flowers.
Down in the valleys, warblers sang,
and at times they wandered through mist.
They climbed toward brilliant, soaring clouds,
descended green, thickly wooded cliffs.
Snow lay unmelted on the pines;
moss shrouded the narrow track.
Snowflakes blew past them like plum petals.
Eastward, westward they whipped their horses
until dusk settled over their path
and they dismounted to make camp.
Musashib Benkei brought in an old man. Yoshitsune asked who he was. “A hunter in these mountains, sir,” Benkei replied.
Yoshitsune addressed the hunter. “Then you must know these mountains well,” he said. “I want straight answers.”
“Of course I know them,” the old man replied.
Yoshitsune explained, “My idea is to charge down from here into the Heike fort at Ichi-no-tani. What do you think of it?”
“You will never make it. No one could get all the way down a ravine like that, several hundred yards long and blocked by huge, rocky outcrops. And you want to do it on horseback? Impossible! Besides, they seem to have dug pit traps inside the fort and planted sharpened stakes. They are all ready for you.”
“All right, but do deer get down there?”
“The deer, yes, they get through.
When the season warms up a bit,
the Harima deer take that trail to Tanba
to enjoy the lush pasture there,
and when the cold comes back again,
the Tanba deer take it to Harima
to feed there on Inamino,
where there is never that much snow.”
“Why then,” Yoshitsune exclaimed, “it sounds like a veritable riding ground!
If deer can get through, so can horses.
I want you to show us the way, right now.”
The man protested that he was too old.
“You must have a son, then.”
“Yes, I do.” He presented Kuma, in his eighteenth year.
Yoshitsune had Kuma come of age on the spot,
and since his father’s name was Washino-o no Shji Takehisa,
he gave him the name Washino-o no Sabur Yoshihisa.
He had Yoshihisa ride before them to show them the way.
Later, after the Heike defeat,
when, pursued by his brother’s wrath,
Yoshitsune was killed in the north,
this Yoshihisa died with him.
10. First or Second to Engage the Foe
Until well into the night of the sixth, Kumagai and Hirayama lay low in the flanking force.
Kumagai then called over his son, Kojir.
“When these men charge down that treacherous ravine,” he said,
“none will be able to claim having made it before the others.
Come, let us take the Harima road to where Doi Sanehira is posted
and be the first of them all into Ichi-no-tani.”
“By all means,” Kojir replied. “I had the same thought.
Let us be on our way, if I may join you.”
His father replied, “As a matter of fact, Hirayama is here, too,
and he has no taste either for mass combat.”
“Go, have a look at what Hirayama is up to,” he added to a servant.
Sure enough, Hirayama was already preparing to leave.
“Others can please themselves,” he was muttering,
“but I have no intention of letting anyone get a step ahead of me.”
Hirayama’s servant was feeding his master’s horse.
“You brute!” the man cried. “Won’t you ever finish?” He struck the beast.
“Stop that! This is his last night!” Hirayama rebuked the man. And off he rode.
Kumagai’s servant raced back with the news.
“I knew it!” said Kumagai. He, too, started at once.
Over a blue-black hitatare,
Kumagai wore red-laced armor
and a red neckpiece on his helmet.
He rode the famous Gonda Chestnut.
Kojir wore a hitatare
lightly dyed with arrowhead leaves
and armor with zigzag-braid lacing.
He rode Seir, a pale red roan.
Their standard-bearer, in olive green
under armor laced with dark blue leather
sprinkled with small, yellow-tinted flowers,
rode behind them on a sorrel.
The key ravine dropped off to their left.
They followed, farther on to the right,
the old, long-abandoned road that led
past Tai-no-hata and, beyond,
to where the waves broke at Ichi-no-tani.
Night still shrouded Shioya, a locality near Ichi-no-tani,
where Doi Sanehira lay in wait with his seven thousand.
Under cover of darkness, Kumagai stole past him, along the sea’s edge,
to launch an assault against the west access gate to the fortress.
These were the small hours. From the enemy within, only silence.
Not one Genji rider followed.
Kumagai called his son to him and said,
“Many out there must be burning to break in first.
I am not so dull as to imagine that we are alone.
They are probably here already, prepared to move, only waiting for dawn.
Let us announce our names.”
He went up to the wall of shields and called in a great voice,
“Kumagai no Jir Naozane
and his son, Kojir Naoie,
both residents of Musashi:
We declare ourselves first to challenge
the fortress of Ichi-no-tani!”
The Heike, within, warned one another to keep quiet.
“Let them wear out their horses!” they said.
Kumagai got no reply.
Meanwhile a single warrior rode up behind them. “Who goes there?” asked Kumagai.
“Hirayama Sueshige. And you?”
“Kumagai Naozane.”
“Really! When did you get here?”
“During the night.”
“I should have been right behind you,” Hirayama explained, “but Narida Gor tripped me up and delayed me. He swore that he wanted to die with me, if it came to that, and I agreed. So we set out together. But then he began remonstrating with me. ‘Do not be too eager to attack first, Hirayama,’ he said. ‘To be first you must have the others behind you, to witness your success or failure. To charge alone in among many and get yourself killed for your pains—what is the point of that?’ I saw he was right, so I rode to the top of a little slope, let my horse drop his head, and awaited the others. Then Narida turned up again.
I assumed that he had in mind
to stop beside me and have a talk
about the battle and how it might go,
but not at all. He shot me a cold glance
and galloped straight past. ‘Oh, no!’ I thought.
‘This fellow has been planning all along
to make sure he is the one to be first!’
He had sixty or seventy yards on me,
but I saw that I had the stronger horse,
and soon enough I caught up with him.
‘So,’ I called out, ‘you have the gall
to play a low trick on a man like me!’
and on I went. He fell far behind.
I doubt that he ever saw me again.”
Meanwhile dawn was spreading across the sky.
The five riders—Kumagai, Hirayama, and their men—waited.
Kumagai had already declared his name,
but perhaps he meant to announce it again for Hirayama to hear,
“Kumagai no Jir Naozane
and his son, Kojir Naoie,
both men of Musashi province,
first challenge Ichi-no-tani.
Come, any Heike warrior
brave enough to test my mettle,
come out and try me, Naozane!”
Some Heike warriors muttered in response, “All right, let’s go and get them, this Kumagai, father and son who have been bellowing at us all night! Let’s drag them in here!”
And the men who advanced to do that, who were they? Etchū no Jirbye Moritsugi, Kazusa no Gorbye Tadamitsu, Akushichibye Kagekiyo, and Gotnai Sadatsune, followed by others, some twenty in all. They threw the gate open and charged.
Hirayama wore a hitatare
tie-dyed to leave a pattern of spots
under armor with scarlet lacing
and a double-barred-circle neckpiece.
He rode a steed named Mekasuge.
His standard-bearer, in black-laced armor,
sported a broad, sturdy neck plate
and sat mounted on a red roan.
“Behold Hirayama Sueshige,”
he cried, “a warrior from Musashi,
one of the vanguard in the battles
fought in both Hgen and Heiji!”
Lord and standard-bearer, together,
galloped forward with fierce cries.
Where Kumagai charged, Hirayama followed,
where Hirayama, Kumagai.
Each determined to best the other,
they cut and slashed until the sparks flew.
The Heike, so grievously assaulted,
must have seen they could not prevail,
for they retreated within their fort,
battling to keep out the enemy.
Struck in the belly by an arrow, Kumagai’s horse reared.
Kumagai got over its flailing legs and dismounted, to stand on firm ground.
His son, Kojir, announced name and age—he was in his sixteenth year—
and fought his way so forcefully forward
that his horse touched the shield wall with its muzzle,
but Kojir’s bow arm, his left, took an arrow.
He leaped from his mount to stand by his father.
“What is it, Kojir? Are you wounded?”
“Yes.” “Make sure your armor is straight,
let no arrow work its way through,