Without moving from the camp stool Genba unrolled the map, stroked his cheek with one hand, and remained silent.

Nearly an hour passed.

Katsuie had been concerned at the time his nephew had spoken with such zeal, but when he observed Genba silently contemplating the map, he suddenly felt sure of the younger man's reliability.

“All right." Finally putting an end to his own deliberations, he turned and spoke to his nephew. "Don't make any mistakes, Genba. I'm giving you the order to go deep behind the enemy lines tonight."

Genba looked up, and at the same time stood straight up from the camp stool. He was almost insanely happy and bowed with great civility. But while Katsuie admired this nephew who was so happy at being put in command of the vanguard, he knew it was a position that might easily mean a man's death if he made a mistake.

"I'm telling you again—once you've accomplished your goal of destroying Iwasaki and Oiwa, retreat with the speed of the wind."

"Yes, Uncle."

"This hardly needs to be said, but a safe retreat is extremely important in war—especially in a fight involving the penetration of enemy territory. If you fail to withdraw safely, it's like forgetting the last basketful of earth when digging a well a hundred fathoms deep. Go with the speed of the wind, and come back in the same way."

"I've understood your warning well."

His hope having now been realized, Genba was perfectly docile. Katsuie immediately assembled his generals. By evening the orders had gone out to each of the camps, and the preparations for every corps seemed to be complete.

It was the night of the nineteenth day of the Fourth Month. The eighteen-thousand-man army left the camp in secret exactly at the second half of the Hour of the Rat. The attacking force was divided into two corps of four thousand men each. They moved down the mountain toward Shiotsudani, crossed over Tarumi Pass, and pressed eastward along the western bank of Lake Yogo.

In a diversionary maneuver, the twelve thousand men of Katsuie's main army took a different route. Advancing along the road to the northern provinces, they gradually turned southeast. Their action was intended to assist the success of the surprise attack corps led by Sakuma Genba, and at the same time it would police any movements from the enemy fortresses.

Among the main forces of the diversionary army, Shibata Katsumasa's single corps of three thousand men went southeast of the slope at Iiura, hid their banners and armor, and stealthily observed the enemy movements in the direction of Shizugatake.

Maeda Inuchiyo had been charged with guarding a line that stretched from Shiotsu to Mount Dangi and Mount Shinmei.

Shibata Katsuie departed from the main camp at Mount Nakao with an army of seven thousand men, and he advanced as far as Kitsunezaka on the road to the northern provinces. It was in order to draw in and incapacitate Hidemasa's five thousand men stationed on Mount Higashino that Katsuie's army now proudly displayed its banners and marched on.

The night sky slowly began to brighten with the approach of dawn. It was the twentieth day of the Fourth Month of the lunar calendar—very close to the summer solstice— and the nights were short.

It was just about at that time that the generals of the vanguard began to gather on the white shore of Lake Yogo. Following the vanguard of four thousand men, a second corps came quickly up behind them. That was the force that would penetrate deep behind the enemy lines, and Sakuma Genba was in its midst.

The mist was thick.

Suddenly a rainbow-colored light appeared in the middle of the lake. That in itself might have made the men think that it would shortly be dawn. But they could hardly see the tails on the horses in front of them, and the path through the grassy plain was still dark.

As the mist swirled by the banners, armor, and spears, the men all appeared as though they were walking through water.

They were oppressed by thoughts that tightened their chests. The cold mist gathered on their eyebrows and on the hairs of their nostrils.

A splashing noise and laughter and animated voices could be heard from the lake shore. Scouts from the attacking troops quickly got down on all fours and crept forward to investigate who might be out in the middle of the mist. It turned out to be two samurai and maybe ten grooms from the fortress at Mount Iwasaki; they had just walked into the shallows of the lake and were washing horses.

The scouts waited for troops from the vanguard to move up and signaled to them silently with waves of the hand. Then, when they were sure the enemy was trapped, they suddenly yelled, "Take them alive!"

Caught unawares, the warriors and grooms splashed through the water in surprise and ran along the shore.

"The enemy! It's the enemy!"

Five or six men escaped, but the rest were captured.

"Well, well, the season's first game."

The Shibata warriors grabbed the prisoners by their collars and took them to their commander, Fuwa Hikozo, who questioned them from horseback.

A message was sent to Sakuma Genba, asking what should be done with the prisoners.

The response spurred them to quick action: "Do not be delayed by these men. Kill them at once and continue immediately to Mount Oiwa."

Fuwa Hikozo dismounted, drew his sword, and personally decapitated one man. He then shouted out a command to all the members of the vanguard. "Here! have a festival of blood! Hack off the heads of the others and present them as an offering to the god of war.  Then raise your war cries and move on to attack the fortress at Oiwa!"

The soldiers around Hikozo almost fought over the chance to cut off the heads of the grooms. Raising their bloody swords high in the morning sky, they offered the lifebood of their prisoners and yelled to the demons. The entire army raised war cries in response.

Billowing waves of armor shook and trembled through the morning mist as each man competed to be first. Sweating horse brushed past sweating horse in the struggle to take the lead, and one spear corps after another rushed forward in the confusion of glittering spearheads.

Gunfire could already be heard, spears and long swords flashed in the morning light, and a strange sound was coming from the area of Mount Oiwa's first palisade. How deep the lingering dreams of the short summer night! The slopes of Mount Oiwa, defended by Nakagawa Sebei, and Mount Iwasaki, held by Takayama Ukon—the center of Hideyoshi's fortifications—were bound by the mist and as quiet, as if no oneknew yet of the oncoming flood of men.

The construction of the fortress at Mount Oiwa had been quick and simple. Nakagawa Sebei slept in a rest hut along the ramparts halfway up the mountain.

Not yet fully conscious, he suddenly raised his head and muttered. "What's going on?

On the border between dream and reality, and without knowing why, he got up abruptly and put on the armor that had been placed near his bed.

As he was finishing, someone knocked at the door of the rest hut and then seemed to be pushing against it with his body as well.

The door fell inward, and three or four retainers tumbled in.

"The Shibata!" they cried.

"Calm down!" Sebei reprimanded them.

From the incoherent reports of the surviving grooms, Sebei was unable to find out where the enemy had broken through or who was leading them.

"It would be an extraordinary feat for even a daring enemy to break this far through the lines. These men will not be easy to deal with. I don't know who's leading them, but I suspect that of all the commanders of the Shibata forces it's most likely to be Sakuma Genba."

Sebei had quickly grasped the situation, and a shudder ran through his entire frame. It would be difficult to deny that the man is a powerful enemy, he thought. But opposed to that overwhelming feeling, a different kind of strength bubbled up from within, and he rebounded.