scolded him. Shoyoken was not just disciplining the young man but was also trying to calm his nephew. Quite unlike his ordinary resolute self, Katsuyori had turned pale in surprise.
'This is not some small matter. It's really important, my lord,' Genshiro replied as he prostrated himself. 'Kiso Yoshimasa of Fukushima has committed treason!'
'Kiso?' Shoyoken's voice expressed a shock that was half doubt, half refusal. As for Katsuyori, he had probably already guessed this would happen. He was just biting his lip and looking down at the retainer prostrated in front of him.
The beating in Shoyoken's breast was not going to be calmed easily, and his lack of composure was echoed in his shaking voice. “The letter! Let’s see the letter!”
'The messenger told me to tell Lord Katsuyori that the matter was so urgent there was not a moment to spare,' the retainer said, 'and that we are to wait for a letter from the next messenger.'
As he walked away in great strides, Katsuyori stepped right past the still prostrate retainer and yelled back to Shoyoken. 'It won't be necessary to see Goro's letter. There have been plenty of suspicious signs from Yoshimasa and Baisetsu in recent years. I know it's a lot of trouble, Uncle, but I'm going to need you to lead an army again. I'll be going too.'
Before two hours had passed, the sound of a great drum rang out from the tower of the new castle, and the call of the conch shell floated through the castle town, proclaiming mobilization. The plum blossoms were almost white as this peaceful spring evening came to a close in the mountain province. The army set out before the end of the day. Hastened by the setting sun, five thousand men started out on the Fukushima Road, and by nightfall almost ten thousand troops had left Nirasaki.
'Well, this is just fine! He's made his revolt quite clear to us. If it hadn't happened, the day for me to strike down the ungrateful traitor might never have come. This time we'll have to purge Fukushima of everyone with divided loyalties.'
Giving vent to the resentment that was so hard to control, Katsuyori mumbled to himself as his horse took him along the road. But the voices of indignation that traveled with him—the voices of resentment over Kiso's betrayal—were few.
Katsuyori was as confident as always. When he had cut off his relations with the Hojo, he had abandoned an ally without even looking back at the strength of the clan that been such a great support to him.
At the suggestion of those around him, Katsuyori had returned Nobunaga's son— who had been a hostage with the Takeda for many years—to Azuchi; but there was still plenty of contempt left in his heart for the lord of the Oda clan, and even more for Tokugawa Ieyasu in Hamamatsu. He had displayed this aggressive attitude since the battle of Nagashino.
There was nothing wrong with the strength of his spirit. He was extremely positive. Certainly, strength of spirit is a substance that should fill the jar of the heart to the brim. And during this period of warring provinces, the samurai class as a whole could be said to have possessed that kind of spirit. But in the situation in which Katsuyori found himself, there was an absolute need for unerring adherence to a composed strength that, at a glance, might be taken for weakness. A reckless show of strength would not intimidate an opponent. On the contrary, it only encouraged him. For a number of years, Katsuyori's manliness and courage had been looked down upon for this reason by both Nobunaga and Ieyasu.
And not only by these men, his enemies. Even in his own province of Kai there were voices expressing the wish that Shingen were still alive.
Shingen had insisted on a strong military administration of the province. And because he had given both his retainers and the people of Kai the feeling that they would be absolutely secure as long as he was there, they depended on him completely.
Even during Katsuyori's reign, military service, tax collection, and all other phases of administration were conducted according to Shingen's laws. But something was missing.
Katsuyori did not understand what that something was; regrettably, he did not even notice that something
In Shingen's time, there was a general article of faith shared by the upper and lower classes, one of which they were very proud: no enemy had ever been permitted to take even one step inside the boundaries of Kai.
But misgivings seemed to be springing up everywhere now. It is hardly necessary to mention that it was obvious to everyone that a line had been drawn with the great defeat of Nagashino. That disaster had not been simply a matter of the failure of the Kai army's equipment and strategy. It had resulted from the shortcomings of Katsuyori's character; and those around him—even the general population, who looked to him as their mainstay— felt a horrible disappointment. Katsuyori, they realized, was not Shingen.
Although Kiso Yoshimasa was Shingen's son-in-law, he was plotting to betray Katsuyori and did not believe that he could survive. He was beginning to tally up Kai's prospects for the future. Through an intermediary in Mino, he had secretly been in touch with Nobunaga for already two years now.
The Kai army split up into a number of lines and marched to Fukushima.
As the soldiers marched they were confident, and they could often be heard to say, 'We'll crush Kiso's forces right under our feet.'
But as the days passed, the news relayed to headquarters did not make Takeda Katsuyori smile in satisfaction. On the contrary, the reports were all disturbing.
'Kiso is being stubborn.'
'The terrain is hilly, and they have good defenses, so it will take a number of days for our vanguard to approach it.'
Every time Katsuyori heard these kinds of things, he bit his lip and muttered, 'If I went there myself…”
It was part of his character to become angry and exasperated when a war situation was going badly.
The month passed, and it was now the fourth day of the Second Month.
Horribly distressing news came to Katsuyori: Nobunaga had suddenly given the order for the Oda troops to mobilize in Azuchi, and he himself had already left Omi.
Another spy brought more bad news:
'The forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu have left Suruga; Hojo Ujimasa's troops have left the Kanto; and Kanamori Hida has left his castle. All of them are marching toward Kai, and it's said that Nobunaga and Nobutada have split their troops into two and are about to invade. When I climbed a high mountain and looked out, I could see columns of smoke in every direction.'
Katsuyori felt as if he had been hurled to the ground. 'Nobunaga! Ieyasu! And even Hojo Ujimasa?'
According to these secret reports, his own situation was about the same as that of a mouse in a trap.
Dusk was approaching. New reports came in that Shoyoken's troops had deserted during the previous night.
'That can't be true!' Katsuyori said. But it was a fact that such a thing had occurred during the night, and the urgent messages that came in one after another brought proof that could not be denied.
'Shoyoken! Isn't he my uncle, and an elder of the clan? What's the idea of leaving the battlefield and running away without permission? And all those others. It only sullies my mouth to speak about such disloyalty and ingratitude.'
Railing against heaven and against humankind, Katsuyori should instead have felt such rancor against himself. Ordinarily he was not so weak-minded. But even a man with tremendous courage could not have helped being frightened by such a turn of events.
'It can't be helped. You must give the order to strike camp.'
So advised by Oyamada Nobushige and the others, Katsuyori suddenly retreated. How desolate he must have felt! Although the twenty thousand soldiers he had counted on at the time of his departure had not engaged in a single battle, the retainers and men returning to Nirasaki with him now numbered no more than four thousand.
Perhaps trying to find an outlet for feelings he hardly knew how to deal with, he ordered the monk Kaisen to come to the castle. His bad luck seemed to be increasing, for even after he returned to Nirasaki, he received one depressing report after another. The worst, perhaps, was the news that his kinsman Anayama Baisetsu had
