Long lines of coerced, machine-made, and let-live mortals wended the
broadening valleys leading from the seat of empire, Kyoto's mouldering
gate, Fushima, toward the walled-in adjuster, Ozaka, under whose shelter
there throbbed in every archer and each spearman the impulse that leads
to liberty.
A mighty task confronted these invaders, the mercenary half of a nation.
Obedience to an over-mastery had become their watchword; through long
ages the spark that enlightens had been drubbed and coaled into nothing
more than the droll leaden heat of an improvident toll, and the hills on
either side echoed from one to the other only such monotonous rhythm as
dulled or tinkled in the ears of baser content or lulled to sleep any
instinct born of more than earth's paid transient competence.
"Law and order is the order and the law," growled Ieyasu, as the last
one of those corpulent commanders eased back upon the tired, stooped
shoulders bearing him hence--to what and where only the lost and fading
records of regardful time could or would flaunt in the faces of a
blushing posterity.
"Are the spears sharp," demanded he, when the train had as diligently
ranked apace.
"I'll inquire, sir," responded the orderly, thinking only of the wage he
had contracted--and the echo answering back, from the farthest spoke in
the wheel, sounded like:
"All's well, sir."
"Avast! I warrant," muttered Ieyasu, "not one of them knows the
meaning, however prodded or ribbed. A heartless task, this; and, I do
believe the soul cries--but to the work:
"Forward, march!" and the drive began; the machine creaked; the master
builder, however, oiled methodically its thirsty bearings and adjusted
as economically the squeaking parts.
"It's a time-keeper, if ugly," muttered he, as the trodden ground, too,
responded with agony to the listless demands of an overly candid, if
seldom understood, "tramp, tramp, tramp"--and the knowing few, constant
criers of, "hands off, hands off, hands off," paled at the prospect of
their own befouling--Christ's blood bore no relation to the parboiling
blue of their ensemble; Pontius had exemplified the wiser conduct.
Anxious hearts and eager eyes, over there, on the other side, amid the
burnings and yearnings of betterment, atop privilege and opposed to
lying, their honor at stake and a lighted beacon in the hand, singing
songs of gladness and shouting defiance at sin, a mission to perform and
life ahead--these were the men and women who manned the ship whose
supercargo responds only to healthful dictation and whose decks are
freighted with the fragrant odor of valorous deeds.
"Let the work be quickly done," advised Yodogima, high at the helm's
guidance, aloft the citadel of manlier entente. "Strike the vibrating
thing at its weakest point, and when these carping conservatives shall
have once scented the cost of healthier action their flagrant confidence
must fall of its own overweight. The very thought is shocking, but truth
is most obvious: the only way to rid a body is to gouge an evil growth.
Your hearts are strong; see that you strike deep, and nobly."
Not a man faltered, no one questioned his rations; the prize savored of
freedom, the penalties were of trifling consideration, and these men
deployed their forces with a vim and an assurance that sounded afar the
masked countenance of those they defied.
Kuroda and Fukushima hearkened, sickening at their own stupid estimate.
The two of them, lifelong servers of a better fortune, respected
supporters of Hideyoshi, had sworn, sealing the oath with their own
blood, to defend and uphold the cause that Hideyori, an infant, had
inherited and Yodogima, his mother, now sought with fearless energy to
conserve, that Hideyoshi, the builder, had inaugurated, and that
Nobunaga, a beginner, had conceived. A terrible retribution bore down
hard, as their foolish mistake and her upright stand fairly began to
dawn. Committed and hemmed in, there seemed no escape--Ieyasu solved
the problem.
"Banished," snarled he, to Hidetada, his chief counsellor, and in the
presence of other barons assembled for that purpose; "and that their
example may prove salutary, in the case of any like minded or weak
kneed, it is my instruction that you kill these upon the slightest show
of rebellion. To Yedo with them, and dagger athwart."
Only Maeda, the younger, responded; he had witnessed the dispatch of his
father, sometime guardian over Hideyori, and jumping to his feet, vowed
undying fidelity to Ieyasu; he knew the forced intriguer's methods,
perhaps divined some advantage in his tactics, for he had inherited
untouched his father's estates, if not a better security--Ieyasu then
made him head commander, under Hidetada, his chief, subject only to
himself as dictator, obeyed, if despised.
"Then it is Maeda that Ieyasu, a wooer, would pit against my Sanada, a
patriot?" replied Yodogima, when advised of the circumstance--no doings
on either side escaped her; Kyogoku, now, again, for the one, and Honda,
Ieyasu's secretary, with the other, proved good intelligencers, if
shaky, or resolute, otherwise. "Perhaps he, Maeda, too, will have
changed somewhat when he has unexpectedly discovered that smoking
powder, and not farmers' arrows, await him. Sanada may sleep at the
gate, but Maeda shall never cross these walls--no doubt there are others
in Ieyasu's train of the same mind as Kuroda and Fukushima: we shall
see, well before the wise Ieyasu has bought or defeated a man of mine;
freedom and failure are antithetical in fact."
Ridding his camp of the last, as he believed, who dared shake at the
knees, and shouldering the remaining daimyos with the brunt of fighting
and danger, keeping his own immediate levies, the Tokugawas, in reserve
at the rear, where neither spear or arrow nor powder and shot could do
them harm, Ieyasu gave out the orders:
"Form a semicircle, the rest of you, my doubtful daimyos--I shall test
your backbones; single-handed, and with no shelter available, you shall
fight or turn traitor; Yodogima's methods and mood are well known--from
Settsu to Idzumi, surrounding from shore to shore the enemy's grounds:
they will hardly take to the water; there are no ships available: Maeda
shall lead well round the Yamato (Nara) hills and approaching Ozaka from
the south, with Hidetada at his rear and myself close after, strike them
at their strongest point. The arm is strong, we have two to their one,
and every hot-head fallen is an abiding guarantee of peace. It is a
shame that these beautiful engines of war should needs be put to use,
but--well, I have exhausted every recourse to bring Hideyori to my way
of thinking: he is foolishly ambitious, wickedly rooted, and must be
removed."
Two hundred thousand of them thus moved upon Yodogima, the mother,
perhaps responsible for some of Hideyori's real traits, however
misjudging or particular Ieyasu had taken it upon himself to be. Nor
had she been less pronounced in her convictions.
"Remove the cause for all this war paraphernalia, and the effect shall
be at once to relieve humanity of its needless building: the very best
way to do that is to use well what we have got--here and elsewhere, now,
before our resources shall have been exhausted with trying to bluff each
other," she had said to Ieyasu. repeatedly, upon his showing the white
feather, to Hideyoshi, his earliest rival.
They came on, these derelicts, of duty, their banners waving and mouths
sustaining, the advancing heavy-weights skirting the mountains to the
eastward, with the singly doled daimyos holding down their respective
posts as assigned. Yodogima surveyed the situation, as she could, from
her central position. The semicircle occasioned no uneasiness; as she
surmised--Ieyasu had overlooked it--every one of them considered his
place a most advantageous roost from which to observe results in front,
sliding down on either side as convenience should dictate.
They did serve their would-be master, however, in quite another respect:
their absence relieved Ieyasu of the necessity of lumbering more than
Maeda's contingent around those hills and over the plains, where bubbled
the waters and grew the seed Yodogima had sprung or sown in lavish
abundance. Patriots were budding like cherries in springtime, and a
driven march but made the fragrance smell the sweeter.
Now, Maeda swung into the open, a formidable army loomed to the
southward, and Yodogima breathed easier; her estimate thus far had
proven correct; the attack would come as expected; Ieyasu had employed
the only tactics he knew--Sanada apparently slept at the nearest gate.
Directly across the intended battlefield, well in advance of the outer
moat, running from the water front on the right to the river Nekogawa at
her left, a low embankment, some ten feet in height, had been
unexpectedly thrown up and faced of rock, with a deep water-trap hugging
the farthest side, from end to end.
The invaders mistook this to be the outer moat: the patriots lay low,
behind Sanada; who, to their astonishment, only snored.
Then, Hidetada wheeled his van, the flower of Yedo, well onto the plain;
they were loyal men, but as yet in the measurement, as to their fullest
capacity; the commander-in-chief had recruited of the newer Tokugawa,
and any sudden charge might be expected to stampede the whole, in case
of Maeda's rout, in advance--Harunaga, mobilized just inside the last
regular moat, at the right-hand gate, awaiting only a chance.
Yodogima had not as much confidence in his boldness, as respect for his
courage; their strategy, like the enemy's valor, must abide younger
heads or hearts than those of Harunaga and Ieyasu.
Lastly, Ieyasu showed his face, and the veterans of his experience,
samurai tried and found true, on many a scarred and fought-to-the-finish
contest, their steps more studied and ears better cocked, these trusties
ranked in, on the farthest side of the broad open, still beyond, in the
rear. This, then, were the division that Hideyori, young and untried,
should meet, if needs be, in a final determination of their destinies:
the decisive conflict of an age.
Hideyori at the beginning: Ieyasu at the end of a career.
"It is blood against experience, and who would change it?" half
whispered, half shouted Yodogima, a mother, as she swept the horizon
with those eyes that had never failed her, looked into the faces which
had gathered, and drilled, and armed, in behalf of manliness.
"My dear men," said she, turning to them, from her seat above, "you
cannot fail. Whatever may become of me, however I or mine may demean
himself, manhood is the secret buried underneath or revealed of any and
every godlike doctrine, thought, or action. It is Godly, and the trend
of the devil is toward the flesh. A strong heart knows its haven: a weak
one abides the fires that consume. Manhood has made this world what it
is, perhaps soared here, to this, from planets above; is making the
world of to-day, however prosperous lying may seem; shall continue to
make it, till there remains no need of a hell--thus and then, only, may
heaven be attained. On with the work, and let no guilty thing escape!"
Ieyasu, too, had spoken; climbing to a hill-top, Chausu, close at hand,
on the right, the would-be besieger levelled his glasses, scanning the
field before him. His own division of some sixty thousand samurai
occupied the open lying between the hill on which he stood and the sea
to the left; on the extreme opposite side of the field to his right
stood Hidetada and his army of equal size, extending on toward the
eastward, till the hill Okayama, rearing up as a sentinel, shut out all
intervening space between his forces and the river Hirano: the top of
which hill afforded also the commander-in-chief, Hidetada, a most
excellent vantage point.
At the extreme front, toward the center, lay Maeda, with his perhaps
forty thousand Kaga bloods, including their allies, ready to do when
bid. To his, Maeda's, right and to his left, spanning the distance from
Hirano river, the eastern field border, to the sea at the west,
stretched, together with his own--an intended battering ram--minor
forces of the doubtful daimyos who had been placed to form the famed
semicircle, as well as such others as had been brought up to strengthen
the contemplated charge. Still in front of all, near by, lay the small
hill Sasayama, coveted by Maeda, but held as an outpost by
Sanada--apparently sleeping, farther on, at the gate post.
"We have the foe, safe enough, in front of us: our rear is free from
molestation," chuckled Ieyasu, to Hidetada, his son, who had come over,
in the evening, to consult about the proposed early morning attack.
"With the enemy before them and the Tokugawa behind, what chance have
these dilatory daimyos of ours? Why, they'll be chowdered before the sun
is risen."
"Then Hidetada shall pounce upon the foe with the freshness of morning,"
replied he, elated, if over-anxious, "and before the dew is fairly dried
they shall have gone, to their happy hunting-ground."
"Well said, my son," ejaculated the forgetful hero of Sekigahara, "and
Ieyasu shall dine in Ozaka."
"Alone, father?"
"Why do you ask; have I ever denied you, my boy?"
"Oh; I had another thought in mind."
"It had been better, were it a view."
"I don't just like, so very much, fighting in the dark; but, as it may
take the enemy some time to obliterate Maeda--and the rest of them, the
sneaking daimyos' lines--I may not have to expose myself, till daylight,
at best," surmised Hidetada, the Taira-wed branch of the family,
descended Minamoto.
Ieyasu made no answer; he could not, had he tried; Yodogima rose to
mind, and he thought only of what might have been, had he but taken
advantage of Hideyoshi's bluffing, long ago, at Fuchu, the elder Maeda's
once upon a time seat of true chivalry. Esyo had in fact, as observed,
exercised an influence over her husband: what might not the sister have
done, had she been the mother.
"Oh, well; it is too late, now," muttered the taiko's once trusted ally,
giving the order, in reality, for an unrecallable, before-the-day-break
assault; then staggering to the ground, helplessly, under the weight of
his own remorseful thirst, as he did the quenchless deed. "Stab; yes,
stab her, too!"
And Yodogima answered, that final test, as became a weaker hand, if
stronger heart.
Fog clouds hung low, the darkness grew intense, and these men could
scarcely see their way; dread uncertainty had laid hold on shrivelled
hearts; Maeda's advance groped its way round the hill Sasayama; Maeda
and some few others climbed up.
"Where is he?" asked they, of one another; "these grounds seem
deserted."
"Hark!" ventured someone.
"Did you hear that snore?" inquired another.
"It is Sanada; he sleeps; over there; at the outer castle gate; let us
strike him; he is foolish."
They stumbled forward, in the darkness, and coming upon a man propped
against a stake. Date prodded him; this daimyo had been doing similar
service since the days of Odawara.
"What are you doing here; do you not know that we are enemies?" inquired
Mori, another of Hideyoshi's upon-a-time staunch supporters.
"I wait to see, that we make no mistake; we have some farmers' arrows to
shoot with, but would do no harm, to a friend."
"Hear you," said they, all alike, one to another, "he makes sport, in
the face of danger; avenge our good name, Maeda, and let us make short
work of the rest. Did you hear what he said? They 'have some farmers'
arrows'--a pretty weapon to use against such as we! Spread the word, and
we'll scale those walls before a soul of them has half finished
sleeping."
Junkei therefore paid the penalty, without resistance; he had truly
slept his sleep, for it was he and not Sanada who snored those daimyos
to their doom.
Eighty thousand of their force rushed forward to scale the walls, and
that blind ditch of Yodogima's provisioning emptied its waters to make
room for the drowning invaders. Others rushed over these and against the
embankment, where Sanada stood, his sleepless forces unscathed, to chop
and slash them down. For hours they mired and fought, trapped and
headless--but to no purpose; every stone's width in that wall had its
defender, with another and still others within reach to take his place
should chance or fatigue down and disable him. There was no shouting of
orders; the word had gone round and around till every man of them knew
by heart the role he should enact. Neither had a shot been fired; the
guns lay loaded, and the powder unburned, behind still other walls of
huger import and loftier building.
Practically one-third of Ieyasu's strength--for those scared hirelings
did fight, when cornered, quite as stubbornly as the liege master's aged
samurai could have done--his most valiant commander, under Hidetada,
Maeda, and nearly all of those doubtful daimyos--a few of them yet
remained behind Ozaka, still in the semicircle--were either killed,
routed, or scared into further uselessness. Nor was this all, for inside
the fortifications a newer confidence sprang to the fore, impulse beat
harder against the dictates of judgment, and but for Yodogima's
influence alone they had rushed one and all thirstily upon the waiting
reserves.
"Calm yourselves, my friends," urged she, confident in their strength;
"if you would follow one victory with another, then buckle your armor
the closer. Madness means weakness, and you shall yet have enough to do
before Hidetada is worsted; he will not expose his strength under cover
of night; he has had better training. And there is Ieyasu, behind him;
an inverted pyramid, with both sides blocked by natural barriers. Mind
what I say: Ieyasu planned well, but his strategy is ancient; no doubt
it served in the days of Confucius, but a new warfare has come; I
command you: do not fire a gun, not a man of you, till you can count the
teeth, each and everybody in his target's head."
They waited; no one would disobey, and only one so much as sold
himself--Nanjo, a subordinate captain, for a miserly price ventured to
carry Ieyasu's fiefly proposals to Sanada; who scorned the proffered
estates, publishing everywhere the traitor's head as an example. Here,
at last, Ieyasu, the wise, had found exemplified the truth, to his
betterment, that honor and not gold measures the content of highest
living.
"I am doubtful about an open charge," cautioned he, of Hidetada, as the
cover of night began breaking, yet far to the eastward.
"I am not," replied the younger man, more doubtful about covers, or
chicanery, of any kind.
"Then you shall have to face them--I am ill."
"At ease, I trow; and if you think you can bribe a Taira into
retirement--see here, father; you should have tried first my wife; I
think I know her breed; I am going to fight."
The clouds rose, and the day opened glad, if not inspiring. Hidetada
bestirred himself with the first lifting of night, and as the gray fogs
banked over against the gorged-out mountains, with here and there a
village or a temple hung defiantly or standing gracefully upon some
jutting point or sloping greensward, those more sympathetic, if rawer,
recruits, from the Tokugawa domain, took up the forward advance, and
refacing the broken fragments of Maeda's demolished command now at first
made that valley resound with the frenzy of rallying blood-tasted
savagery.
Hidetada led them, and like with him the reward of valor had justified
the risk. Stringing out his long formation into V shape, his right
resting upon the solid Hirano, the left hard upon the seashore, and a
solid oblong breaking and forming the V's middle, they tramped straight
ahead, thus in zigzag alignment, toward a solid defense, from river to
sea, behind the fortifications at Ozaka.
"They mean to break our walls midway, disregarding altogether the gates,
then quarter about and march each half to the opening thus made," said
Yodogima, to Hideyori, her readiest counsellor. "I wonder what means
they have to batter down barriers so thick and high--a hundred and
twenty feet, I presume, just there."
"Let them come," replied the son. "And if they do make the breach, I
promise you that I and not they shall be the first to sally through;
Harunaga's guns are trained, and he is going to count their teeth.
Depend upon it."
Sanada lay close, under shelter of the low, temporary embankment: his
ranks had been little impaired; Yodogima remained high up in the
citadel--Hidetada advanced, to the wall where lay Sanada.
"What kind of hunting do you have out there? You might find it better on
this side the wall," said Sanada, to Hidetada.
Hidetada made no answer, but began hopping his men over--the center
first, and then others, as they came up--charging toward the outer main
walls, as Yodogima had surmised.
Sanada fell back, coaxing them on.
They had come well within range of Harunaga's matchlocks, the main body
facing them squarely, when suddenly there rang out the unexpected:
"Fire!"
The enemy fell like rice heads underneath a sickle bar, and Sanada,
wheeling, charged those reeling columns that Hidetada had marched to no
better results than Maeda's.