"No, and I wouldn't have been able to see you before finishing that matter, so there was nothing I could do but fight on doggedly until two or three days ago."

"Being able to meet you here safely like this must mean that the road you've taken is in harmony with the intentions of the gods and Buddhas. Well… Nene, come over here, too. We should give thanks together."

With that, the old lady turned once again to the statue of Kannon. Until that time, Nene had sat modestly apart from Hideyoshi and his mother. When her mother-in-law requested her presence, however, she quickly got up to walk into the main sanctuary.

After lighting the lantern in the Buddhist shrine, she returned and, for the first time, sat next to her husband. The three of them bowed together in the direction of the faint light. After Hideyoshi raised his head and gazed at the image, the three bowed again. A mortuary tablet bearing Lord Nobunaga's name had been placed in the shrine.

When they had finished, Hideyoshi's mother looked as though a heavy weight had been lifted from their hearts.

"Nene," the old lady called softly. "That boy is fond of a bath. Has it been prepared?"

"Yes. I thought it would be more relaxing for him than anything else, so I'm having one prepared right now."

"It would be good if he could at least wash off the sweat and dirt. In the meantime, I'll go to the kitchen and have them prepare something he likes to eat."

The old lady left the two of them alone.

"Nene."

"Yes?"

"I suspect you went through a lot of hardships this time, too. But even with manag­ing everything else, you kept my mother safe. That was really my only concern as well."

"The wife of a warrior is always ready for difficulties like these, so it didn't seem so bad."

“Really? Then you've understood that there is nothing more satisfying than to look around and see your difficulties behind you."

“When I see that my husband has come home safely, I know just what you mean."

They returned to Nagahama the following day. The morning sun reflected on the white mist. Following the Azusa River, the road grew progressively narrower, and the warriors dismounted and led their horses.

Halfway through the journey, they encountered one of the staff officers from Nagahama who had come to report on the war situation.

“Your letter concerning the punishment of the Akechi was sent to the other clans, and, perhaps due to the speed with which it was notified, the army of Lord Ieyasu has returned to Hamamatsu from Narumi. On the other hand, Lord Katsuie's army, which had come as far as the Omi border, seems now to have halted its advance."

Hideyoshi smiled silently and then almost muttered to himself. "It seems that Lord Ieyasu also felt a little confused this time. Of course it was only an indirect result, but it seems that checking Ieyasu dispersed Mitsuhide's military strength. How chagrined the Tokugawa warriors must be to have gone back without a fight." 

Thus, on the twenty-fifth of the month, the day after he safely returned his mother to Nagahama, he departed for Mino.

There had been agitation in Mino, but as soon as his army advanced, the area was subdued. First presenting Nobutaka with the castle at Inabayama, he demonstrated his toward the clan of his former lord. Then he waited calmly for the conference at Kiyosu, which was to begin on the twenty-seventh of that month.

War of Words

Shibata Katsuie was fifty-two years old that year. As a military commander, he was the veteran of many battles; as a man, he had experienced many vicissitudes on the road of life. He was of a good lineage and had a distinguished career; he commanded a powerful army, and he was blessed with a robust physique. No one doubted that he had been chosen by the times. He himself assumed that this was unquestionably the case. On the fourth day of the Sixth Month, he was encamped at Uozaki in Etchu. The moment he heard the news of the Honno Temple incident, he told himself, What I do now is of the utmost importance, and I must do it well.

For this reason, his actions were delayed. He was that circumspect. His mind, however, hurried to Kyoto like a squall.

He was the most senior Oda retainer and the military governor of the northern provinces. Now, equipped with a lifetime of wisdom and strength, he was gambling his entire career on one move. Abandoning the battlefield in the north, he hastened toward the capital. Though one might say he hastened, in fact it took him several days to leave Etchu, and he spent several days more in his home castle at Kitanosho in Echizen. He himself did not consider his progress to be slow. Once a man like Katsuie moved on such an important mission, everything had to be done according to the rules, and that necessitated a proper prudence and correct timing.

The speed with which he moved his troops seemed remarkable to Katsuie, but by the time his main force reached the border of Echizen and Omi, it was already the fifteenth of the month. It was not until noon on the following day that the rear guard from Ki­tanosho caught up with him, and the entire army rested their horses at the mountain pass. Looking down onto the plain, they could see that the summer clouds were already high in the sky.

It had been twelve days since Katsuie had heard of Nobunaga's death. It is true that Hideyoshi—who was fighting the Mori in the western provinces—had heard the report from Kyoto one day ahead of Katsuie. But on the fourth of the month Hideyoshi had made peace with the Mori, on the fifth he had departed, on the seventh he had arrived at Himeji, on the ninth he had turned toward Amagasaki, on the thirteenth he had struck down Mitsuhide in the battle at Yamazaki, and by the time Katsuie had reached the borders of Omi, he had already swept the capital clear of the remaining enemy troops.

Certainly the road leading to the capital from Echizen was longer and more difficult than the one leading from Takamatsu, but the difficulties that faced Hideyoshi and those tht Katsuie confronted were not of the same order. Katsuie had the clear advantage. In managing his troop movements and in disengaging himself from the battlefield, his circumstances were far easier than Hideyoshi's. Why, then, was he so late? It was simply that Katsuie put prudence and abiding by the rules ahead of speed.

The experience that he had gained by participating in so many battles, and the self-confidence that had come about as a result, had created a shell around his thinking and power of discrimination. Those qualities were actually a hindrance to swift action when national  affairs were at a turning point, and they contributed to Katsuie's inability to go beyond conventional tactics and strategies.

The mountain village of Yanagase was full of horses and men. West of it was the direction of the capital. Going east, the army would pass Lake Yogo and enter the road to Nagahama Castle. Katsuie had set up his temporary headquarters in the compound of a small mountain shrine.

Katsuie was extremely sensitive to the temperature, and appeared to be suffering from the intense heat and the climb on that day in particular. When he had had his camp stool set up in the shade of the trees, he had a curtain stretched from tree to tree, and he took off his armor behind it. He then turned his back to his foster son, Katsutoshi, and said, “Wipe off my back, Katsutoshi."

Twopages held large fans and cooled Katsuie's sides. When the sweat dried, his body began to itch.

“Katsutoshi, rub harder. Much harder," he fretted.

The boy was still only fifteen years old. It was rather touching to see him acting with such filial piety in the middle of a march.

Something like a rash covered Katsuie's skin. And Katsuie was not the only one to suffer that summer. Many of the soldiers who were wearing leather and metal armor developed a skin condition that might be called an armor rash, but Katsuie's case was particularly severe.