"Do not pursue them!" Nobunaga ordered from atop Mount Wada, and the banners erected there so quickly could clearly be seen under the noonday sun. Covered with blood and mud, the men gradually collected under the banners of their own generals. Then, raising a shout of victory, they ate their noonday rations. A number of messages contin­ued to come in from the direction of Mitsukuri. The Tokugawa forces from Mikawa, which had been positioned as the vanguard for Niwa and Nobumori, were just now fight­ing courageously, bathed in blood. Moment by moment, messages of success collected in Nobunaga's hand.

The report of Mitsukuri's fall reached Nobunaga before the sun had set. As evening neared, black smoke rose from the direction of the castle at Kannonji. Hideyoshi's forces were already pressing in. The command for an all-out attack was given. Nobunaga moved his camp, and the entire force of Mitsukuri and its allies were pushed back to Kannonji Castle. By the time evening fell, the first men had breached the walls of the enemy castles.

Stars and sparks filled the clear autumn night sky. The attacking forces surged in. Viclory songs were raised, and to those allied with the Sasaki, they must have sounded like the heartless voice of the autumn wind. No one had expected that this stronghold would fall in but a single day. The fortress at Mount Wada and the eighteen strategic points had been no defense at all against these billowing waves of attackers.

The entire Sasaki clan—from women and children to its leaders, Rokkaku and Jotei—stumbled and fought through the darkness, fleeing from the flames of their castles to the fortress at Ishibe.

"Let the fugitives flee as they will; there will be enemies still ahead of us tomorrow." Nobunaga spared not only their lives, but also ignored the vast amount of treasure they carried with them. It was not Nobunaga's style to tarry along the way. His mind was already in Kyoto, the center of the field. The castle at Kannonji stopped burning at the keep. As soon as Nobunaga entered what was left of it, he showed his appreciation to his troops, saying, "The horses and men should be given a good rest."

He himself, however, did not rest much. That night he slept in his armor, and as morning broke, he gathered his senior retainers for a conference. Again he commanded decrees to be posted throughout the province, and immediately sent Fuwa Kawachi off with the command to bring Yoshiaki from Gifu to Moriyama.

Yesterday he had fought at the head of an army; today he was taking the reins of the administration. This was Nobunaga. Temporarily giving four of his generals responsibilities as administrators and magistrates in the port city of Otsu, two days later he crossed Lake Biwa, nearly forgetting to eat as he issued order after order.

It was the twelfth of the month when Nobunaga struck into Omi and attacked Kannonji and Mitsukuri. Then, by the twenty-fifth, Nobunaga's army had gone from the aftermath of battle to setting up notices of the new laws for the province. One road to supremacy, to the center of the field! With that, the warships from the east shore of Lake Biwa were lined up, and they sailed for Omi. Everything from the preparation of the ships to the loading of the rations for the soldiers and feed for their horses involved the cooperation of the common people. Certainly they crouched in fear of Nobunaga's mili­ary strength. But more than that, the fact that the common people of Omi united in support of him was due to their approval of his style of government, which they trusted as reliable.

Nobunaga was the only man who had rescued the hearts of the common people from the flames of war and who had committed himself to them publicly. When they asked themselves what was to become of them, he reassured them. In such situations, there is no time to establish a detailed political policy. Nobunaga's secret was nothing more than to do things swiftly and decisively. What the common people clearly wanted in this country at civil war was not a talented administrator or a great sage. The world was in chaos. If Nobunaga was able to control it, they would accept a certain amount of hardship.

The wind on the lake reminded one that it was autumn, and the water drew beautiful long patterns in the wake of the myriad boats. On the twenty-fifth, Yoshiaki's boat crossed the waters of the lake from Moriyama and landed near Mii Temple.

Nobunaga, who had already landed, expected an attack by Miyoshi and Matsunaga, but it did not come.

He greeted Yoshiaki at the temple, saying, "It's the same as if we've already entered the capital."

On the twenty-eighth, Nobunaga at last pushed his troops toward Kyoto. When they reached Awataguchi, the army stopped. Hideyoshi, who was at Nobunaga's side, galloped forward at the same time that Akechi Mitsuhide was hurrying back from the van.

"What is it?"

"Imperial messengers."

Nobunaga, too, was surprised, and hurriedly dismounted. The two messengers arrived with a letter from the Emperor.

Bowing low, Nobunaga responded reverently, "As a provincial warrior, I have no other abilities than taking up the weapons of war. Since my father's time, we have long lamented the grievous condition of the Imperial Palace and the uneasiness in the Emperor's heart. Today, however, I have come to the capital from a far corner of the country to guard His Imperial Majesty. No other responsibility would be a greater honor for a samurai, or a greater joy for my clan."

Thirty thousand soldiers silently and solemnly swore an oath with Nobunaga that they would obey the Emperor's wishes.

Nobunaga made his camp at Tofuku Temple. On the same day, proclamations were set up throughout the capital. The disposition of the police patrols came first. The day watch was given to Sugaya Kuemon, and the night watch to Hideyoshi.

One of the soldiers from the Oda army was out drinking, and a victorious soldier will easily become arrogant. Drunk and having eaten his fill, he tossed down a few coins that amounted to less than half of what he owed, and walked out, saying, "That should do."

The proprietor ran out after him, yelling, and when he tried to grab the soldier, the man struck him and then swaggered away. Midway through his rounds, Hideyoshi witnessed the incident and immediately ordered the man's arrest. When he was brought to headquarters, Nobunaga praised the police, stripped the soldier of his armor, and had him bound to a large tree in front of the temple gate. The nature of the offense was then signposted, and Nobunaga ordered the man to be exposed for seven days and then beheaded. Every day, an immense number of people traveled back and forth in front of the temple gate. Many of them were merchants and nobles, and there were also messen­gers from other temples and shrines, and shopkeepers transporting their goods.

The passersby stopped to read the placard and look at the man bound to the tree. Thus the common people in the capital witnessed both Nobunaga's justice and the sever­ity of his laws. They saw that the law posted on placards all over town—that the theft of even a single coin would be punished by death—was to be strictly enforced, starting with Nobunaga's own soldiers. No one uttered any discontent.

The phrase "a one-coin cut" became common among the people for the sort of punishment meted out by Nobunaga's rule. It had been twenty-one days since the army's departure from Gifu.

After Nobunaga had settled the situation in the capital and returned to Gifu, he turned away from the matters that had preoccupied him and found that Mikawa was no longer the weak, poverty-stricken province it had once been.

He could not help marveling secretly at Ieyasu's vigilance. The lord of Mikawa had not simply been content to be a guard dog at the back gate of Owari and Mino while his ally, Nobunaga, marched off to the center of the field. Rather than let the opportunity go by, he had expelled the forces of Imagawa Yoshimoto's successor, Ujizane, from the two provinces of Suruga and Totomi. This, of course, was not through his own strength alone. Connected with the Oda clan on the one hand, he was also in collusion with Takeda Shingen of Kai, and he had a pact with the latter to divide and share the two remaining provinces of the Imagawa. Ujizane had been a fool and had given both the Tokugawa and Takeda clans a number of good excuses to attack him.