As he waved his arms from the top of the dike, asking for the thousands of workers' agreement, a shout arose instantaneously in response, and a wave of human heads undulated back and forth as far as the eye could see.
"Is that your only complaint?" Kanbei asked.
"Yeah. That's what we'd like to settle first," the man replied, looking to the crowd for support but not showing the least bit of fear.
"Absolutely not!" Kanbei spoke in his true voice for the first time. That instant, he threw down his staff, unsheathed his sword, and sliced the man in two. Turning quickly to another who had started to run away, he cut him down too. At the same time, Rokuro and Kyuemon—who were standing behind Kanbei—wielded their swords and finished off the other three men in a shower of gushing blood.
In this way Kanbei, Kyuemon, and Rokuro divided up their work and cut down five men in the instant it takes lightning to strike.
Struck by the speed and unexpectedness of the action, the laborers were as hushed as grass in a graveyard. The dissatisfied voices had been hushed in an instant. The faces that had been so impudent up until then—the defiant looks—were gone. Nothing was left but countless faces the color of earth, cowering in fear.
Standing over the five corpses, the three samurai glared ominously at the laborers, their blood-soaked swords still in their hands.
Kanbei finally shouted with all his ferocity, "These five men who represented you— we called them up here, listened to what they had to say, and gave them a very clear answer. Someone else may have something to say, too, however." He paused, waiting for someone to speak up. "Surely there's someone down there who wants to come up. Who's next? If there's anyone who thinks he wants to say something for everyone, now's the time to speak up!"
Kanbei was quiet for a moment, giving the men time to reflect on the matter. Among those numberless heads, there were very clearly men whose expressions were changing from fear to regret. Kanbei wiped the blood off his sword and returned it to its scabbard. Softening his expression, he lectured the laborers in a dignified manner.
"I see that no one is going to come up after these five men, so I imagine that means your intentions are different from theirs. If I'm right, then I'm going to have my say. Are there any objections?"
The several thousand laborers answered in the voices of men who had been saved from death. Not one of them had an objection. Nobody had any intention of complaining. The men who had spoken were clearly the ringleaders who had instigated the slowdowns. The rest were going to follow orders and work. Would Hideyoshi forgive them?
The three thousand men were speaking noisily back and forth, some in whispers, some yelling, so that one could hardly understand who was saying what. The feeling of the entire crowd, however, was united.
"Quiet now!" Kanbei waved his hand to control them. "All right. This is the way I think it should be. I'm not going to say anything complicated, but essentially it would be best if you all worked happily and quickly with your wives and children under His Lordship's administration. If you're indolent or greedy, you will only delay the arrival of the day you are looking forward to. The expeditionary army sent by Lord Nobunaga will not be defeated by the Mori. No matter how large a province the Mori control, it is a province that is doomed to fall. This is not because the Mori are weak, but because of the great movement of the times. Do you understand?"
"Yes," the laborers replied.
"Well then, are you going to work?"
"We're going to work. We're really going to work!"
"All right!" Kanbei nodded strongly and turned toward Hideyoshi. "My lord, you can hear how the workers have spoken, so won't you be generous with them this time?" He almost seemed to be pleading for the crowd.
Hideyoshi stood up. He gave a command to Kanbei and the two officials who were kneeling before him. Almost immediately, foot soldiers walked over, shouldering what appeared to be heavy money bags—a mountain of straw money bags.
Facing the laborers, who were caught up in their fears and regrets, Kanbei said, “You're really not to blame. All of you are in a pitiful situation. You've been led astray by two or three bad elements. That is what Lord Hideyoshi has declared; and so that you'll work with no other thoughts in mind, he has commanded that we give you a bonus to urge you on a little. Receive, express your thanks, and get quickly back to work."
When the command was given to the foot soldiers, every straw bag there was broken open and the mountain of coins poured out, almost covering the top of the dike.
"Grab however much you can and go. But only one fistful for each man."
He said this quite clearly, but the laborers still hesitated to make a move forward. They whispered among themselves and looked back and forth at each other, but the mountain of coins stayed right where it was.
"The fastest man will be the winner! Don't complain after it's all gone. Each man should take a fistful, so the men born with big hands can account themselves lucky, and men with little hands shouldn't let anything slip between their fingers. Don't get excited and fail. Then go back to work."
The laborers no longer had any doubts. They could see that Kanbei meant what he said with his smiling face and jocular words. The laborers in the front of the crowd rushed up to the mountain of coins. They wavered a little, as though frightened by the sight of so much money, but as soon as the first man had grabbed a fistful and retreated, a chorus of happy voices suddenly arose. It sounded almost like a victory song. Almost immediately such confusion took over that coins, men, and clods of earth were hardly distinguishable. No man, however, tried to cheat—somewhere along the line they had all thrown off their craftiness and dissatisfaction. Holding on to their handfuls of coins, they seemed to have been transformed, and each man ran off to his own work station.
The echoes of hoes and spades being used with real force filled the air. With spirited yells, men dumped earth, inserted poles through the straw carrying-baskets, and shouldered sandbags away. Real spirit was being mustered for the first time. The sweat the men were now wringing out of themselves increasingly gladdened and refreshed them, and they began to shout with enthusiasm among themselves.
"Who says we can't finish this dike in five days? Hey, everybody—remember the big flood?"
"That's right. This is nothing like trying to keep the flood waters out."
"Let's do it! Let's give it all we've got!"
"I'm not going to give up!"
In just half a day, more work was accomplished than in the previous five.
The overseers' whips and Kanbei's staff were no longer needed. Bonfires were lit at night, the dust from the earth darkened the day, and finally the work was almost finished.
As the landlocked dike neared completion, the related work of diverting the seven rivers around Takamatsu Castle also advanced. Nearly twenty thousand men had been put to work on that project. Damming up and drawing off the waters of the Ashimori and Naruya rivers were the construction projects considered to be the most difficult.
The official in charge of damming the Ashimori often complained to Hideyoshi, "The level of water is rising every day with the heavy rains in the mountains. There just doesn't seem to be any way of damming it."
Kanbei had gone to inspect the site with Rokuro the day before, and he understood the extreme difficulty of the situation.
"The current is so strong that even when we pushed in boulders that took twenty or thirty men to move, they were washed away immediately."
When even Kanbei could only bring back excuses, Hideyoshi went to the river himself to see the actual situation. But when he stood there and looked at the power of the rushing current, his own human knowledge was overwhelmed.