"I'm glad you came," he said. "Well, let's go inside." Turning around, Hideyoshi led

His guests to a room. "I had a really good laugh last night. Thanks to you, I slept late this morning."

And sure enough, he looked as though he had just gotten up and washed his face. That morning, however, each of the envoys looked somehow different—as though he had woken up inside a different shell.

“You've been much too hospitable in the midst of all your work, but we are returning home today," Kanamori said.

Hideyoshi nodded. "Is that so? Well, please give my regards to Lord Katsuie on your return.”

“I'm sure Lord Katsuie will be delighted by the outcome of the peace talks."

“My heart has been lifted just by your coming here as envoys. Now all those people would like to make us fight will be disappointed."

“But won't you please take your brush and sign a solemn pledge, just to stop up the mouths of such people?" Kanamori entreated.

That was it. That was what had suddenly become essential for the envoys that morning.  The peace talks had gone too smoothly, and they had become uneasy with words alone. Even if they reported to Katsuie what had transpired, without some sort of document it was nothing more than a verbal promise.

“All right." The look on Hideyoshi's face showed full agreement. "I'll give one to you, and I’ll expect one from Lord Katsuie. But this pledge isn't limited to Lord Katsuie and me.  If the names of the other veteran generals are not attached as well, the document will be meaningless. I'll speak to Niwa and Ikeda immediately. That should be all right, shouldn't it?"

Hideyoshi's eyes met Inuchiyo's.

“That should be fine," Inuchiyo answered clearly. His eyes read everything in Hideyoshi­'s heart—he had seen the future even before leaving Kitanosho. If Inuchiyo could be called a rogue, he was a likable one.

Hideyoshi stood up. "I was just about to leave myself. I'll go with you as far as the town."

“They left the citadel together.

“I haven't seen Lord Katsutoyo today. Has he already left?" Hideyoshi asked.

“He is still unwell," Fuwa said. "We left him at his lodgings."

They mounted their horses and rode as far as the crossroads in the castle town.

“Where are you off to today, Hideyoshi?" Inuchiyo asked.

“I'm going to Kyoto, as usual."

Well, we'll separate here then. We still have to return to our lodgings and make our rations for the journey."

“I'd like to look in on Lord Katsutoyo," Hideyoshi said, "to see if he's improved."

Inuchiyo, Kanamori, and Fuwa returned to Kitanosho on the tenth day of the same month, and immediately reported to Katsuie. Katsuie was overjoyed that his plan to establih a pretense of peace had been carried out more smoothly than he had anticipated.

Soon thereafter Katsuie held a secret meeting with his most trusted retainers and told

them, "We'll keep the peace through the winter. As soon as the snows melt, we'll butcher our old enemy with a single blow."

As soon as Katsuie had completed the first stage of his strategy by making peace with Hideyoshi, he dispatched another envoy, this time to Tokugawa Ieyasu. That was at the end of the Eleventh Month.

For the last half year—since the Sixth Month—Ieyasu had been absent from the cen­ter of activity. After the Honno Temple incident, the entire nation's attention had been fo­cused on filling the void that had been created when the center had so suddenly collapsed. During that time, when no one had had a moment to look anywhere else, Ieyasu had taken his own independent road.

At the time of Nobunaga's murder, he had been on a sightseeing tour of Sakai and had barely been able to return to his own province with his life. Immediately ordering military preparations, he pushed as far as Narumi. But the motive behind that action was quite different from the one Katsuie had had for crossing over Yanagase from Echizen.

When Ieyasu heard that Hideyoshi had reached Yamazaki, he said, "Our province is entirely at peace." Then he withdrew his army to Hamamatsu.

Ieyasu had never considered himself to be in the same category as Nobunaga's surviving retainers. He was an ally of the Oda clan, while Katsuie and Hideyoshi were Nobunaga's generals. He wondered why he should take part in the struggle among the surviving retainers, why he should fight to pick over the ashes. And there was something far more substantial for him now. For some time he had watched eagerly for a chance at territorial expansion into Kai and Shinano, the two provinces that bordered his own. He had been unable to play his hand while Nobunaga was alive, and there would likely be no better opportunity than now.

The man who foolishly opened up a path toward that goal and who gave Ieyasu a splendid opportunity was Hojo Ujinao, the lord of Sagami, another of the men who took advantage of the Honno Temple incident. Thinking that the time was ripe, a huge Hojo army of fifty thousand men crossed into the former Takeda domain of Kai. It was a large-scale invasion, executed almost as though Ujinao had simply taken a brush and drawn a line across a map, taking possession of what he thought he could.

That action gave Ieyasu a splendid reason to dispatch troops. The force he raised, however, consisted of only eight thousand men. The three-thousand-man vanguard checked a Hojo force of well over ten thousand men before it joined Ieyasu's main force. The war lasted more than ten days. Finally, the Hojo army could do nothing more than make a last stand or—as Ieyasu had hoped for and as it finally did—sue for peace.

"Joshu will be handed to the Hojo, while the two provinces of Kai and Shinano will be awarded to the Tokugawa clan."

That was the agreement to which they came, and it was just as Ieyasu had intended.

*  *  *

Their packhorses and traveling attire covered with the snow of the northern provinces, Shibata Katsuie's envoys to Kai arrived on the eleventh day of the Twelfth Month. They were first asked to rest in the guest quarters in Kofu. Their party was a large one and was led by two senior Shibata retainers, Shukuya Shichizaemon and Asami Dosei.

For two days they were more or less entertained. Otherwise, however, it seemed that they were being put off.

Ishikawa Kazumasa apologized profusely, telling the party that Ieyasu was still busy with military affairs.

The envoys grumbled at the coolness of their reception. In response to the many gifts of friendship from the Shibata clan, the Tokugawa retainers had simply received a list of the gifts and had given no other recognition at all. On their third day, they were granted an audience with Ieyasu.

It was the middle of a severe winter. Nevertheless, Ieyasu was sitting in a large room without even a hint of a warming fire. He did not look to be a man who had been afflicted by hardships and reverses since his youth. The flesh of his cheeks was plump. His large earlobes gave a certain weight to his entire body, like the rings of an iron teakettle and caused the visitors to wonder if the man could really be a great general still only forty years old

If Kanamori had come as an envoy, he would have quickly seen that the phrase "unwavering at the age of forty" applied absolutely to this man.

'Thank you for coming all this way with so many gifts of friendship. Is Lord Katsuie in good health?"

He spoke in an extremely dignified manner, and his voice overwhelmed the others, even though it was soft. His retainers stared at the two envoys, both of whom felt like the representatives of a dependent clan bringing tribute. To relate the message from their lord now would be mortifying. But there was nothing else they could do.

“'Lord Katsuie congratulates you on your conquest of the provinces of Kai and Shinano. As a token of his congratulations, he sends these gifts to you."