'Where is Lord Nobunaga?" he asked a page.
“He has just now retired to his bedroom."
Hearing this, Hideyoshi hurried to the private apartments with an unusual lack of composure and asked the samurai attendant to convey a message.
'I must have an audience with His Lordship this evening."
Nobunaga had not yet gone to sleep, and as soon as Hideyoshi was ushered into his presence, he asked for everyone to leave the room, but although the men on night watch withdrew, Hideyoshi still looked around the room nervously.
"What is it, Hideyoshi?"
"Well, it seems there's still someone in the next room."
"It's no one to be worried about. It's just Ranmaru. He should be no problem."
"He is also a problem. I'm sorry to ask, but…"
"He should go too?"
"Yes."
"Ranmaru, you leave too." Nobunaga turned and spoke toward the next room.
Ranmaru bowed silently, got up, and left.
"It should be all right now. What is this?"
"The fact is that when I took my leave and went back to town just now, I ran into Tenzo."
"What! Tenzo's back?"
"He said that he hurried across the mountains to get here, hardly knowing day from night. Shingen's death is a certainty."
"So…after all."
"I can't give you many details, but the inner circle in Kai seems to have put on a faзade of normality, beneath which a melancholy air can clearly be detected."
"Their mourning is being kept a strict secret, I'll bet."
"Of course."
"And the other provinces know nothing?"
"So far."
"So, now's the time. I assume you forbade Tenzo to speak about this."
"That's not something you have to worry about."
"But there are some unscrupulous men among the ninja. Are you sure about him?"
"He's Hikoemon's nephew, and he is loyal."
"Well, we should be extremely cautious. Give him a reward, but keep him inside the castle. It would probably be better to imprison him until this is all over."
"No, my lord."
"Why not?"
"Because if we treat a man like that, the next time the opportunity comes up, he won't feel like jeopardizing his life as he did this time. And if you cannot trust a man, but give him a reward, he might be tempted with a lot of money by the enemy someday."
"Well, then, where did you leave him?"
"As luck would have it, Oyu was just about to return to Fuwa, so I ordered him to go along as a guard for her palanquin."
"The man risked his life coming back from Kai, and you immediately ordered him to accompany your mistress? Isn't Tenzo going to resent that?"
"He went along with her happily. I may be a foolish master, but he knows me very well."
"You seem to employ people a little differently than I do."
"You can be doubly at ease, my lord. She may be a woman, but if it appears that Tenzo is about to spill any secrets to anyone, she'll protect our interests, even if she has to kill him."
"Put away your self-congratulations."
"Sorry. You what I'm like."
"That's not the point," Nobunaga said. "The Tiger of Kai has died, so we can't delay. We've got to move before Shingen's death is known by the world at large. Hideyoshi, leave tonight and hurry back to Yokoyama."
"I had planned to do that immediately, so I sent Oyu back to Fuwa, and—"
"Forget the rest. I've hardly got time to sleep. We're going to mobilize at daybreak."
Nobunaga's thoughts were perfectly in line with Hideyoshi's. The opportunity they had always sought—the time to finish up a former problem—was now at hand. The problem being, of course, the liquidation of the troublesome shogun and the old order.
Needless to say, as Nobunaga was an actor in the new age that was about to replace the old, his advance was quickly realized. On the twenty-second day of the Third Month, his army thundered out of Gifu. When it arrived at the shores of Lake Biwa, the army split into two. One half of the army was under the command of Nobunaga. He boarded ship and sailed across the lake to the west. The remaining half, composed of the troops led by Katsuie, Mitsuhide, and Hachiya, took the land route and advanced along the southern edge of the lake.
The land army ousted the anti-Nobunaga forces made up of the warrior-monks in the area between Katada and Ishiyama, and destroyed the fortifications that had been erected along the road.
The shogun's advisers quickly held a conference.
"Shall we resist?"
"Shall we sue for peace?"
These men had a big problem: they had not yet given a clear answer to the seventeen-article document that Nobunaga had sent to Yoshiaki on New Year's Day. In it, Nobunaga had itemized all his grievances against Yoshiaki.