The look in Hideyoshi's eyes seemed to change with Inuchiyo's words. Inuchiyo had laid the blame for the quarrel at Hideyoshi's door, and he steeled himself for a violent refutation. Unexpectedly, Hideyoshi nodded vigorously. "You're absolutely right," he said with a sigh. “I'm really not to blame, and if I were to list my excuses, there would be a mountain of them. But when I look at the situation the way you've explained it, it would appear that
I've gone too far. And in that sense, I've been wrong. Inuchiyo, I leave it in your hands."
The negotiations were concluded on the spot. Hideyoshi had spoken so frankly that the envoys felt somewhat bemused, but Inuchiyo knew Hideyoshi well.
"I'm very grateful to you. Just hearing that has made it worth coming all the way here from the north," he said with great satisfaction.
Fuwa and Kanamori, however, did not show their joy unguardedly. Understanding the reason for their reticence, Inuchiyo went a step further.
"But Lord Hideyoshi, if you have some dissatisfaction you'd like to express about Lord Katsuie, I hope you'll express it frankly. I'm afraid these peace accords won't last long if you're concealing something. I will spare no effort to settle any problem, no matter what it might be."
"That's unnecessary," Hideyoshi said, laughing. "Am I the kind of person who keeps something bottled up inside and remains silent? I've said everything I want to say, to both Lord Nobutaka and Lord Katsuie. I've already sent a long letter that explains everything in detail."
"Yes, the letter was shown to us before we left Kitanosho. Lord Katsuie felt that everything you had written was reasonable and would not have to be brought up again during these peace talks."
"I understand that Lord Nobutaka suggested holding peace talks after reading my letter. Inuchiyo, I was being particularly careful not to upset Lord Katsuie before you came here."
"Well, you know, an elder statesman should be accorded respect in any situation. But I know I've rattled the horns of Demon Shibata from time to time."
"It's difficult to do anything without rattling those horns. Even when we were both young, those horns were strangely scary—especially for me. In fact, the Demon's horns were even scarier than Nobunaga's moods."
"Did you hear that?" Inuchiyo laughed. "Did you hear that, gentlemen?" Both men were drawn into the laughter. To say such things in front of them was hardly speaking ill of their lord behind his back. Rather, they felt it was a shared sentiment they could not deny.
The human mind is a subtle thing. After that moment, Kanamori and Fuwa felt more at ease with Hideyoshi and relaxed their watchfulness of Inuchiyo.
"I think this is indeed a happy event," Kanamori said.
"We really couldn't be happier," Fuwa added. "More than that, I have to thank you for your generosity; we have completed our mission and saved our honor."
The next day, however, Kanamori still had misgivings and said to Fuwa, "If we go back to Echizen and report to our lord without Lord Hideyoshi's having put anything in writing, won't this agreement seem a bit unreliable?"
Before departing that day, the envoys once again went to the castle to meet with Hideyoshi, to pay their respects.
Several attendants and horses were waiting outside the main entrance, and the envoys thought that Hideyoshi must have been receiving guests. But in fact it was Hideyoshi himself who was going out. At that moment he stepped from the main citadel.
"I'm glad you came," he said. "Well, let's go inside." Turning around, Hideyoshi led
His guests to a room. "I had a really good laugh last night. Thanks to you, I slept late this morning."
And sure enough, he looked as though he had just gotten up and washed his face. That morning, however, each of the envoys looked somehow different—as though he had woken up inside a different shell.
“You've been much too hospitable in the midst of all your work, but we are returning home today," Kanamori said.
Hideyoshi nodded. "Is that so? Well, please give my regards to Lord Katsuie on your return.”
“I'm sure Lord Katsuie will be delighted by the outcome of the peace talks."
“My heart has been lifted just by your coming here as envoys. Now all those people would like to make us fight will be disappointed."
“But won't you please take your brush and sign a solemn pledge, just to stop up the mouths of such people?" Kanamori entreated.
That was it. That was what had suddenly become essential for the envoys that morning. The peace talks had gone too smoothly, and they had become uneasy with words alone. Even if they reported to Katsuie what had transpired, without some sort of document it was nothing more than a verbal promise.
“All right." The look on Hideyoshi's face showed full agreement. "I'll give one to you, and I’ll expect one from Lord Katsuie. But this pledge isn't limited to Lord Katsuie and me. If the names of the other veteran generals are not attached as well, the document will be meaningless. I'll speak to Niwa and Ikeda immediately. That should be all right, shouldn't it?"
Hideyoshi's eyes met Inuchiyo's.
“That should be fine," Inuchiyo answered clearly. His eyes read everything in Hideyoshi's heart—he had seen the future even before leaving Kitanosho. If Inuchiyo could be called a rogue, he was a likable one.
Hideyoshi stood up. "I was just about to leave myself. I'll go with you as far as the town."
“They left the citadel together.
“I haven't seen Lord Katsutoyo today. Has he already left?" Hideyoshi asked.
“He is still unwell," Fuwa said. "We left him at his lodgings."
They mounted their horses and rode as far as the crossroads in the castle town.
“Where are you off to today, Hideyoshi?" Inuchiyo asked.
“I'm going to Kyoto, as usual."
Well, we'll separate here then. We still have to return to our lodgings and make our rations for the journey."
“I'd like to look in on Lord Katsutoyo," Hideyoshi said, "to see if he's improved."
Inuchiyo, Kanamori, and Fuwa returned to Kitanosho on the tenth day of the same month, and immediately reported to Katsuie. Katsuie was overjoyed that his plan to establih a pretense of peace had been carried out more smoothly than he had anticipated.
Soon thereafter Katsuie held a secret meeting with his most trusted retainers and told
them, "We'll keep the peace through the winter. As soon as the snows melt, we'll butcher our old enemy with a single blow."
As soon as Katsuie had completed the first stage of his strategy by making peace with Hideyoshi, he dispatched another envoy, this time to Tokugawa Ieyasu. That was at the end of the Eleventh Month.
For the last half year—since the Sixth Month—Ieyasu had been absent from the center of activity. After the Honno Temple incident, the entire nation's attention had been focused on filling the void that had been created when the center had so suddenly collapsed. During that time, when no one had had a moment to look anywhere else, Ieyasu had taken his own independent road.
At the time of Nobunaga's murder, he had been on a sightseeing tour of Sakai and had barely been able to return to his own province with his life. Immediately ordering military preparations, he pushed as far as Narumi. But the motive behind that action was quite different from the one Katsuie had had for crossing over Yanagase from Echizen.
When Ieyasu heard that Hideyoshi had reached Yamazaki, he said, "Our province is entirely at peace." Then he withdrew his army to Hamamatsu.
Ieyasu had never considered himself to be in the same category as Nobunaga's surviving retainers. He was an ally of the Oda clan, while Katsuie and Hideyoshi were Nobunaga's generals. He wondered why he should take part in the struggle among the surviving retainers, why he should fight to pick over the ashes. And there was something far more substantial for him now. For some time he had watched eagerly for a chance at territorial expansion into Kai and Shinano, the two provinces that bordered his own. He had been unable to play his hand while Nobunaga was alive, and there would likely be no better opportunity than now.
The man who foolishly opened up a path toward that goal and who gave Ieyasu a splendid opportunity was Hojo Ujinao, the lord of Sagami, another of the men who took advantage of the Honno Temple incident. Thinking that the time was ripe, a huge Hojo army of fifty thousand men crossed into the former Takeda domain of Kai. It was a large-scale invasion, executed almost as though Ujinao had simply taken a brush and drawn a line across a map, taking possession of what he thought he could.
That action gave Ieyasu a splendid reason to dispatch troops. The force he raised, however, consisted of only eight thousand men. The three-thousand-man vanguard checked a Hojo force of well over ten thousand men before it joined Ieyasu's main force. The war lasted more than ten days. Finally, the Hojo army could do nothing more than make a last stand or—as Ieyasu had hoped for and as it finally did—sue for peace.