"They seem to have camped in the area from the Yodo River to Shimoueno, with Shoryuji at their rear and the Enmyoji River in front of them."
At that moment war cries and gunfire could be heard in the direction of the Enmyoji River. It was the Hour of the Monkey.
The Enmyoji River, east of the village of Yamazaki, was a confluent of the Yodo River. The area where the two rivers met was a swamp covered with reeds and rushes, usually filled with the songs of bush warblers, but on this day no birdsong could be heard.
During the morning the enemy armies—the left wing of Mitsuhide's army and Hideyoshi's right wing—had lined the riverbanks on either side. From time to time the reeds would rustle in the wind. While the tips of the banner poles were visible, no men or horses could be seen on either bank. On the northern bank, however, the five thousand men under Saito Toshimitsu, Abe Sadaaki, and Akechi Shigetomo were ready to advance. On the southern bank, eight thousand five hundred men under Takayama Ukon, Nakagawa Sebei, and Ikeda Shonyu were arranged in one line after another. Steaming with sweat in that hot, damp place, they waited for the time to strike.
They were waiting for Hideyoshi to arrive and give his command.
"What is the main army doing?"
They cursed Hideyoshi's army for its late arrival, but they could only grit their teeth.
Akechi Mitsuhide, who was still at his main camp in Onbozuka, had heard early on about Matsuda Tarozaemon's death on Tennozan and the complete rout of his troops. He blamed himself for misjudging the timing of his own command. He knew quite well that, strategically, there was a great difference between fighting with Tennozan under the control of his own men and facing a decisive battle after having abandoned the high ground to the enemy.
Prior to advancing toward Tennozan, however, Mitsuhide had been distracted by three things: Tsutsui Junkei's betrayal; his order to strengthen Yodo Castle—misjudging the speed of Hideyoshi's attack; and a flaw in his character—he was indecisive. Should he take the offensive or the defensive? He had not decided which until his advance on Onbozuka.
The battle began almost by accident. Both armies had spent the morning among the reeds and rushes, being eaten by gnats and mosquitoes. Throughout this time, they faced each other squarely and waited for their generals' commands. At one point, however, a beautifully saddled horse suddenly sprang from Hideyoshi's side toward the bank of the Enmyoji River, possibly to slake its thirst.
Four or five soldiers—probably retainers of the horse's owner—chased after it. Gunfire rang out abruptly from the opposite bank, followed by one volley after another.
In response, Hideyoshi's troops fired their own volley toward the northern bank order to help the soldiers, who had taken cover in the reeds. Now there was no time to wait for orders.
"Attack!"
Hideyoshi's order for a general assault actually came after the exchange of gunfire. The Akechi troops naturally reacted to the movement of the enemy, and, they, too, waded into the river.
The place where the Enmyoji River met the Yodo River was fairly wide, but not far from the convergence the Enmyoji was little more than a stream.
The current, however, was strong after several days of rain. While the Akechi gunners’ corps appeared through the reeds on the northern bank and fired into the ranks of Hideyoshi's forces standing on the southern bank, corps of armored men—the soldiers of the spear corps, the picked troops of the Akechi—kicked up sprays of water as they pushed their way across to the other side.
"Send out the spear corps!" an officer of the Takayama corps yelled, jumping up on the bank.
Because the river was so narrow, the effectiveness of the gunners was limited. As the rear ranks moved up in order to let the front ranks reload, there was the possibility that the enemy would suddenly overrun the bank and leap into the midst of the gunners.
"Gunners, open up to the side! Don't obstruct the men in the front ranks!"
The Nakagawa corps had their spear points aligned and ready. Most of them now brandished those spears and struck downward from the bank and into the water.
They were, of course, aiming at the enemy, but rather than pulling back their spears and thrusting, it was speedier to simply hold them aloft and strike in an effort to prevent the enemy from even starting up the bank. The fierce clash occurred in the middle of the river, spear to spear, spear to long sword, and even spear to spear shaft. Men thrust into others and were stabbed in turn.
The soldiers yelled and grappled with each other, some falling dead into the water and raising a spray. The muddy current whirled around. Blood and gore floated to thesurface of the water and then was washed away.
By that time the first corps under Nakagawa Sebei had relinquished the fight downstream to the soldiers under Takayama Ukon's command. Like the lines of young men shouldering a sacred palanquin during a festival, yelling in unison, they forced their way into the front line of battle.
Quickly stepping over the reeds on the eastern bank of the river, they dashed furiously into the midst of the enemy. The sun began to set. Burnt red clouds showing the approach of evening reflected their colors on the black clumps of men yelling beneath the desolate sky.
The violent battle continued for yet another hour. The tenacity of the Saito corps was surprising. Just as it seemed they might crumble, they rallied once more. Making their stand in a swamp, they fought back attack after attack. And they were not the only ones—almost all of the Akechi forces fought with uncanny resignation, and the desperate voice of the defeated army resounded with a bitterness that each man could imagine in Mitsuhide's breast.
"Retreat before we're surrounded! Fall back! Fall back!"
That pathetic chorus was raised by troops in rapid succession, and the sad news spread like the wind to the other two Akechi corps.
At the heart of the central army, which acted as a reserve corps, were the five thousand men directly under Mitsuhide at Onbozuka. At their right were four thousand more men, including two thousand under Fujita Dengo.
Dengo sounded the large drum and the men fanned out into a line of battle. The men of the archers' corps in front released their ghastly rain of arrows in whining unison, and immediately the enemy returned the action with a hail of bullets.
As a command from Dengo cut through the air, the archers dispersed and the gunners took their place. Without waiting an instant for the shroud of gunpowder smoke to clear, armored warriors with iron spears appeared before the enemy and began to cut their way through. Dengo and his hand-picked troops routed the Hachiya corps.
Taking that corps' place, the soldiers under Nobutaka resumed the attack and struck against the Akechi forces. But Dengo defeated them as well, chasing them back. For the time being, Dengo's troops seemed to have no worthy opponent.
The drum of the Fujita corps boomed. It seemed to express the clan's pride in being without rival, and it menaced the mounted samurai who had crowded in a protective ring around Nobutaka, causing them to mill about in confusion.
Just then, a corps of five hundred soldiers attacked the Fujita corps' flank, yelling war cries as though they made up a large army.
The clouds were still vaguely red, but on the ground it was already dark. Dengo was reflecting that he had gone too far, and changed his instructions.
"Shift to the right!" he commanded. "Turn! Turn as far as you can toward the right!" His intention was to have the entire force make a circle to rejoin the central army and then fight on firmly.
Suddenly, however, a unit under the command of Hori Kyutaro attacked fiercely from the left. To Dengo, it was as though enemy soldiers had suddenly bubbled up from the earth.
There was no way to retreat, Dengo realized at once, but there was also no time to correct his formation. The Hori warriors cut off his men with the speed of the wind and began to encircle them.
Nobutaka's standard seemed to flutter closer and closer to Dengo.
Just at that point, a band of five hundred men, including Dengo's son and his younger brother, promptly rode out in a black cluster and galloped fearlessly into the enemy. The night had grown dark. The wind carried the cries of the life-and-death struggles and filled the sky with the smell of blood.
Nobutaka's corps was respected as being the strongest among the divisions of Hideyoshi's army, and now it was reinforced with the three thousand men under the command of Niwa Nagahide. Brave and spirited as Dengo and his men were, they could not break through the enemy line.
Dengo was wounded in six places. Finally, after fighting and whirling about on his horse for so long, he began to lose consciousness. Suddenly a voice came from the darkness behind him.
Thinking it to be the voice of his son, he raised his head from the horse's mane Just at that moment something struck him above the right eye. It felt like a star falling from heaven, hitting him on the forehead.
"Stay in the saddle! Hang on tight to the saddle! An arrow has glanced off you, and you have a light wound on your forehead." "Who is it? Who's holding me up?"
"It's me, Tozo."
"Ah, brother. What's happened to Ise Yosaburo?"
"He's already been cut down in battle."
"What about Suwa?"
"Suwa is dead too."
"And Denbei?"