As expected, that lateral attack intercepted the Matsuda corps and placed its general, Matsuda Tarozaemon, right before their eyes. The collision was far more violent than the clash at the top of the mountain. Fighting was hand to hand amidst the pines and boulders strewn along the mountain slope. Firearms were too cumbersome, so the battle was fought mainly with spears, long swords, and halberds.
Some fell from the cliffs grappling with the enemy. Some who held down enemy soldiers were stabbed from behind. There were corps of archers as well and the singing of arrows and reports of the guns were incessant. But far louder were the war cries of the five or six hundred men. Those cries did not seem to be coming from the throats of individual men but from their entire beings, even from their hair and pores.
The men advanced and were pushed back, and at last the sun began to rise. A blue sky and white clouds were visible for the first time in a long while. With the rare sunshine, the cicadas seemed to have been struck dumb. In their place were the war cries of the soldiers shaking the mountain. Very quickly, bloodied corpses lay strewn over the slopes, piled atop one another. One body might be lying pathetically alone in one spot, while two or three might have fallen on top of each other in another place. The warriors were spurred by the sight of the corpses, and the soldiers who stepped over the dead
bodies of their comrades entered a space beyond life and death. This was true for the soldiers of the Hori corps as well as for the men of the Akechi.
The situation at the top of the mountain was unclear, but here too a victory might be followed quickly by a defeat. During the fighting, the cries that issued from the Matsuda corps suddenly changed and became like the sounds a crying child makes between sobs. Optimism had changed to despair.
'What's the matter?'
'Why are we falling back? Don't retreat!'
Questioning their comrades' confusion, some of the men of the Matsuda corps yelled out in anger. But those men, too, quickly ran toward the foot of the mountain as though carried by an avalanche. Their commanding general, Matsuda Tarozaemon, had been struck by a bullet and carried away on the shoulders of his attendants in full view of his troops.
'Attack! Cut them down!'
The greater part of the Hori corps had already started out in pursuit, but Kyuta yelled at the top of his voice, trying to stop his men.
'Don't pursue them!'
In the impetus of the moment, however, the command for restraint had little effect. As might have been expected, the vanguard of the Matsuda corps now came cascading down the mountain like a muddy stream. Reinforcements had not come, and their general had been shot. They had no choice but to flee.
The Hori corps had been no match for the Akechi in terms of numbers. Now, without a real battle and with nothing to check them, they were thrust down the mountain and crushed underfoot by a corps of the enemy that came running down the steep slope from above. The section of the Hori corps that had pursued the enemy down the mountain first was now caught in a pincer movement just as Kyutaro had feared, and an appalling battle ensued.
At that point, the combined forces of the Horio, Nakagawa, Takayama, and Ikeda corps reached the top of the mountain.
'We've won!'
'Tennozan is ours!'
The battle's first victory cheer was raised. Hideyoshi had been waiting for Nobutaka’s arrival at the Yodo River, and so he had not yet arrived at the front line. It was late in the afternoon, about the Hour of the Ram, by the time he had added the forces of Nobutaka and Niwa Nagahide to his own army and advanced to the central camp. The morning rain had dried up under the hot sky, both men and horses were covered with sweat and dust, and the colorful armor and coats had all turned white. The only article that penetrated the hot day with any brilliance was Hideyoshi's standard of the golden gourds.
While there were still echoes of gunfire on Tennozan, every house in the village had seemed empty. When the Akechi forces retreated and the new tide of armor flooded the streets, however, pails of water, piles of melons, and kettles of barley tea suddenly appeared on every doorstep. As Hideyoshi's forces crowded through the streets, even women appeared among the crowd of villagers, wishing them well.
'Not a single enemy soldier's left over there?'
Hideyoshi did not dismount, but simply gazed steadily at the banners of his soldiers, now visible on the nearby mountain.
'Not one,' Hikoemon replied. He had coordinated all the reports on battle conditions from the various corps, judged the general situation, and now reported to Hideyoshi. “The Matsuda corps lost its commander at the very outset of the attack. Some of his men fled toward the northern foothills, while the others joined their allies in the neighborhood of Tomooka.'
'I wonder why someone like Mitsuhide would abandon this high ground so quickly.'
'He probably didn't think we would arrive so soon. He was mistaken in his timing.'
'What about his main force?'
'They seem to have camped in the area from the Yodo River to Shimoueno, with Shoryuji at their rear and the Enmyoji River in front of them.'
At that moment war cries and gunfire could be heard in the direction of the Enmyoji River. It was the Hour of the Monkey.
The Enmyoji River, east of the village of Yamazaki, was a confluent of the Yodo River. The area where the two rivers met was a swamp covered with reeds and rushes, usually filled with the songs of bush warblers, but on this day no birdsong could be heard.
During the morning the enemy armies—the left wing of Mitsuhide's army and Hideyoshi's right wing—had lined the riverbanks on either side. From time to time the reeds would rustle in the wind. While the tips of the banner poles were visible, no men or horses could be seen on either bank. On the northern bank, however, the five thousand men under Saito Toshimitsu, Abe Sadaaki, and Akechi Shigetomo were ready to advance. On the southern bank, eight thousand five hundred men under Takayama Ukon, Nakagawa Sebei, and Ikeda Shonyu were arranged in one line after another. Steaming with sweat in that hot, damp place, they waited for the time to strike.
They were waiting for Hideyoshi to arrive and give his command.
'What is the main army doing?'
They cursed Hideyoshi's army for its late arrival, but they could only grit their teeth.
Akechi Mitsuhide, who was still at his main camp in Onbozuka, had heard early on about Matsuda Tarozaemon's death on Tennozan and the complete rout of his troops. He blamed himself for misjudging the timing of his own command. He knew quite well that, strategically, there was a great difference between fighting with Tennozan under the control of his own men and facing a decisive battle after having abandoned the high ground to the enemy.
Prior to advancing toward Tennozan, however, Mitsuhide had been distracted by three things: Tsutsui Junkei's betrayal; his order to strengthen Yodo Castle—misjudging the speed of Hideyoshi's attack; and a flaw in his character—he was indecisive. Should he take the offensive or the defensive? He had not decided which until his advance on Onbozuka.
The battle began almost by accident. Both armies had spent the morning among the reeds and rushes, being eaten by gnats and mosquitoes. Throughout this time, they faced each other squarely and waited for their generals' commands. At one point, however, a beautifully saddled horse suddenly sprang from Hideyoshi's side toward the bank of the Enmyoji River, possibly to slake its thirst.
Four or five soldiers—probably retainers of the horse's owner—chased after it. Gunfire rang out abruptly from the opposite bank, followed by one volley after another.
In response, Hideyoshi's troops fired their own volley toward the northern bank order to help the soldiers, who had taken cover in the reeds. Now there was no time to wait for orders.
'Attack!'
Hideyoshi's order for a general assault actually came after the exchange of gunfire. The Akechi troops naturally reacted to the movement of the enemy, and, they, too, waded into the river.
The place where the Enmyoji River met the Yodo River was fairly wide, but not far from the convergence
