Mount Fumuro is one of a cluster of mountains at the northern edge of two lakes—the smaller Lake Yogo and the larger Lake Biwa. From the village of Fumuro at its foot to its summit is a height of almost eight hundred meters and a walking distance of over two leagues. If the traveler wanted to climb its steep slope, he would have to plan on taking at half a day.

“He's leaving!"

“Where's he going so suddenly?"

The warriors guarding Hideyoshi noticed the retreating figures of the pages and ran after them. They could see Hideyoshi happily walking on ahead, grasping a bamboo staff, looking for all the world as if he were off on a hawking expedition.

“Are you going to climb the mountain, my lord?"

Hideyoshi pointed halfway up the slope with his staff. “Right. Up to about there."

When they had climbed about a third of the way up the mountain, they came to an area of level ground. Hideyoshi stood looking around, as the wind cooled the sweat on his forehead. From his position he had a bird's-eye view of the area from Yanagase to lower Yogo. The road to the northern provinces, which wound its way through the mountains and connected several villages, looked like a single ribbon.

“Which one is Mount Nakao?"

"That's it over there."

Hideyoshi looked in the direction in which the warrior was pointing. That was the enemy's main camp. A large number of banners followed the lines of the mountain and continued down to its base. There a single army corps could be recognized. But if one looked further, one could see that the banners belonging to the forces of the north filled the mountains in the distance and occupied the strategic areas on peaks closer at hand and all along the road. It was just as though some military expert had made that piece of heaven and earth his base and was trying his hand at a tremendous expansion of his for­mation. There were no cracks or spaces in the subtlety of the arrangement or in the strat­egy of the positioning of troops. The grandeur with which they showed themselves ready to swallow the enemy was beyond words.

Hideyoshi silently looked out over the scene. He then looked back toward Katsuie's main camp on Mount Nakao and gazed fixedly at it for a long time.

Looking closely, he could see a group of men working like ants on the southern face of the main camp area on Mount Nakao. And not in just one or two places. He could de­tect activity in all of the slightly elevated locations.

"Well, it looks like Katsuie intends to make this a long campaign."

Hideyoshi had the answer. The enemy was building fortifications at the southern end of the main camp. The entire battle array, which spread out like a fan from the central army, had been positioned with great care. It would make a steady, carefully controlled advance. There was no sign of preparations for a surprise attack.

Hideyoshi could read the enemy's plan. In a word, Katsuie intended to keep him pinned down here to give his allies in Ise and Mino the time to prepare for a combined offensive from the front and rear.

"Let's go back," Hideyoshi said, and started off. "Isn't there another way down?"

"Yes, my lord," a page answered proudly.

They came to an allied camp just between Mount Tenjin and Ikenohara. From the banners, they knew it was Hosokawa Tadaoki's post.

"I'm thirsty," Hideyoshi said after presenting himself at the gate.

Tadaoki and his retainers thought that Hideyoshi was conducting a surprise inspec­tion.

"No," Hideyoshi explained, "I'm just on my way back from Mount Fumuro. But since I'm here…" As Hideyoshi stood before Tadaoki, he drank some water and gave orders: "Strike camp immediately and go home. Then take all of the warships docked at Miyazu in Tango and attack the enemy coast."

Hideyoshi had conceived of the idea of a navy when he was climbing the mountain. The plan did not seem to have anything to do with what he was involved with at the time, but that kind of discrepancy was, perhaps, peculiar to his way of thinking. His thought processes were not limited by what he saw in front of him.

After half a day of military observations, Hideyoshi had almost completely deter­mined his strategy. That night he summoned all of the generals to his headquarters and told them what he was going to do: because the enemy was preparing for extended hos­tilities, Hideyoshi's forces would also construct a number of ramparts and prepare for protracted hostilities.

The construction of a chain of fortresses was begun. The engineering was on a grand scale—geared to encourage morale. Hideyoshi's decision to begin building right in front the enemy, at a time when a decisive battle seemed imminent, could be called either reckless or courageous. It could easily have lost him the war. But he was willing to take that chance in order to connect himself to the people of the province.

The fighting style of Nobunaga had been characterized by an irresistible force; it was said that "where Nobunaga advances, the grasses and trees wither." But Hideyoshi's fighting style was different. Where he advanced, where he made his camp, he naturally drew people to him. Winning over the local people was an important matter to attend to before ever trying to defeat the enemy.

Strict military discipline is vital, but even on days when blood seemed to flow, there was something of a spring breeze wherever Hideyoshi set up his camp stool. Someone even wrote: "Where Hideyoshi lives, the spring wind blows."

The lines of fortresses were to run through two areas. The first ran from Kitayama in Nakanogo, along the route to the northern provinces through Mount Higashino, Mount Dangi, and Mount Shinmei; the second went along Mount Iwasaki, Mount Okami, Shizugatake, Mount Tagami, and Kinomoto. Such a huge undertaking would require tens of thousands of laborers.

Hideyoshi recruited the men from the province of Nagahama. He had signposts advertising the work raised in the areas especially devastated by war. The mountains were filled with refugees. Lumber was cut, roads were opened, fortifications were constructed everywhere, and it was easy to believe that a line of fortresses would spring up overnight.  But the construction work was not so easy. A single fort required a watchtower and barracks, and also moats and ramparts. Three wooden palisades were set up, while huge rocks and trees were stockpiled directly above the road that the enemy would most likely take to attack.

Both a trench and a palisade connected the area between Mount Higashino and Mount Dangi, which was the zone most likely to be used as the battlefield. The excavation for this alone was daunting, but the necessary work was completed in only twenty days.  Women and children participated in the effort.

The Shibata conducted night raids and played petty tricks and were able to impede progress, but seeming to realize that they were having no real success against men who were constantly prepared, they became as quiet as the mountain itself.

It was almost uncanny. Why didn't they just make their move? But Hideyoshi understood. His constant thought—that his adversary was a strong old veteran and not an easy mark—was reflected in Katsuie's mind as well. But there were other important reasons.

Katsuie's military preparations were already complete, but he felt that the time was not yet ripe to mobilize the allies he held in reserve.

Those allies were, of course, the forces of Nobutaka in Gifu. Once Nobutaka was able to move, Takigawa Kazumasu would also be able to attack from Kuwana Castle. Then, for the first time, Katsuie's plans could be transformed into an effective strategy.

Katsuie knew that if it were not done in that way, victory would not easily be achieved. That was how he had secretly and quite anxiously calculated the situation from

the very beginning. The calculation itself was based on the comparative strengths of Hideyoshi's provinces and his own.