Nobunaga, hearing of their demands, considered these men to be pitiable. Immediately summoning Yoshiaki's retainers, he told them, "I've heard that you wish to have me build a palace for the shogun because his present residence is so cramped."
“Indeed!" their spokesman replied. "His present lodgings are so inconvenient. As the shogun's residence, they lack even basic amenities."
Well, well," Nobunaga answered with some contempt. "Aren't you gentlemen thinking rather slowly? The reason the shogun appealed to me was so that I might drive out Milyoshi and Matsunaga from Kyoto, recover his lost lands, and restore him to his rightful place."
"That's correct."
“Unworthy as I am, I consented to take on this great responsibility. More than that, I think that I should be able to realize the shogun's hopes for him in the very near future. How am I going to have the leisure to build a palace for him? And do you gentlemen really want to give up your hopes of returning to Kyoto to reestablish a national government? Would you be satisfied to spend your lives quietly in some scenic place in Gifu, and become early recluses in a large palace, with your meals provided by your host?"
Yoshiaki's attendants withdrew without saying another word. Thereafter, they did not complain so much. There was nothing false about Nobunaga's grand words. As summer turned to fall, Nobunaga ordered a general mobilization of Mino and Owari. By the fifth day of the Ninth Month, nearly thirty thousand soldiers were ready to go. By the seventh day, they were already marching out of Gifu for the capital.
At the great feast in the castle the night before the army's departure, Nobunaga had told his officers and men, "The commotion in the country, which is the result of territorial disputes among rival lords, is causing endless distress to the people. It is hardly necessary to mention that the misery of the entire nation is the anguish of the Emperor. It has been the iron rule of the Oda clan—from the time of my father, Nobuhide, to the present—that the duty of the samurai must be, first and foremost, the protection of the Imperial House. Thus, in our march on the capital at this time, you are not an army acting for me, but one that is acting in the name of the Emperor."
Every one of the commanders and men were in high spirits at the proclamation to set out.
For this great enterprise, Tokugawa Ieyasu of Mikawa, having recently bound himself in a military alliance to Nobunaga, also sent a thousand of his own troops. At the departure of the entire army, some voiced criticism.
"The Lord of Mikawa hasn't sent many men. He's sly, just as we've always heard."
Nobunaga shrugged this off with a laugh. "Mikawa is reforming its administration and economy. It has no time for other considerations. For him to send a large number of troops right now would mean great expense. He's going to be frugal even if he is criticized, but he's no common commander. I suspect that the troops he sent are his best men."
Just as Nobunaga had expected, the one thousand soldiers from Mikawa under Matsudaira Kanshiro were never outstripped in any battle. Always fighting in the vanguard, they opened the way for their allies, their courage bringing all the more fame to Ieyasu's name.
Every day the weather continued to be beautiful. The thirty thousand troops marched in black lines beneath the clear autumn sky. The column was so long that when the vanguard had reached Kashiwabara, the rear guard was still passing through Tarui and Akasaka. Their banners hid the sky. As they passed the post town of Hirao and entered Takamiya, there was some shouting from up ahead.
"Messengers! There are messengers from the capital!"
Three generals rode out to meet them.
"We wish to have an audience with Lord Nobunaga." They carried with them a letter from Miyoshi Nagayoshi and Matsunaga Hisahide.
When this was related to headquarters, Nobunaga said, "Bring them here."
The messengers were brought in immediately, but Nobunaga sneered at the message of reconciliation in the letter as a trick of the enemy. "Tell them I will give them my answer when I reach the capital."
As the sun rose on the eleventh, the vanguard crossed the Aichi River. The following morning Nobunaga moved toward the Sasaki strongholds of Kannonji and Mitsukuri. Kannonji Castle was held by Sasaki Jotei. Jotei's son, Sasaki Rokkaku, prepared Mitsukuri Castle for a siege. The Sasaki clan of Omi were allied with Miyoshi and Matsunaga, and when Yoshiaki had sought shelter with them during his flight, they had tried to murder him.
Omi was a strategic area along Lake Biwa on the road to the south. And here the Sasaki waited, boasting that he would destroy Nobunaga just as Nobunaga had annihilated Imagawa Yoshimoto, in a single blow. Sasaki Rokkaku left Mitsukuri Castle, joined forces with his father at Kannonji, and distributed his troops among the eighteen fortresses in Omi.
Shading his eyes with his hand, Nobunaga looked down from high ground and laughed. "This is a wonderful enemy line, isn't it? Just like in a classic treatise."
He ordered Sakuma Nobumori and Niwa Nagahide to take Mitsukuri Castle, placing the Mikawa troops in the vanguard. Then he said, "As I told you the night before we left, this march on the capital is not a personal vendetta; I want it understood by every soldier in the army that we are fighting for the Emperor. Do not kill those who flee. Do not burn the people's homes. And, as far as possible, do not trample over the fields where crops have not yet been harvested."
The waters of Lake Biwa were still invisible through the morning mist. Darkly piercing that mist, thirty thousand men began to move. When Nobunaga saw the flare that signaled the attack on Mitsukuri Castle by Niwa Nagahide's and Sakuma Nobumori’s troops, he ordered, "Move the headquarters to Wada Castle."
Wada Castle was an enemy stronghold, so Nobunaga's order meant to attack and take the castle. He said it, though, as if he were ordering his men to move into an unoccupied position.
"Nobunaga himself is coming to attack!" the commanding general of Wada Castle shouted in response to the lookouts on the watchtower. Striking the hilt of his sword, he harangued the garrison: "This is heaven-sent! Both Kannonji and Mitsukuri Castle would have been able to hold for at least a month, and during that time the Matsunaga and Miyoshi forces and their allies to the north of the lake would have cut off Nobunaa’s path of retreat. But Nobunaga has hastened his own death by attacking this castle. A wonderful opportunity indeed! Do not let this piece of martial luck escape. Take Nobunaga's head!"
The entire army screamed its assent. They were confident that the iron walls of the Sasaki clan could hold out for a month, even though Nobunaga commanded an army of thirty thousand men and had many able generals. The powerful provinces surrounding them also believed this. But Wada Castle fell in half a day. After a battle lasting a little over four hours, the defenders were routed, and fled into the mountains and to the shores of the lake.
"Do not pursue them!" Nobunaga ordered from atop Mount Wada, and the banners erected there so quickly could clearly be seen under the noonday sun. Covered with blood and mud, the men gradually collected under the banners of their own generals. Then, raising a shout of victory, they ate their noonday rations. A number of messages continued to come in from the direction of Mitsukuri. The Tokugawa forces from Mikawa, which had been positioned as the vanguard for Niwa and Nobumori, were just now fighting courageously, bathed in blood. Moment by moment, messages of success collected in Nobunaga's hand.
The report of Mitsukuri's fall reached Nobunaga before the sun had set. As evening neared, black smoke rose from the direction of the castle at Kannonji. Hideyoshi's forces were already pressing in. The command for an all-out attack was given. Nobunaga moved his camp, and the entire force of Mitsukuri and its allies were pushed back to Kannonji Castle. By the time evening fell, the first men had breached the walls of the enemy castles.
Stars and sparks filled the clear autumn night sky. The attacking forces surged in. Viclory songs were raised, and to those allied with the Sasaki, they must have sounded like the heartless voice of the autumn wind. No one had expected that this stronghold would fall in but a single day. The fortress at Mount Wada and the eighteen strategic points had been no defense at all against these billowing waves of attackers.
The entire Sasaki clan—from women and children to its leaders, Rokkaku and Jotei—stumbled and fought through the darkness, fleeing from the flames of their castles to the fortress at Ishibe.
"Let the fugitives flee as they will; there will be enemies still ahead of us tomorrow." Nobunaga spared not only their lives, but also ignored the vast amount of treasure they carried with them. It was not Nobunaga's style to tarry along the way. His mind was already in Kyoto, the center of the field. The castle at Kannonji stopped burning at the keep. As soon as Nobunaga entered what was left of it, he showed his appreciation to his troops, saying, "The horses and men should be given a good rest."
He himself, however, did not rest much. That night he slept in his armor, and as morning broke, he gathered his senior retainers for a conference. Again he commanded decrees to be posted throughout the province, and immediately sent Fuwa Kawachi off with the command to bring Yoshiaki from Gifu to Moriyama.
Yesterday he had fought at the head of an army; today he was taking the reins of the administration. This was Nobunaga. Temporarily giving four of his generals responsibilities as administrators and magistrates in the port city of Otsu, two days later he crossed Lake Biwa, nearly forgetting to eat as he issued order after order.
It was the twelfth of the month when Nobunaga struck into Omi and attacked Kannonji and Mitsukuri. Then, by the twenty-fifth, Nobunaga's army had gone from the aftermath of battle to setting up notices of the new laws for the province. One road to supremacy, to the center of the field! With that, the warships from the east shore of Lake Biwa were lined up, and they sailed for Omi. Everything from the preparation of the ships to the loading of the rations for the soldiers and feed for their horses involved the cooperation of the common people. Certainly they crouched in fear of Nobunaga's miliary strength. But more than that, the fact that the common people of Omi united in support of him was due to their approval of his style of government, which they trusted as reliable.
Nobunaga was the only man who had rescued the hearts of the common people from the flames of war and who had committed himself to them publicly. When they asked themselves what was to become of them, he reassured them. In such situations, there is no time to establish a detailed political policy. Nobunaga's secret was nothing more than to do things swiftly and decisively. What the common people clearly wanted in this country at civil war was not a talented administrator or a great sage. The world was in chaos. If Nobunaga was able to control it, they would accept a certain amount of hardship.
The wind on the lake reminded one that it was autumn, and the water drew beautiful long patterns in the wake of the myriad boats. On the twenty-fifth, Yoshiaki's boat crossed the waters of the lake from Moriyama and landed near Mii Temple.
Nobunaga, who had already landed, expected an attack by Miyoshi and Matsunaga, but it did not come.
He greeted Yoshiaki at the temple, saying, "It's the same as if we've already entered the capital."
On the twenty-eighth, Nobunaga at last pushed his troops toward Kyoto. When they reached Awataguchi, the army stopped. Hideyoshi, who was at Nobunaga's side, galloped forward at the same time that Akechi Mitsuhide was hurrying back from the van.
"What is it?"
"Imperial messengers."
Nobunaga, too, was surprised, and hurriedly dismounted. The two messengers arrived with a letter from the Emperor.
Bowing low, Nobunaga responded reverently, "As a provincial warrior, I have no other abilities than taking up the weapons of war. Since my father's time, we have long lamented the grievous condition of the Imperial Palace and the uneasiness in the Emperor's heart. Today, however, I have come to the capital from a far corner of the country to guard His Imperial Majesty. No other responsibility would be a greater honor for a samurai, or a greater joy for my clan."
Thirty thousand soldiers silently and solemnly swore an oath with Nobunaga that they would obey the Emperor's wishes.
Nobunaga made his camp at Tofuku Temple. On the same day, proclamations were set up throughout the capital. The disposition of the police patrols came first. The day watch was given to Sugaya Kuemon, and the night watch to Hideyoshi.
One of the soldiers from the Oda army was out drinking, and a victorious soldier will easily become arrogant. Drunk and having eaten his fill, he tossed down a few coins that amounted to less than half of what he owed, and walked out, saying, "That should do."
The proprietor ran out after him, yelling, and when he tried to grab the soldier, the man struck him and then swaggered away. Midway through his rounds, Hideyoshi witnessed the incident and immediately ordered the man's arrest. When he was brought to headquarters, Nobunaga praised the police, stripped the soldier of his armor, and had him bound to a large tree in front of the temple gate. The nature of the offense was then signposted, and Nobunaga ordered the man to be exposed for seven days and then beheaded. Every day, an immense number of people traveled back and forth in front of the temple gate. Many of them were merchants and nobles, and there were also messengers from other temples and shrines, and shopkeepers transporting their goods.
The passersby stopped to read the placard and look at the man bound to the tree. Thus the common people in the capital witnessed both Nobunaga's justice and the severity of his laws. They saw that the law posted on placards all over town—that the theft of even a single coin would be punished by death—was to be strictly enforced, starting with Nobunaga's own soldiers. No one uttered any discontent.
The phrase "a one-coin cut" became common among the people for the sort of punishment meted out by Nobunaga's rule. It had been twenty-one days since the army's departure from Gifu.