The messenger who had come to Tsutsujigasaki two days before had carried a secret letter from Oga, which had informed them that the time was ripe. Nobunaga had been in the capital since the beginning of the year. Even before that, when Nobunaga had tried to destroy the warrior-monks of Nagashima, Ieyasu had sent no reinforcements, and the alliance between the two provinces had become somewhat strained.

When the Takeda army attacked Mikawa with its legendary speed, Oga would find a means to throw Okazaki Castle into confusion, open the castle gates, and let the Kai forces in. Katsuyori would then kill Nobuyasu and take the Tokugawa family hostage.  Hamamatsu Castle would be forced to surrender, and its garrison would join the Takeda army, leaving Ieyasu no other choice but to flee to Ise or Mino.

"What do you think? Doesn't this sound like good news from heaven?" Oinosuke spoke proudly, as though the entire scheme had been his own. The two generals had no desire to hear any more. Leaving Oinosuke, they returned to their own regiments, looking at each other in silence.

"Baba, it's said that a province may fall, but the mountains and rivers endure. Neither of us wants to live to see the mountains and rivers of a ruined province," Yamagata said with deep feeling.

Baba nodded and said with a sad look in his eyes, "The end of our lives is swiftly approaching. All that is left for us is to find a good place to die, to follow our former lord, and to atone for the crime of being unworthy counselors."

Baba's and Yamagata's reputations as Shingen's bravest generals had traveled far beyond the borders of Kai. They were already gray when Shingen was alive, but after his death, their hair had quickly turned white.

The leaves on the mountains of Kai were a young and tender green, before the coming of that year's broiling summer, and the waters of the Fuefuki River babbled the song  of eternal life. But how many soldiers wondered if they would ever see those mountains again?

The army was not what it had been when Shingen was alive. A plaintive note sounding the uncertainty of life was heard in the banners fluttering in the wind and in the sound of their marching feet. But the fifteen thousand troops beat the war drums, unfurled their banners, and marched across the border of Kai; and their majesty was re­flected in the eyes of the people just as brilliantly as in Shingen's day.

Just as the crimson of the setting sun is similar to the sun at dawn, no matter where one looked—whether at the colorful standard bearers and banners of each regiment, or at the massed armored cavalry that rode tightly around Katsuyori—there was no sign of decline. Katsuyori was supremely self-confident as he imagined the enemy castle at Okazaki ready in his hands. With the gold inlay of his visor reflecting on his handsome cheeks, the future of this young general seemed brilliant. And in fact he had already achieved victories that had stirred up Kai's fighting spirit, even after the death of the great Shingen.

Setting forth from Kai on the first day of the Fifth Month, they finally crossed Mount Hira from Totomi and entered into Mikawa proper, bivouacking in front of a river in the evening.

From the opposite bank, two enemy samurai came swimming toward them. The guards quickly took them captive. The two men were Tokugawa samurai who had been chased out of their own province. They asked to be taken before Katsuyori.

"What? Why have they fled here?" Katsuyori knew that it could only mean one thing: Oga's treachery had been discovered.

Katsuyori's mighty army had already entered Mikawa. Should I attack or fall back? Katsuyori asked himself over and over again. He was badly confused and discouraged. His strategy had depended on Oga's treachery and the confusion he would cause inside Okazaki Castle. Oga's detection and arrest were a disastrous setback. But having come this far, it would not be very gallant to fall back without accomplishing anything. On the other hand, it wouldn't be right to advance carelessly. Katsuyori's manly character was dis­tressed in earnest. And it pricked his obstinate nature to recall that, when the army had left Kai, Baba and Yamagata had warned him not to do anything rash.

"Three thousand soldiers should start off toward Nagashino," he ordered. "I myself will attack Yoshida Castle and sweep the entire area."

Katsuyori struck camp before dawn and headed toward Yoshida. Lacking any confidence of success, he set fire to a few villages in a show of force. He did not attack Yoshida Castle, possibly because Ieyasu and his son, Nobuyasu, had made a clean sweep of the traitors and had quickly moved troops as far as Hajikamigahara.

Quite different from Katsuyori's army, which now, unable either to advance or to retreat, could only move to preserve its dignity, the Tokugawa forces had massacred the rebels and dashed out with great impetus.

"Are we a dying province or a rising one?" was their war cry. Their numbers might have been small, but their morale was completely different from that of Katsuyori's troops.

The vanguards of the two armies met in small clashes two or three times at Hajikamigahara. But the Kai forces were of no common order, either, and understanding that it would be difficult to match themselves to the enemy's martial spirit, they suddenly withdrew.

The cry went up, "To Nagashino! To Nagashino!" Making a quick reversal in their march, they showed the Tokugawa forces their backs and took off as though they had important business elsewhere.

Nagashino was an ancient battleground, and its castle was said to be impregnable. In the earlier part of the century, it had been controlled by the Imagawa clan; later it had been claimed by the Takeda clan as part of Kai. But then, in the first year of Tensho, it had been taken by Ieyasu and was now commanded by Okudaira Sadamasa of the Tokugawa clan, with a garrison of five hundred men.

Because of its strategic value, Nagashino was the center of all kinds of plots, betrayals, and bloodlettings, even during peacetime.

By the evening of the eighth day of the Fifth Month, the Kai army had besieged the castle's tiny garrison of five hundred men.

Nagashino Castle stood at the confluence of the Taki and Ono rivers in the mountainous region of eastern Mikawa. Behind it to the northeast there was nothing but mountains. Its moat, which drew its water from the fast-flowing streams of the two rivers, had a width that ranged from one hundred eighty to three hundred feet. The bank was ninety feet in height at its lowest point, and at its highest was a precipice of one hundred fifty feet. The depth of the water was no more than five or six feet, but the current was swift. And indeed, there were some frighteningly deep spots where water rose in sprays or twisted into seething rapids.

“How ostentatious!" said Nagashino Castle's commander as he surveyed the meticu­lous disposition of Katsuyori's troops from the watchtower.

From around the tenth, Ieyasu had begun to send messengers to Nobunaga several times a day, to report on the situation at Nagashino. Any emergency for the Tokugawa was considered an emergency for the Oda, and the atmosphere in Gifu Castle was already uncommonly tense.

Nobunaga responded positively but didn't seem to be making any sudden move to mobilize his troops. The war council lasted two days.

"There's no hope for victory. Mobilizing the army would be useless," cautioned Mori Kawachi.

"No! That would be turning our backs on our duty!" someone else argued.

Others, like Nobumori, took the middle path. "As General Mori says, it's obvious that the chances of victory against Kai are slim, but if we put off mobilizing our troops, the Tokugawa may accuse us of bad faith, and if we're not careful, it's not impossible for them to change sides, make an accord with the Kai army, and turn against us. I think it best that  we execute a passive deployment of the troops."