The Imjin War Read Online Free Page B

to become a general commanding three thousand men, and one of Nobunaga’s ten principal vassals.
     
     
    Figure 1: Hideyoshi’s Japan

     
    Serving under Nobunaga could not have been easy. He was quick-tempered and rude and offensive to his vassals, and bullied them unmercifully. There must have been countless occasions when the “Monkey” Hideyoshi had to placidly smile at his master’s rough jokes and insults, and then march off through blinding rain or summer heat to carry out his every wish. Hideyoshi endured it, never uttering a word of resentment. He patiently served, bided his time, and waited for his chance.
    Other Oda vassals were not so stoic. Akechi Mitsuhide found Nobunaga particularly offensive, and over the years stored up a burden of resentments that would eventually drive him to rebel. Some incidents were trivial, such as when Nobunaga got drunk, seized Akechi in a headlock, and thumped his bald head like a drum. Others left lasting scars. While besieging a castle in Tamba Province, Akechi promised that two brothers would be spared if the castle surrendered, and sent his own mother in as a hostage to guarantee his word. The castle duly surrendered. Then Nobunaga arrived and ordered the brothers burnt regardless, shattering the agreement Akechi had made. The relatives of the two men, still holding Akechi’s mother hostage, burnt her to death in revenge. Akechi received Tamba Castle as his reward. But he never forgave Nobunaga, and he never forgot. [13]
    Hideyoshi learned a great deal during his twenty-four years within the Oda house. In his private life he strove to acquire his master’s same refined tastes in noh theater, cherry-blossom viewing, poetry writing, and the art of tea. In later years he would speak with emotion of the great honor he had felt when Nobunaga had granted him the privilege of holding his own tea ceremony. In combat, Hideyoshi learned the value of foot soldiers over mounted samurai and of muskets over bows; musket-bearing ashigaru would play a part in all of his cam paigns. He learned to be every bit as imaginative in battle as Nobunaga. In 1582, for example, he constructed a three-kilometer-long dike to divert a nearby river into the Mori clan’s impregnable Takamatsu Castle and succeeded quite literally in flushing them out.
    Hideyoshi also learned the value of a mobile army and decisive action—a lesson that would serve him well when Nobunaga was finally killed.
    It came in the summer of 1582. Some weeks earlier Nobunaga had invited rival daimyo Tokugawa Ieyasu to a banquet at his Azuchi Castle to cement an alliance. He asked Akechi Mitsuhide, whose bald head he had once drummed, to make the necessary arrangements. Akechi threw himself into the work, ordering the very best dishes and organizing all sorts of lavish entertainments to please his master. Then, just as the feast was about to begin, Nobunaga ordered him to leave at once and join Hideyoshi in the siege of Takamatsu Castle. Barred from a banquet he himself had prepared at great personal expense, Akechi left in a rage and returned to his Tamba Castle, ostensibly to gather an army to help Hideyoshi. But instead of marching on to Takamatsu, he set off for Kyoto—and Nobunaga.
    Akechi arrived with his men at dawn on June 21 and forced his way into Honnoji Temple, where Nobunaga was staying. Nobunaga fought back desperately, but it was apparent the situation was hopeless. As fire began to spread through the temple, he retreated to a back room, opened his robe, and slit open his stomach. He died twitching on the floor at the age of forty-nine. The flames soon reduced his body to ashes. Akechi then marched his force against the mansion where Nobunaga’s son and heir, Nobutada, was residing. A similar scene unfolded there, with Nobutada too committing suicide.
    Hideyoshi learned of Nobunaga’s death the following day. It threw him into almost manic action. This was his golden opportunity, and he meant to seize it. He