The Gateless Gate

The smoke from the fires of war was thick not only on Mount Hiei but was rising, as if from the leaping flames of a prairie fire, from the western districts of Mikawa, to the villages on the Tenryu River, as far as the borders of Mino. The troops of Takeda Shinger had crossed the mountains of Kai and were flowing southward.

The Tokugawa, who had dubbed their enemy "the long-legged Shingen," vowed to stop his march on the capital. This was not for the sake of their Oda allies. Kai was critically close to the provinces of Mikawa and Totomi, and if the Takeda forces were to breal through, it would mean the annihilation of the Tokugawa clan.

Ieyasu was thirty-one years old and in the prime of manhood. His retainers had suffered every privation and hardship for the past twenty years. But at last Ieyasu had come of age, his clan was on friendly terms with the Oda, and bit by bit he was encroaching on the territory of the Imagawa clan.

His province was filled with the hope of prosperity and the courage of expansion, so much so that the elder retainers, the samurai, the farmers, and the townspeople seemed to be aroused and inspired.

Mikawa could hardly match Kai in armaments and resources; in determination, however, it was not the least bit inferior. There was a reason why the Tokugawa warriors had given Shingen the nickname "Long-legged." This witticism had once been included in letter to Ieyasu from Nobunaga, and when Ieyasu read it, he thought it was worth relatin to his retainers.

The appellation was a clever one, for if only yesterday Shingen had been fighting at the northern border of Kai against the Uesugi clan, today he was in Kozuke and Sagami and was threatening the Hojo clan. Or, turning quickly, he would release the fires of war in Mikawa or Mino.

Moreover, Shingen himself was always in the field giving directions. Thus people said he must have had mannequins to take his place, but the fact was that whenever his men fought, he did not seem to be satisfied unless he was there on the battlefield himself. But if Shingen was long-legged, it could be said that Nobunaga was fleet-footed.

Nobunaga had written to Ieyasu:

It would be better not to face the full force of the Kai attack right now. Even if the situation becomes pressing and you have to withdraw from Hamamatsu to Okazaki, I hope you will persevere. If our time must wait for another day, I doubt it will be long in coming.

Nobunaga had sent this message to Ieyasu before burning Mount Hiei, but Ieyasu had turned to his senior retainers and declared, right in front of the Oda messenger, "Be­fore abandoning Hamamatsu Castle, it would be better to break our bows and leave the samurai class!"

To Nobunaga, Ieyasu's province was one of his lines of defense; but to Ieyasu, Mikawa was his home. Ieyasu was going to bury his bones in no other province but this one. When he received the messenger's reply, Nobunaga mumbled something about the man being too impatient, and returned to Gifu just as soon as he had finished with Mount Hiei. Shingen must have had something to say about that speed as well. As might be ex­pected, he too was alert in looking for his opportunity.

Shingen had stated clearly that to be one day late could mean disasters for an entire year, and now he felt the need to hurry all the more to fulfill his long-cherished desire of entering the capital. For this reason, all of his diplomatic moves were expedited. His friendship with the Hojo clan, therefore, was now brought to fruition, but his negotia­tions with the Uesugi clan were as unsatisfactory as before. Thus he was obliged to wait until the Tenth Month to leave Kai.

Snow would soon close off his borders with Echigo, so his concern about Uesugi Kenshin would be alleviated. His army of about thirty thousand men comprised troops conscripted from his domain, which included Kai, Shinano, Suruga, the northern part of Totomi, eastern Mikawa, western Kozuke, a part of Hida, and the southern part of Etchu —land holdings amounting to almost one million three hundred thousand bushels in all.

"The best thing we could do is put up a defense," one general argued.

"At least until reinforcements come from Lord Nobunaga."

One party of the men in Hamamatsu Castle spoke in favor of a defensive campaign. Even if all the province's samurai were mustered, the military strength of the Tokugawa clan was hardly fourteen thousand men—barely half that of the Takeda army. Still, Ieyasu chose to order a mobilization of his army.

"What! This is not a matter of waiting around for Lord Nobunaga's reinforcements."

All of his retainers expected a great number of the Oda soldiers to come to their aid out of a natural sense of duty—or even out of gratitude for the past service rendered by the Tokugawa clan at the Ane River. Ieyasu, however, did his best to appear as though he had no expectation of reinforcements at all. Now was exactly the time for him to de­termine whether his men were resigned to a life-and-death situation, and to make them realize they could rely on nothing but their own strength.

"If it's destruction to retreat and destruction to advance, shouldn't we strike out in an all-or-nothing effort, make our names as warriors, and die a glorious death?" he asked calmly.

While this man had known misery and hardships from the time of his youth, he had matured into an adult who did not make a fuss over trifles. Now, with this situation upon them, the castle of Hamamatsu was as full of fury as a boiling kettle, but while Ieyasu sat there and advocated a violent confrontation more than anyone else, the tone of his voice hardly changed at all. For this reason there were those among his retainers who had misgivings about the difference between his words and their intent. But Ieyasu hastened steadily to make preparations to depart for the battlefield, as he received the reports of his scouts.

One by one, like teeth being plucked from a comb, reports of each defeat were coming in. Shingen had attacked Totomi. By now, it was likely that the castles at Tadaki and Iida had had no other choice but to surrender. In the villages of Fukuroi, Kakegawa, and Kihara, there was no place that the Kai forces had not trampled underfoot. Worse, Ieyasu's three-thousand-man vanguard under Honda, Okubo, and Naito had been discovered by the Takeda forces in the neighborhood of the Tenryu River. The Tokugawa had been routed and forced to retreat to Hamamatsu.

This report made everyone in the castle turn pale. But Ieyasu continued his military preparations. He was especially careful to secure his lines of communication, and had been taking care of the defense of that area until nearly the end of the Tenth Month. And, to secure Futamata Castle at the Tenryu River, he had sent reinforcements of troops,weapons, and supplies.

The army left Hamamatsu Castle, advanced as far as Kanmashi village on the bank of the Tenryu River, and found the camp of the Kai army, each position linked to Shingen’s headquarters like spokes around a hub.

"Ah, just as you'd expect." Even Ieyasu stood on the hill for a moment with his arms folded and let out a sigh of admiration. The banners in Shingen's main camp were visible even at this distance. From closer up, one could make out the inscription. They were the words of the famous Sun Tzu, familiar to enemy and ally alike.

Fast as the wind,

Quiet as a forest,

Ardent as fire,

Still as a mountain.

Still as a mountain, neither Shingen nor Ieyasu made any move for several days. With the Tenryu River between the opposing camps, winter came in with the Eleventh Month.

*    *    *

Two things there are

Surpassing Ieyasu:

Ieyasu's horned helmet

And Honda Heihachiro.

One of the Takeda men had posted this lampoon on the hill of Hitokotozaka. Ieyasu's men had been soundly defeated and routed there—or at least that was the opinion of the Takeda ranks, elated by their victory. But as the poem admitted, the Tokugawa had some fine men, and Honda Heihachiro's retreat had been admirable.