Kanbei quickly returned to Mount Hirai, went before Hideyoshi, and showed him Goto's son.
"Bring him up well," Hideyoshi said. "It will be an act of charity. He looks like a fine boy, doesn't he?" Hideyoshi loved children, and he looked at Iwanosuke's face fondly and patted his head.
Perhaps Iwanosuke did not yet understand; he was only seven. Being in a strange camp with strange man, he simply stared goggle-eyed at everything around him. Many years later he would become famous as a warrior of the Kuroda clan. But right now he was a solitary child, almost like a mountain monkey that had fallen out of its tree.
Finally the day came: it was announced that Miki Castle had fallen. It was the seventeenth day of the First Month of the eighth year of Tensho. Nagaharu, his younger brother Tomoyuki, and his senior retainers disemboweled themselves, the castle was opened, and Uno Uemon delivered a letter of surrender to Hideyoshi.
We resisted for two years and did everything we could as warriors. The only thing I would not be able to bear is the death of several thousand brave and loyal warriors and the members of my family. I plead for my retainers and hope that you will show them mercy.
Hideyoshi agreed to this manly request and accepted the surrender of Miki Castle.
Men of God
Although Hideyoshi and Nobunaga were stationed far apart, Hideyoshi considered it one of his military responsibilities to send news regularly to Azuchi. In this way Nobunaga was given a bird's-eye view of the situation in the west, and thus he felt at ease with the strategy being used in the campaign.
After seeing Hideyoshi off to the western provinces, Nobunaga greeted the New Year in Azuchi. It was the tenth year of Tensho. That New Year was even busier than the previous one, and the celebrations did not go off without mishap. The following incident is recorded in The Chronicles of Nobunaga:
When the neighboring lords, relatives, and others came to Azuchi to pay their respects to His Lordship for the New Year, the crush was such that a wall collapsed and many were killed by the falling stones. The confusion was stupendous.
"Charge each guest from who comes for New Year's calls on the first day one hundred mon, no matter who he is," Nobunaga ordered on New Year's Eve. "A 'calling tax' is not much to ask of a visitor in return for the divine privilege of having an audience with me to express his New Year's wishes."
But that was not all. In recompense for the 'calling tax,' Nobunaga also gave permission to have parts of the castle grounds that were usually closed to the public opened up.
The inns of Azuchi had already been booked long before by eager sightseers—lords, merchants, scholars, doctors, artists, craftsmen, and samurai of every rank—who waited impatiently for the opportunity to see the Sokenji Temple, to pass through the Outer Gate and approach the Third Gate, and from there to go through the residential apartments and enter the garden of white sand, there to express their greetings.
The New Year's sightseers walked through the castle, looking at room after room. They admired the sliding doors illustrated by Kano Eitoku, stared wide-eyed at the tatami mats with their borders of Korean brocade, and gazed in awe at the polished, gilded walls.
The guards shepherded the crowd out through the stable gate, where, unexpectedly, its way was barred by Nobunaga and several attendants.
"Don't forget your contribution! One hundred mon each!" Nobunaga shouted. He took the money with his own hands and tossed it over his shoulder.
A mountain of coins quickly piled up behind him. Soldiers stuffed the money into bags, and it was then given to officials and distributed among the poor of Azuchi. Thus Nobunaga fondly imagined that there was not one hungry face in Azuchi that New Year's.
When Nobunaga spoke to the official in charge of collecting the tax, who at first had worried about Nobunaga getting involved with such plebeian actions, the official now had to admit, "It was truly a fine idea, my lord. The people who came to visit the castle will have a story to tell for the rest of their lives, and the poor who received the 'contributions' will spread the news. Everybody is saying that those coins are not just ordinary coins, but money that was touched by the hand of Lord Nobunaga himself, and as such, it would be a travesty to waste it. They said they would keep it as capital. Why, even the officials are pleased. I think this kind of good work would be a good precedent for next New Year's and for the years following."
To the official's surprise, Nobunaga coldly shook his head and said, "I'm not going to do it again. It would be a fault for the man who runs the government to let the poor get used to charity."
* * *
Half of the First Month had passed. After the New Year's decorations had been taken down from the doors of people's homes, the citizens of Azuchi realized that something was going on—so many ships were being loaded at the port and were sailing every day.
The ships, without exception, were sailing from the southern part of the lake northward. And thousands of bales of rice, carried along the land routes in meandering processions of horses and carts, were also going up the coast toward the north.
As always, the streets of Azuchi were filled with the traffic of travelers and the goings and comings of the various lords. Not a day went by that a messenger was not seen galoping down the road, or that an envoy from another province didn't pass by.
"Aren't you coming?" Nobunaga called out happily to Nakagawa Sebei.
"Where to, my lord?"
"Hawking!"
"That's my favorite sport! May I accompany you, my lord?"
"Sansuke, you come too."
It was on a morning in early spring that Nobunaga set out from Azuchi. His attendants had been picked the night before, but Nakagawa Sebei—who had just come to the castle—had now been invited, and Ikeda Shonyu's son, Sansuke, was added to the group is well.
Nobunaga had a liking for riding, sumo wrestling, hawking, and the tea ceremony, but the chase was certainly one of his favorite pastimes.
The beaters and archers would be exhausted by the end of the day. Such interests might be called pastimes, but Nobunaga did nothing halfheartedly. With sumo wrestling, for example, when a basho was arranged at Azuchi, he would gather well over fifteen hundred wrestlers from Omi, Kyoto, Naniwa, and other faraway provinces. In the end, the various lords would gather to watch in large crowds, and Nobunaga would rarely grow tired of the sight even as the hour grew late. Instead, he would pick men from among his own retainers and order them to go up into the ring for match after match.
This First Month's hawking trip to the Echi River, however, was extremely simple. It was nothing more than an outing, and the hawks were never released. After a short rest, Nobunaga ordered the party to return to Azuchi.
As the party entered the town of Azuchi, Nobunaga reined in his horse and turned toward a foreign-looking building in the middle of a stand of trees. The sound of a violin was coming from a window. He suddenly dismounted and went in through the door with a few of his attendants.
Two or three Jesuits came down hurriedly to greet him, but Nobunaga was already striding into the house.
"Your Lordship!" the fathers exclaimed in surprise.
This was the school that had been built next to the Church of the Ascension. Nobunaga had been one of the benefactors of the school, but everything from the timber to the furnishings had been contributed by provincial lords who had been converted to Christianity.
"I'd like to see how you conduct classes," Nobunaga announced. "I assume the children are all here."