The warriors guarding Hideyoshi noticed the retreating figures of the pages and ran after them. They could see Hideyoshi happily walking on ahead, grasping a bamboo staff, looking for all the world as if he were off on a hawking expedition.
“Are you going to climb the mountain, my lord?"
Hideyoshi pointed halfway up the slope with his staff. “Right. Up to about there."
When they had climbed about a third of the way up the mountain, they came to an area of level ground. Hideyoshi stood looking around, as the wind cooled the sweat on his forehead. From his position he had a bird's-eye view of the area from Yanagase to lower Yogo. The road to the northern provinces, which wound its way through the mountains and connected several villages, looked like a single ribbon.
“Which one is Mount Nakao?"
"That's it over there."
Hideyoshi looked in the direction in which the warrior was pointing. That was the enemy's main camp. A large number of banners followed the lines of the mountain and continued down to its base. There a single army corps could be recognized. But if one looked further, one could see that the banners belonging to the forces of the north filled the mountains in the distance and occupied the strategic areas on peaks closer at hand and all along the road. It was just as though some military expert had made that piece of heaven and earth his base and was trying his hand at a tremendous expansion of his formation. There were no cracks or spaces in the subtlety of the arrangement or in the strategy of the positioning of troops. The grandeur with which they showed themselves ready to swallow the enemy was beyond words.
Hideyoshi silently looked out over the scene. He then looked back toward Katsuie's main camp on Mount Nakao and gazed fixedly at it for a long time.
Looking closely, he could see a group of men working like ants on the southern face of the main camp area on Mount Nakao. And not in just one or two places. He could detect activity in all of the slightly elevated locations.
"Well, it looks like Katsuie intends to make this a long campaign."
Hideyoshi had the answer. The enemy was building fortifications at the southern end of the main camp. The entire battle array, which spread out like a fan from the central army, had been positioned with great care. It would make a steady, carefully controlled advance. There was no sign of preparations for a surprise attack.
Hideyoshi could read the enemy's plan. In a word, Katsuie intended to keep him pinned down here to give his allies in Ise and Mino the time to prepare for a combined offensive from the front and rear.
"Let's go back," Hideyoshi said, and started off. "Isn't there another way down?"
"Yes, my lord," a page answered proudly.
They came to an allied camp just between Mount Tenjin and Ikenohara. From the banners, they knew it was Hosokawa Tadaoki's post.
"I'm thirsty," Hideyoshi said after presenting himself at the gate.
Tadaoki and his retainers thought that Hideyoshi was conducting a surprise inspection.
"No," Hideyoshi explained, "I'm just on my way back from Mount Fumuro. But since I'm here…" As Hideyoshi stood before Tadaoki, he drank some water and gave orders: "Strike camp immediately and go home. Then take all of the warships docked at Miyazu in Tango and attack the enemy coast."
Hideyoshi had conceived of the idea of a navy when he was climbing the mountain. The plan did not seem to have anything to do with what he was involved with at the time, but that kind of discrepancy was, perhaps, peculiar to his way of thinking. His thought processes were not limited by what he saw in front of him.
After half a day of military observations, Hideyoshi had almost completely determined his strategy. That night he summoned all of the generals to his headquarters and told them what he was going to do: because the enemy was preparing for extended hostilities, Hideyoshi's forces would also construct a number of ramparts and prepare for protracted hostilities.
The construction of a chain of fortresses was begun. The engineering was on a grand scale—geared to encourage morale. Hideyoshi's decision to begin building right in front the enemy, at a time when a decisive battle seemed imminent, could be called either reckless or courageous. It could easily have lost him the war. But he was willing to take that chance in order to connect himself to the people of the province.
The fighting style of Nobunaga had been characterized by an irresistible force; it was said that "where Nobunaga advances, the grasses and trees wither." But Hideyoshi's fighting style was different. Where he advanced, where he made his camp, he naturally drew people to him. Winning over the local people was an important matter to attend to before ever trying to defeat the enemy.
Strict military discipline is vital, but even on days when blood seemed to flow, there was something of a spring breeze wherever Hideyoshi set up his camp stool. Someone even wrote: "Where Hideyoshi lives, the spring wind blows."
The lines of fortresses were to run through two areas. The first ran from Kitayama in Nakanogo, along the route to the northern provinces through Mount Higashino, Mount Dangi, and Mount Shinmei; the second went along Mount Iwasaki, Mount Okami, Shizugatake, Mount Tagami, and Kinomoto. Such a huge undertaking would require tens of thousands of laborers.
Hideyoshi recruited the men from the province of Nagahama. He had signposts advertising the work raised in the areas especially devastated by war. The mountains were filled with refugees. Lumber was cut, roads were opened, fortifications were constructed everywhere, and it was easy to believe that a line of fortresses would spring up overnight. But the construction work was not so easy. A single fort required a watchtower and barracks, and also moats and ramparts. Three wooden palisades were set up, while huge rocks and trees were stockpiled directly above the road that the enemy would most likely take to attack.
Both a trench and a palisade connected the area between Mount Higashino and Mount Dangi, which was the zone most likely to be used as the battlefield. The excavation for this alone was daunting, but the necessary work was completed in only twenty days. Women and children participated in the effort.
The Shibata conducted night raids and played petty tricks and were able to impede progress, but seeming to realize that they were having no real success against men who were constantly prepared, they became as quiet as the mountain itself.
It was almost uncanny. Why didn't they just make their move? But Hideyoshi understood. His constant thought—that his adversary was a strong old veteran and not an easy mark—was reflected in Katsuie's mind as well. But there were other important reasons.
Katsuie's military preparations were already complete, but he felt that the time was not yet ripe to mobilize the allies he held in reserve.
Those allies were, of course, the forces of Nobutaka in Gifu. Once Nobutaka was able to move, Takigawa Kazumasu would also be able to attack from Kuwana Castle. Then, for the first time, Katsuie's plans could be transformed into an effective strategy.
Katsuie knew that if it were not done in that way, victory would not easily be achieved. That was how he had secretly and quite anxiously calculated the situation from
the very beginning. The calculation itself was based on the comparative strengths of Hideyoshi's provinces and his own.
At that time, given Hideyoshi's sudden popularity and power after the Battle of Yamazaki, the allies he could count on were the provinces of Harima, Tajima, Settsu, Tango, Yamato, and a few others, for a total a military strength of sixty-seven thousand soldiers. If the soldiers of Owari, Ise, Iga, and Bizen were added to that, the total would be about one hundred thousand.
Katsuie could bring together the main strength of Echizen, Noto, Oyama, Ono, Matsuto, and Toyama. That would mean a force of perhaps no more than forty-five thousand men. If, however, he added Nobutaka's Mino and Ise and Kazumasu's provincial strength, he would have a military force of close to sixty-two thousand men, a number with which he could almost compete with the enemy.
The man appeared to be a traveling monk, but walked with the gait of a fighting man. Right now he was climbing the Shufukuji road.
'Where are you going!" the Shibata guard challenged.
'It's me," the priest replied, pushing back his monk's hood.
The sentries signaled to the palisade behind them. At the wooden gate was huddled yet another party of men. The monk approached the officer and said a few words. There appeared to be some confusion for a few moments, but then the officer himself led out a horse and handed the priest the reins.
Mount Yukiichi was the encampment of Sakuma Genba and his younger brother, Yasumasa. The man dressed as a priest was Mizuno Shinroku, a retainer of Yasumasa. He had been entrusted with a secret message, and was now kneeling in front of his lord, inside his headquarters.
“How did it go? Good or bad news?" Yasumasa asked impatiently.
“Everything is arranged," Shinroku replied.
“Were you able to meet him? Did everything go well?"
“The enemy already has strict lookouts, but I was able to meet with Lord Shogen."
“What are his intentions?"
“I have them written down in a letter."
He looked inside his wickerwork hat and tore off the joint of the hat's cord. A letter that had been pasted underneath fell onto his lap. Shinroku straightened out the creases and put the letter into his lord's hand.
Yasumasa studied the envelope for some time.
“Yes, this is definitely Shogen's handwriting, but it's addressed to my brother. Come with me. We'll go see my brother right now and notify the main camp at Mount Nakao."
Lord and retainer went out through the palisade and climbed to the peak of Mount Yukiichi. The arrangement of men and horses, the palisade gates and the barracks became progressively tighter and more controlled as they reached the top. Finally the main citadel, which looked like a castle, came into view, and they could see innumerable curtained enclosures spread over the peak.