A message was sent to Sakuma Genba, asking what should be done with the prisoners.
The response spurred them to quick action: "Do not be delayed by these men. Kill them at once and continue immediately to Mount Oiwa."
Fuwa Hikozo dismounted, drew his sword, and personally decapitated one man. He then shouted out a command to all the members of the vanguard. "Here! have a festival of blood! Hack off the heads of the others and present them as an offering to the god of war. Then raise your war cries and move on to attack the fortress at Oiwa!"
The soldiers around Hikozo almost fought over the chance to cut off the heads of the grooms. Raising their bloody swords high in the morning sky, they offered the lifebood of their prisoners and yelled to the demons. The entire army raised war cries in response.
Billowing waves of armor shook and trembled through the morning mist as each man competed to be first. Sweating horse brushed past sweating horse in the struggle to take the lead, and one spear corps after another rushed forward in the confusion of glittering spearheads.
Gunfire could already be heard, spears and long swords flashed in the morning light, and a strange sound was coming from the area of Mount Oiwa's first palisade. How deep the lingering dreams of the short summer night! The slopes of Mount Oiwa, defended by Nakagawa Sebei, and Mount Iwasaki, held by Takayama Ukon—the center of Hideyoshi's fortifications—were bound by the mist and as quiet, as if no oneknew yet of the oncoming flood of men.
The construction of the fortress at Mount Oiwa had been quick and simple. Nakagawa Sebei slept in a rest hut along the ramparts halfway up the mountain.
Not yet fully conscious, he suddenly raised his head and muttered. "What's going on?
On the border between dream and reality, and without knowing why, he got up abruptly and put on the armor that had been placed near his bed.
As he was finishing, someone knocked at the door of the rest hut and then seemed to be pushing against it with his body as well.
The door fell inward, and three or four retainers tumbled in.
"The Shibata!" they cried.
"Calm down!" Sebei reprimanded them.
From the incoherent reports of the surviving grooms, Sebei was unable to find out where the enemy had broken through or who was leading them.
"It would be an extraordinary feat for even a daring enemy to break this far through the lines. These men will not be easy to deal with. I don't know who's leading them, but I suspect that of all the commanders of the Shibata forces it's most likely to be Sakuma Genba."
Sebei had quickly grasped the situation, and a shudder ran through his entire frame. It would be difficult to deny that the man is a powerful enemy, he thought. But opposed to that overwhelming feeling, a different kind of strength bubbled up from within, and he rebounded.
Grabbing his long spear, he yelled, "Let's go fight!"
Sporadic gunfire could be heard in the distance, from the foot of the mountain. Then suddenly it was heard unexpectedly close, from a wooded area on the southwest slope.
"They've taken the shortcuts too."
Because of the thickness of the mist, the enemy banners could not be seen clearly, and that had the effect of making the Nakagawa forces even more fretful.
Sebei called out once again. His voice echoed in the heart of the mountain.
The thousand-man Nakagawa corps defending the mountain was now awakened by the attack coming in right before its eyes. It had been taken completely by surprise. As far as the men knew, the main Shibata position was a great distance away—a belief that had put them off their guard. The enemy would surely not attack such a safe place! But before they even realized that their belief had been mistaken, the enemy had already descended like a gale.
Sebei stamped the earth and upbraided his men for their complacency and negligence. One by one his officers sought him out and, either sighting his commander's standard or recognizing his voice, they and their soldiers hurriedly gathered around him and formed a real army.
"Is Genba in command?"
"Yes, my lord," a retainer replied.
"How many men does he have?" Sebei continued.
"Fewer than ten thousand."
"One line of attack or two?"
“There appear to be two armies. Genba is attacking from Niwatonohama, and Fuwa Hikozo has taken the path from Mount Onoji."
Even with all of its men assembled, the fortress was defended by no more than a thousand men. The attacking forces of the enemy were reported to be close to ten thouand.
Both shortcuts and the barrier gates at the foot of the mountain were inadequate. It was easy to see that it would only be a matter of time before they were annihilated. “Confront the enemy at the shortcut!" Sebei sent his right-hand man off first with three hundred soldiers, and then encouraged his own men. "The rest of you come with me. The Nakagawa forces have never been bested since coming out of Ibaraki in Settsu. Don’t step back a single pace from the enemy in front of us now!"
At the head of the commander's standard and the banners, Nakagawa Sebei took the lead and whipped his horse toward the foot of the mountain at full speed.
* * *
On the morning of the same day, six or seven warships moved north across Lake Biwa like a flock of water birds. On the curtain enfolding the bridge of one of the ships, a large iris crest fluttered in the wind.
Niwa Nagahide was standing on the bridge of the ship when he suddenly saw black smoke rising from a mountain on the north side of the lake and yelled out to the men around him. "Is that near Oiwa or Shizugatake?" he asked.
“It looks like Shizugatake," one of the members of his staff replied.
In fact, as one looked out in that direction, the mountains appeared to be piled one on top of another, so that the flames from Mount Oiwa looked quite convincingly as though they were rising from Shizugatake.
It's hard to understand." Niwa knitted his brow and continued to gaze steadily out onto the distance.
It was surprising how overly accurate his premonition was. At dawn that day—the twentieth of the month—he had received a message from his son, Nabemaru:
There have been suspicious movements in both Katsuie's and Genba's camps during the night.
At that time he had guessed that what he must be seeing was an enemy attack. Hideyoshi was busy attacking Gifu. And if their enemies were aware of it, they would know it was the moment to strike at Hideyoshi's unguarded position.
Niwa felt apprehensive as soon as he heard his son's report. Boarding his meager force of a thousand men aboard five or six ships, he had them cross the lake to the vicinity of Kuzuo.
Just as he had feared, there were flames from the direction of Shizugatake, and when they finally approached the shore at Kuzuo, he could hear gunfire.
“The enemy seems to have overrun the fortress at Motoyama. Shizugatake is also in danger, and I doubt if Mount Iwasaki will be able to hold out."
Niwa asked two of the staff officers for their opinions.
"The situation certainly doesn't look good," one of the men answered. "The enemy has sent in a large force, and it would appear that our numbers are not going to be sufficient to help our allies in this emergency. The best plan would be to return to Sakamoto and entrench ourselves in the castle there."
"You're talking nonsense," Niwa said, dismissing the suggestion. "Disembark the entire army immediately. Then take the ships to Kaitsu and bring a third of Nagamaru's forces."
"Will there be time, my lord?"
"Everyday calculations have absolutely no value when it comes to war. Our mere presence will have an effect. It will take them some time to realize how few of us there are And that will delay them. Get the troops landed, and hurry back to Kaitsu."