Around the middle of the Third Month, the twenty thousand troops who had been standing by at Himeji entered Okayama, and the Ukita clan sent another ten thousand men. Thus, with a combined force of thirty thousand, Hideyoshi cautiously advanced into Bitchu. After marching only one league, he stopped and waited for reconnaissance reports; after another two leagues, he halted to reconnoiter again. Every soldier had heard the reports of the brilliant victories in Kai, so many found this prudent advance frustrat­ing. Some hastily declared that Takamatsu Castie and the other smaller fortresses could be captured in a single swift advance.

When they understood actual battlefield conditions and the enemy's positions, how­ever, they had to admit that winning a quick victory would be difficult.

Hideyoshi made his first camp on Mount Ryuo, a high plateau well to the north of Takamatsu Castle. From there he could look directly into the castle itself. At a glance he could see the lay of the land and appreciate the interdependence of the fortresses and main castle. He could also survey troop movements from the Mori clan's headquarters and be forewarned if they sent reinforcements.

Hideyoshi began the campaign by taking the small border fortresses one by one, until only Takamatsu remained. Concerned about this negative turn of events, Muneharu sent repeated messages to his overlords, the Mori, begging for reinforcements. One after an­other, couriers departed with ever more desperate appeals, but conditions did not permit the Mori to counterattack. And it would take them several weeks before they could as­semble an army of forty thousand men and march to Takamatsu Castle. The only thing the Mori could do was encourage Muneharu to hold on and assure him that reinforce­ments were on their way. Then all communications between the castle and its allies were cut.

On the twenty-seventh day of the Fourth Month, Hideyoshi laid siege to Takamatsu Castle. But the fifteen thousand men at his headquarters on Mount Ryuo did not move. Hideyoshi positioned five thousand men on the high ground at Hirayama and the ten thousand men of the Ukita clan on Mount Hachiman.

Hideyoshi's generals positioned themselves at the rear of the Ukita contingent. It looked like the first arrangement of counters on a go board, and the positioning of his own retainers to the rear of the Ukita, who until recently had been allies of the Mori, was a matter of prudence.

There were skirmishes between the vanguards of the two armies from the first day of the siege. Kuroda Kanbei, who had just returned from inspecting the front lines, went to see Hideyoshi and described the first day's bloody engagement.

"During this morning's battle," Kanbei began, "Lord Ukita's warriors suffered more than five hundred casualties, while the enemy lost no more than a hundred men. Eighty of the enemy were killed, and twenty others were taken prisoner, but only because they were seriously wounded."

"It was to be expected," Hideyoshi said. "This castle will not fall without bloodshed, it seems that the Ukita fought well." The loyalty of the Ukita vanguard had indeed been tested.

*  *  *

With the Fifth Month the weather turned sunny and dry. The Ukita, who had suffered heavy casualties in the initial fighting, dug a trench across the front of the castle walls for five nights under cover of darkness. Once the trench was completed, they launched an attack on the castle.

When the defenders saw that the Ukita had advanced as far as the castle gate and outer walls, they hurled insults at them. It was easy to imagine the anger they felt toward these men who had once been their allies but who were now fighting as Hideyoshi's vanguard. As soon as they saw their opportunity, the defenders threw open the main gate and charged out.

"Attack these maggots!" they shouted. "Kill them all!"

Samurai to samurai, soldier to soldier, they grappled and struck at each other. Heads were taken and raised, and they fought with a ferocity rarely seen even on a battlefield. "Fall back! Fall back!" the Ukita general suddenly shouted in the middle of clouds of  dust and smoke.

Glaring at the retreating Ukita, the defenders were carried away with the desire to crush them underfoot. They started to pursue them with cries of "Strike them down!" and "All the way to their banners!"

Too late, the mounted commander of the castle vanguard spotted the Ukita trench ahead. Seeing the trap, he tried to stop his men, but they stumbled forward, unable to see danger. A volley of gunfire and thick gunpowder smoke instantly rose from the trench. The attackers staggered and fell.

"It's a trap! Don't fall into the enemy's trap! Lie down! Lie down!" the commander shouted. "Let them fire! Wait for them to reload, then jump on them!"

With fearful war cries, several men sacrificed themselves; they leaped up to draw enemy fire and were bathed in bullets. Judging the interval before the next round, others toward the trench and jumped in, filling the earth with fighting and blood. That night it began to rain. The banners and the curtained enclosures of Mount Ryuo were drenched. Hideyoshi took cover in a hut and watched the melancholy clouds of the rainy season. He did not look very cheerful.

He looked around and called to a retainer, "Toranosuke, is that the sound of rain or someone's footsteps? Go see what it is."

Toranosuke went out but quickly returned and reported, "Lord Kanbei has just now returned from the battlefield. On the way back, one of the men carrying his litter slipped on the steep path, and Lord Kanbei took a hard fall. Lord Kanbei just laughed as though he were amused."

Why was Kanbei out at the front lines in this rain? As usual, Hideyoshi was impressed with Kanbei's untiring spirit.

Toranosuke withdrew to the next room and put firewood on the hearth. With the rain, the mosquitoes had begun to hatch, and they were especially troublesome that evening. The fire heated up the already muggy atmosphere, but at least it also smoked out the mosquitoes.

"It's smoky in here," Kanbei said, coughing. He limped past the pages and entered Hideyoshi's room unannounced.

He and Hideyoshi were soon talking happily. Their voices almost seemed to compete with each other.

"I think it's going to be difficult," Hideyoshi said.

Hideyoshi and Kanbei fell silent for a moment and listened to the dreary sound of the early summer rain pouring off the eaves of the makeshift hut.

"It's just a question of time," Kanbei began. "A second all-out offensive would be a gamble. On the other hand, we could resign ourselves to a long campaign and besiege the castle at our leisure, but there are great dangers in that, too. The forty thousand troops from the Mori's home province might arrive and attack us from the rear, and then we would be caught between them and the men in Takamatsu Castie."

"That's why I'm so depressed this rainy season. Don't you have any good ideas, Kanbei?"

"I've been walking around the front lines for the last two days, looking carefully at the position of the enemy castle and the surrounding geographical features. At this point I have only one plan on which we could stake everything."

"Takamatsu's fall is not just a question of taking a single enemy castle," Hideyoshi said. "If it falls, Yoshida Castle will soon be ours. But if we stumble here, that one defeat will cost us five years of work. We need a plan, Kanbei. I've asked the people in the next room to withdraw so you can speak without reserve. I want to know what you'n thinking."

"It's rude of me to say so, but I suspect you have a plan too, my lord."

"I won't deny it."

"May I ask what yours is first?"

"Let's both write our ideas down," Hideyoshi suggested, bringing out paper, brush, and ink.

When they had finished writing, the two men exchanged sheets of paper. Hideyoshi had written one word, "water," and Kanbei had written two: "water attack."