ground surrounding the castle had been transformed almost instantly into a dry plain, while the lowlands were marshes crisscrossed with rivers; so even if the Mori had considered giving chase, they would not have been able to cross over for another two or three days.
On the seventh, Hideyoshi arrived at the Fukuoka River crossing and found the river
in flood. The soldiers made protective padding for the horses by lashing their packs together and then crossed over, forming a human chain by either linking hands or grasping the shaft of the spear carried by the man in front.
Hideyoshi had crossed first, and sat on his camp stool on the bank. 'Don't panic! Take your time!' he shouted. He appeared to be completely untroubled by the wind and the rain. 'If one man drowns, the enemy will say we lost five hundred; if you lose one piece of baggage, they'll say it was a hundred. Don't lose your life or your weapons here in vain.'
The rear guard now caught up with the main army, and with the units trailing in one after another, both banks of the river were filled with soldiers. The commander of the rear guard came before Hideyoshi to report on the situation at Takamatsu. The retreat had been completed, and there was still no sign of the Mori. A look of relief spread over Hideyoshi's face. He looked as though he finally felt safe; now he could channel all his strength in one direction.
The army returned to Himeji on the morning of the eighth. Covered in mud, then drenched by the storm, the soldiers had covered twenty leagues in one day.
'The first thing I want to do,' Hideyoshi said to his attendants, 'is take a bath.'
The governor of the castle prostrated himself before Hideyoshi. After congratulating him on his return, he informed him that two messengers had arrived, one from Nagahama with urgent news.
'I'll take care of it after having a bath. I'd like plenty of hot water. The rain soaked right through my armor and all the way to my underwear.'
Hideyoshi sank into the hot water up to his shoulders. The morning sun was framed by the bathroom window; it poured down through the high latticework onto his face, suspended in the steam. As he sat there, the skin on his face seemed to boil to a darkish red, while large drops of sweat beaded on his forehead. Hundreds of tiny rainbows appeared in the steam.
Hideyoshi jumped out of the tub, making a noise like a waterfall. 'Hey! Somebody come wash my back!' he called.
The two pages who were waiting outside ran in. Putting all of their strength into the task, they scrubbed him down from the back of his neck to his fingertips.
Hideyoshi suddenly laughed and said, 'It comes off in a strange way!' Looking down around his feet, he saw that the dirt the pages had scraped off his body resembled bird droppings.
How could this man be possessed of such a dignified appearance on the battlefield? His naked body seemed a truly poor and meager thing. It was true that he had overworked himself during the five years of the western campaign, but there was altogether too little fat on his forty-six-year-old frame. Even now, traces of the poor, skinny farmboy from Nakamura lingered on. His body seemed like a withered pine growing out of the rock, or a dwarfed plum tree worn out by the wind and snow—strong, but showing signs of age.
It was not appropriate, however, to compare his age and physique with those of anordinary man. Both his skin and his frame were filled with vitality. When he was happy or angry, there were even times when he looked like a young man.
As Hideyoshi relaxed after his bath, wiping himself dry, he called a page and said, “This is to be posted immediately: At the first call of the conch, the entire army is to eat its rations; at the second, the supply corps is to start out; at the third, the whole army is to assemble in front of the castle.'
Hideyoshi then summoned Hikoemon and the officials in charge of the treasury and the granary.
'How much do we have in the treasury?' Hideyoshi asked.
'About seven hundred fifty weights of silver, and more than eight hundred pieces of gold,' an official replied.
Hideyoshi turned to Hikoemon and ordered, 'Take it and distribute it to the men, each according to his pay.' He then asked how much rice was left in the storehouses, observing, 'We won't be besieged here, so we don't need to keep any rice. Pay the retainers five times their rice stipend.'
He left the bathroom and went directly to where the messenger from Nagahama was waiting. He had left his mother and his wife at Nagahama, and he had been constantly anxious about them.
As soon as Hideyoshi saw the messenger kneeling before him, he asked, 'Are they all right? Has something happened?'
'Both your honored mother and wife are quite well.'
'Really? Well then, is the castle at Nagahama under attack?'
'I was dispatched from Nagahama on the morning of the fourth, when a small enemy force had started to attack.'
'The Akechi?'
'No, they were Asai
'What were the men at Nagahama going to do?'
'There are not enough men to withstand a siege, so in case of an emergency, they plan to move your family to a hiding place in the mountains.'
The messenger placed a letter in front of Hideyoshi. It was from Nene. As the lord's wife, it was her duty to take care of everything while her husband was away. Although she must have written the letter in the midst of a storm of confusion and doubt, her handwriting was composed. The contents, however, clearly indicated that this letter might be her very last:
If worst comes to worst, I assure you, my lord, that your wife will do nothing to disgrace your name. Your mother's and my only concern is that you overcome your own difficulties in these important times.
The first call of the conch shell echoed through the castle and the town.
Hideyoshi gave his final instructions to his retainers in Himeji Castle: 'Victory and defeat are in the hands of fate, but if I should be struck down by Mitsuhide, set fire to the castle and make sure nothing remains. We have to act bravely, following the example of
The second call sounded, and the supply train started off. As the sun began to set in the west, Hideyoshi had his camp stool moved outside the castle and had the third conch shell call blown. Night had fallen on the wide fields and on the pine trees lining the coastal road. From evening until well past midnight, the ground shook as ten thousand men formed into their divisions outside Himeji Castle.
Dawn broke and, one by one, the silhouettes of the pines along the road became visible. In the east, a perfectly red morning sun rose over the horizon of the Harima Sea between the clouds of dawn, as though urging the men forward.
'Look!' Hideyoshi called out. 'We have a fair wind. Our banners and pennants are blowing east. I know that a man's fate is uncertain. We do not know whether we will live to see tomorrow's dawn, but heaven shows us the way forward. Let us raise a mighty w cry and inform heaven of our departure.'
* * *
In the ten days since the death of Nobunaga, the national situation had changed dramatically. In Kyoto, the people had been uneasy since the Honno Temple incident. Nobunaga's two senior generals, Shibata Katsuie and Takigawa Kazumasu, were far away; Tokugawa Ieyasu had withdrawn to his own home province; Hosokawa Fujitaka's and Tsutsui Junkei's commitments were unclear; and Niwa Nagahide was in Osaka.
The rumor that Hideyoshi's army had arrived in Amagasaki, near Kyoto, spread like the wind on the morning of the eleventh. Many could not believe it. There were other rumors—that Lord Ieyasu was moving westward; that Nobunaga's eldest surviving son, Nobuo, was mounting a counterattack; that the Akechi were fighting here or there. The most believable rumor was that Hideyoshi's army was pinned down by the Mori at Takamatsu. Only those who knew Hideyoshi well did not fall into that error.
The skills Hideyoshi had shown in the invasion of the western provinces over the last five years had taught many of Nobunaga's other generals his true value. Among those men were Niwa Nagahide, Nakagawa Sebei, Takayama Ukon, and Ikeda Shonyu. They perceived Hideyoshi's loyalty under such long adversity as unswerving devotion to their former lord. When they heard that Hideyoshi had made peace with the Mori and was marching at
