The slingers on the front line of the enemy had played the part of army sappers opening up an avenue of attack for the main force. Therefore, although the Mizumata corps was not particularly fearsome, the hand-picked troops behind them were waiting for their chance. Here were the banners of the Yamagata, Naito, and Oyamada corps, famed for their valor even within the Kai army.
It looks as though they're trying to provoke us by sending in the Mizumata, Tadatsugu thought. He could see through the enemy's strategy, but the left wing of the Tokugawa troops was already engaged in hand-to-hand combat, so the second line of the Oda was on its own. Furthermore, he couldn't be sure how Ieyasu was viewing this from his position in the center.
"Charge!" Tadatsugu yelled, opening his mouth almost wide enough to snap the cords of his helmet. He knew full well that he was falling into the enemy's trap, but he had been unable to gain the advantage since the beginning of the battle. The defeat of the Tokugawa and their allies began here.
The shower of rocks suddenly stopped. At the same moment the seven or eight hundred Mizumata broke off to the right and left and abruptly fell back.
"We're done for!" Tadatsugu yelled.
By the time he had seen the second line of the enemy, it was already too late. Lying concealed between the slingers and the cavalry was yet another line of men: the gunners. Each man was lying on his stomach in the tall grass, his gun at the ready.
There was a staccato clatter of musket fire as all the guns went off in a single volley, and a cloud of smoke rose from the grass. Because the angle of fire was low, many of the charging men of the Sakai corps were hit in the legs. The startled horses reared and were hit in the belly. Officers leaped from the saddle before their horses fell, and ran with their men, stepping over the corpses of their comrades.
"Fall back!" the commander of the Takeda gunners ordered.
The gunners immediately withdrew. To stay where they were would have meant being overrun by the charging Oda spearmen. With the muzzles of their horses in line, the Yamagata corps, the flower of Kai, galloped out with composure and dignity, followed immediately by the Obata corps. In minutes they had annihilated Sakai Tadatsugu's line.
Victory cries were raised proudly from the Kai army, when just as suddenly the Oyamada corps took a roundabout route and advanced on the flank of the Oda forces—second line of the Tokugawa defense—their horses raising the dust as they came. In the twinkling of an eye the Tokugawa were surrounded by the huge Kai army, as though by an iron wheel.
Ieyasu stood on a knoll and looked over at the lines of his men. We've lost, he said to himself. It was inevitable.
Gazing fixedly ahead, Torii Tadahiro, the ranking general of the Tokugawa under Ieyasu, had warned his lord not to advance, but rather to send out incendiary raids where the enemy would be bivouacking that night. But Shingen, ever the crafty enemy, had purposefully thrown out the bait with the small rear guard, and encouraged Ieyasu's attack.
"We can't just sit here. You must retreat to Hamamatsu," Tadahiro urged. "The faster you withdraw, the better."
Ieyasu said nothing.
"My lord! My lord!" Tadahiro pleaded.
Ieyasu was not looking at Tadahiro's face. As the sun set the white evening mist and the darkness were gradually becoming deeply divided at the edge of Mikatagahara. Riding the wintry wind, the banners of the messengers repeatedly brought in the sad news:
"Sakuma Nobumori of the Oda clan was crushed. Takigawa Kazumasu fell back in disorder, and Hirate Nagamasa was killed. Only Sakai Tadatsugu stands fast in hard fighting."
"Takeda Katsuyori combined his strength with the Yamagata corps and surrounded our left wing. Ishikawa Kazumasa was wounded, and Nakane Masateru and Aoki Hirotsugu are both dead."
"Matsudaira Yasuzumi galloped into the midst of the enemy and was cut down."
"The forces of Honda Tadamasa and Naruse Masayoshi aimed for Shingen's retainers and cut deeply into the enemy, but they were completely surrounded by several thousand men, and not one returned alive."
Suddenly, Tadahiro grabbed Ieyasu's arm and, with the help of other generals, pushed him up onto his horse.
"Get out of here!" he yelled at the horse, slapping it on the rump.
When Ieyasu was in the saddle and his horse was galloping away, Tadahiro and the other retainers mounted and went after him.
Snow began to fall. Perhaps it had been waiting for the sun to set. As the wind blew the snow thick and fast, it swept around the banners, men, and horses of the defeated army, making their way even less sure.
The men shouted out in confusion, "His Lordship… where is His Lordship?"
"Which way to headquarters?"
"Where is my regiment?"
The Kai gunners took aim at the fleeing men lost by the roadside, and fired volleys at them from the midst of the swirling snow.
"Retreat!" a Tokugawa soldier shouted. "The conch shell is sounding a withdrawal!"
"They must already have evacuated the headquarters," another rejoined.
A tidal wave of defeated men swept along in a black line toward the north, lost its way toward the west, and suffered many more casualties. Finally the men began to stampede in one direction, toward the south.
Ieyasu, who had just escaped from danger with Torii Tadahiro, looked back at the men following along behind, and suddenly stopped his horse. "Raise the banners. Raise the banners and assemble the men," he commanded.
Night was approaching fast, and the snow was steadily increasing. Ieyasu's retainers gathered around him and sounded the conch shell. Waving the commanders' standards, they called the men in. Gradually the men of the defeated army gathered around them. Every man was soaked in blood.
The corps of Baba Nobufusa and Obata Kazusa of the Kai army, however, knew that the main body of enemy troops was there, and very quickly began pressing in on them with bows and arrows from one side and guns from the other. It appeared that they would try to cut off their retreat.
"It's dangerous here, my lord. You'd better retreat as quickly as possible," Mizuno Sakon urged Ieyasu. Then, turning to the men, he announced, "Protect His Lordship. I am going to take a few men and attack the enemy. Anyone who wants to sacrifice his life for His Lordship, follow me."
Sakon galloped straight for the enemy line, without a look back to see whether anyone was following him. Thirty or forty soldiers followed after him, riding to certain death. Almost immediately, wailing, shouting, and the clash of swords and spears mingled with the moaning of the wind-borne snow and blurred into a vortex.
"Sakon must not die!" Ieyasu shouted. He was not his normal self at all. His retainers tried to stop him by grabbing the bridle of his horse, but he threw them off, and by the time they got up, he was already riding fast into the black and white vortex, looking exactly like a demon.
"My lord! My lord!" they yelled.
When Natsume Jirozaemon, the officer left in charge of Hamamatsu Castle, heard of the defeat of his comrades, he set out with a small force of thirty mounted men to ensure the safety of Ieyasu. Arriving at this point and finding his lord in the midst of a desperate fight, he jumped off his horse and ran toward the melee, shifting his spear to his left hand.
"Wha-what is this? This violence is not like you, my lord. Go back to Hamamatsu! Withdraw, my lord!" Grasping the horse's muzzle, he pulled it around with difficulty.
"Jirozaemon? Let me go! Are you fool enough to get in my way in the middle of the enemy?"
"If I'm a fool, my lord, you're an even bigger one! If you're cut down in a place like this, what good will all of our hardships have been until now? You'll be remembered as a fool of a general. If you want to distinguish yourself, then do something important for the nation on another day!" With tears in his eyes, Jirozaemon yelled at Ieyasu so loudly that his mouth almost split to his ears, and at the same time he beat Ieyasu's horse unmercifully with his spear. Of the retainers and close attendants who had been with Ieyasu the night before, there were many whose faces were no longer seen this evening. More than three hundred of Ieyasu's men had died in battle, and no one knew how many had been wounded.