He went from house to house, beating on the gates and calling out to those still sleeping inside.
"Come to the meeting! Come to the meeting! Everyone who's working on the construction, be at the site by the Hour of the Tiger. Anyone who is late will be dismissed. By order of Lord Nobunaga!"
He gave out this message at one house after another. White steam rose from the sweat-soaked coat of his horse. Just as he reached the castle moat, light began to appear in the eastern sky. He tethered his horse outside the castle gate, took a deep breath, and stood blocking the Karabashi Gate. He held his long sword in his hand, and his eyes were shining brightly.
The foremen who had been awakened while it was still dark all wondered what had
happened, and arrived one by one, leading their men.
"Wait!" Tokichiro ordered, stopping them at the entrance. After they had given their names, the location of their work, and the number of their workers and coolies, he gave them permission to pass. Then he ordered them to wait silently at their work stations. As far as he could see, almost everyone was there. The workmen were standing in order, but murmuring among themselves uneasily.
Tokichiro stood in front of them, still carrying his unsheathed sword. "Quiet!" He spoke as though he were giving a command with the tip of his raised sword. "Fall in!"
The workmen obeyed, but smiled scornfully. It was obvious from the looks in their eyes that they regarded him as a greenhorn, and that they were laughing at the way he stood in front of them with his chest stuck out. To them, his sword waving was nothing more than impertinent posturing, and it did nothing but invite their scorn.
"This is an order for all of you," Tokichiro said in a loud voice, with what seemed to be complete nonchalance. "By the order of Lord Nobunaga, I, as unworthy as I am, will be in charge of the construction from now on. Yamabuchi Ukon was in charge until yesterday, but I will take his place from today." As he spoke, he looked over the ranks of the workmen from right to left. "Until a short while ago, I was in the lowest rank of the servants. But with the favor of His Lordship, I was moved to the kitchens and am now in the stables. I have spent only a short time on the castle grounds, and I know nothing about construction work, but I plan on being second to none when it comes to serving our master. Under an overseer like myself, then, I wonder if any of you will consider working as my subordinates. I can imagine that, among artisans, there is an artisan's temperament. If any of you dislike working under these conditions, please feel free to say so, and I will promptly dismiss you."
Everyone was silent. Even the foremen, who had hidden their scorn, kept their mouths shut.
"No one? Is there no one who is dissatisfied with me as overseer?" he asked again. "If not, then let's get to work immediately. As I've said before, in wartime it is unforgivable for this work to take twenty days. I plan to finish the work by dawn three days from now. I want to say this clearly so that you'll understand and work hard."
The foremen looked at each other. It was natural that this sort of speech would elicit derisive smiles from those men with receding hairlines, who had been doing their jobs since childhood. Tokichiro noticed their reaction but chose to ignore it.
"Foremen of the masons! Head carpenters and plasterers! Come forward!"
They stepped forward, but as they looked up, scorn floated across their faces. Tokichiro suddenly struck the head plasterer with the flat of his long sword.
"What insolence! Do you stand there in front of an overseer with your arms folded? Get out!"
Thinking that he had been cut, the man fell down screaming. The others turned pale, their knees shaking.
Tokichiro went on severely, "I'm going to assign you your posts and duties. Listen carefully." Their attitude had improved. No one looked as if he was only half listening. They were quiet, though not reconciled. And even though they were not really cooperating, they looked scared.
"I've divided the two hundred yards of the wall into fifty sections, giving each group responsibility for four yards. Each group will consist of ten men: three carpenters, two plasterers, and five masons. I'm going to leave those assignments to the foremen. You foremen will each be supervising from four to five groups, so make sure that the workmen are not idle and pay attention to the distribution of men. When any of you have men to spare, move them to a station that is shorthanded. Don't leave an instant for idling."
They nodded but looked restive. They were irritated by this sort of lecture, and unhappy at being assigned to work stations.
"Ah, I almost forgot," Tokichiro said in a louder voice. "Along with the division of ten men for every four yards, I'm assigning a reserve corps of eight coolies and two workmen to each group. When I look at the way the work has been done so far, workers and plasterers are apt to leave the scaffolding and spend the day doing work that is not their own, like carrying lumber. But a worker at the workplace is the same as a soldier on the fied. He should never leave his post. And he shouldn't abandon his tools, whether he be a carpenter, a plasterer, or a mason. That would be the same as a soldier throwing away his sword or spear on the battlefield."
He allocated the posts and divided the men, and then shouted with authority enough to start a battle, "Let's begin!"
Tokichiro also found work for his new subordinates. He ordered one of them to beat a drum. When he commanded the workers to begin, the man beat the drum as though they were marching into battle, one beat to every six paces.
Two beats of the drum sounded a break.
"Rest!" Tokichiro gave the order standing on top of a boulder. If someone didn't rest, he scolded him.
The construction site had been swept clean of the indolence that had prevailed until then; it was replaced by an intensity of activity more common on the battlefield, and by the sweat of excitement. But Tokichiro looked on silently, satisfaction never showing in his face. Not yet. Not like this, he thought.
Taught by their many years of labor, the workmen knew how to use their bodies in crafty ways. They gave the impression of working hard, but in fact they were not wringing out real sweat. Their resistance was such that they took a little comfort by showing obedience on the surface, but not truly working hard. Tokichiro's past life had been drowned in sweat, and he knew the true value and beauty of that sweat.
It is untrue to state that labor is a thing of the body. If labor is not filled with the spirit, there's no difference between the sweat of men and that of cows and horses. Keeping his mouth shut, he thought about the true nature of sweat and work. These men were working in order to eat. Or they were working in order to feed parents, wives, and children. They worked for food or pleasure, and they did not rise above that. Their work was small. And it was mean. Their desires were so limited that pity welled up inside Tokichin and he thought, I was like that too, before. Is it reasonable to expect great works from people with little hope? If he couldn't imbue them with a greater spirit, there was no reason for them to work with greater efficiency.
For Tokichiro, standing silently on the construction site, half a day passed quicky.
Half a day was one-sixth of his allotted time. Looking at the site, however, he could see no signs that they had made any progress since morning. Both above and below the scaffolding, the men seemed to be full of eagerness, but it was nothing more than a sham. On the contrary, they anticipated Tokichiro's complete and overwhelming defeat in three days.
"It's noon. Beat the drum," Tokichiro ordered. The noise and uproar of the construction site came to a halt all at once. When Tokichiro saw that the workers had taken out their lunches, he sheathed his sword and went off.