Pathway to Japanese Literature

In a place called Western Hill in Kyoto, there lived a North-facing Warrior named Matsunami Motomune.
As this was a turbulent age, the official stipends were woefully insufficient, and people were so poor that they had to resort to theft to make ends meet.

Among his several children, the eleven-year-old Mine-maru was not only as beautiful as if he had stepped out of a painting but also possessed innate inventiveness and extraordinary intellect.

For those with talent but no pedigree, the surest path to secure their rise in society in accordance with that talent was to enter the Buddhist priesthood.
Therefore, Matsunami requested Myōkaku Temple’s Venerable Hakusen to take Mine-maru as his disciple.

Hōrenbō (formerly Mine-maru), applying his innate intellect through diligent study, swiftly distinguished himself and mastered both exoteric and esoteric Buddhist doctrines, but his eloquence proved so formidable that opponents could only click their tongues in retreat—an almost demonic aura surrounded him, deterring ordinary people from approaching.
He was simply too sharp.

The young monks of his order resented being dominated by Hōrenbō, though this stemmed equally from the insurmountable gap in their talents.

Only one junior disciple named Nan'yōbō immersed himself in studying under Hōrenbō. Being clever himself, Nan'yōbō soon mastered all disciplines and came to be revered alongside his mentor as a future eminent monk.

Nan'yōbō was the younger brother of Nagai Bungo-no-kami, chief retainer to Mino Province’s lord from the Toki clan.

Nagai, seeing his younger brother had come to be revered as one possessing the makings of an eminent monk, deemed this advantageous for his own prestige.
He thus began making periodic donations to Myōkaku Temple while earnestly requesting continued favor for Nan'yōbō—courtesies that led the temple too to hold Nan'yōbō in high regard.
It became routine to authoritatively declare him a vessel of peerless modern monastic eminence.
The senior disciple Hōrenbō faded into obscurity.

The monks who had long been led by the nose and dragged around by Hōrenbō found this development deeply satisfying.

“Their characters are of different caliber.”
“Nan'yōbō carries an innate noble air.”
“By contrast, Hōrenbō’s just a vulgar schemer.”
“One’s born with true virtue—the other’s just some clever upstart of this rotten age.”

This assessment settled into place naturally.
Opportunities for scholarly contests came to be quietly avoided through majority consensus, leaving Hōrenbō no stage to display his talents.

In contrast, it was Nan'yōbō who solemnly conducted ritual ceremonies from the superior position.
His movements carried dignity and composure, befitting the name of a renowned monk.

Hōrenbō was a handsome man—sharp, pale, and razor-like—but in ceremonial settings, he lacked a certain dignity.
To call him vulgar and crafty wouldn’t be entirely off the mark.
Hōrenbō felt bitter resentment.
And nursing this grudge, he found himself forcibly steering toward becoming even more vulgar and crafty.

Before long, Nan'yōbō was summoned by his brother and became the abbot of Jōzai Temple, a renowned temple in Mino’s Imaizumi.
The monks of the mountain temple gathered and sent off the modern unparalleled eminent monk, lamenting their farewell.
Everything had returned to how it once was, and it seemed the time had come when the title of modern unparalleled eminent monk would once again belong to Hōrenbō.

However, Hōrenbō became utterly disgusted with it all.
The fool content with the title of eminent monk—determined by the narrow standards of those dimwitted frog-in-a-well monks—would be just as much an idiot as they are.
I’ve had enough of monks, he thought.

It was a turbulent age.
It was an age of power.
If one was favored by fortune, becoming the lord of a province and castle—or even ascending to become the ruler of the land—was not entirely a fantasy.

He left the temple, returned to his hometown, took a wife, adopted the name Matsunami Shōgorō, and became an oil peddler.

First comes money, he thought.
The Buddhist priesthood also runs on money.
The foundation of military power is money.
In all matters of life, everything boils down to money.

He married the daughter of Naraya Mataemon, but this was solely for business capital.
When his oil peddling enterprise took root, his wife became superfluous.
Non-attachment to any dwelling embodied Buddhism's profound truth.

He wandered through various provinces, stationing himself at crossroads to sell oil.
His routine began by producing a one-mon coin and launching into his practiced pitch.

“Generally speaking, oil merchants measure with a masu box and transfer into jars using a funnel.”
“But mine’s different.”
“Instead of a funnel, I’ll pour it through this one-mon coin’s hole without spilling a drop.”
“Not just that.”
“I’ll do it without letting any oil touch the coin’s edge.”
“If even a speck touches this coin, you pay nothing!”
“Behold—the one-mon coin oil seller!”
“Buy now!”

He had secretly perfected this dexterous technique.
Flawlessly transferring every drop without staining the coin.
Word spread until people clamored for the one-mon oil seller, leaving rival vendors destitute.
Through this peddling he reaped vast profits, hoarding mountains of gold and silver.

While traveling through various provinces as a peddler, he keenly observed the customs, conditions, and political situations of each region. Moreover, he did not neglect investigating and researching the military strategies, weapons, and armaments of renowned military commanders. The dexterity needed to pass oil through a one-mon coin’s hole was merely a sideline. He devised his own unique military strategies.

It was an utterly revolutionary innovation.
It was the military strategy that Oda Nobunaga would later perfect as his own and through which he would unify the realm.
The originator was the one-mon coin oil seller.

The principle of that military strategy was simple.
It consisted of the discovery of the most advantageous weapons and the discovery of military strategies to efficiently use them.

It was merely the first and most fundamental principle of military strategy, but true efforts toward discovery and invention tend to be overlooked.
And the efforts of ordinary people are directed solely toward skillfully mastering existing methods.
That is merely sufficient until new discoveries and inventions occur.

The first advantageous weapon he discovered was a spear longer than those of his enemies.
Typically, short spears measured a little over one ken, and larger spears reached up to two ken at most, but he believed that with an average person’s strength, three ken—even three and a half—were possible.

The long spear was ill-suited for clashing and parrying, but he had not conceived a method of warfare that involved clashing with those spears.

In field battles, when a head-on clash with the main force occurred, it was customary for both armies to first align their spear units and collide.
At that moment, spear units with spears longer than the enemy’s were certain to pierce the enemy’s chest plates first.

Now, if one were to ready that spear again and engage in clashing and parrying, it would be disadvantageous this time—but was there any need to ready that spear again?
When the long spear pierced the enemy’s chest plate in the initial clash, its duty had already ended.
After that, they could draw their swords and transition to close combat.

This principle was not limited to spears.
When firearms were later introduced, all military commanders turned their attention to this revolutionary new weapon.
Needless to say, long spears and bows stood no chance against firearms.

However, the arquebuses of that time could only fire a single shot.
Reloading the bullet and igniting the gunpowder demanded both technical skill and time, allowing enemy forces to close in before a second shot could be fired.
Even with technically reducible reload times, preventing this remained impossible.
Moreover, shortening the process through mechanical improvements proved utterly hopeless given the era's scientific capabilities.

Thus, it was common knowledge at the time that arquebuses could only be used for the first shot, and military commanders studied the speed at which infantry could charge in before allowing a second shot as a new tactical countermeasure against firearms.

He alone did the opposite.
He stubbornly clung to firearms.
He stubbornly clung to firing not just the second or third shot—no, to unleashing an endless barrage of firearms.
And he discovered that method.
He conceived the idea of arranging the firearm units in three-stage formations.
It didn’t have to be three stages—four or five would have sufficed—but technically they managed to reduce it to three.

In other words, the first row fired.
Next, the second row fired.
Next, the third row fired.
By that time, the first row had completed reloading.
In this way, his arquebuses became capable of firing multiple shots in succession.

This firearm tactic too would later be borrowed and perfected by Nobunaga.
Nobunaga further refined this tactic and constructed specialized arquebus positions for field battles.
He dug trenches, erected bamboo palisades, and positioned three-stage arquebus units within them.
Because a regular three-stage arquebus formation alone couldn’t fully prevent cavalry charges.
Therefore, Nobunaga’s arquebus units went into battle carrying not only arquebuses but also bamboo for palisades and digging tools.
Although Nobunaga perfected this tactic, its originator was the Oil Seller Using a One-Mon Coin.

★

The Oil Seller Using a One-Mon Coin, having amassed considerable wealth, decided it was about time he became a samurai.

Even to become a samurai, there was a proper way.
Even in a turbulent age, ladders to success were not simply lying around everywhere.

Having traveled through various provinces, he concluded that without connections, one couldn’t secure a decent official post.
And he learned that in Mino Province, Nan'yōbō’s older brother held considerable influence.

He visited Nan'yōbō at Jōzai Temple.

“I want to become a samurai—but I’ve got the book smarts today’s warriors lack, and I know how every province ticks.”
“Hire someone like me as a retainer, keep me close as an advisor, and your lord won’t just handle one province. He could govern ten and still breeze through negotiations with feudal lords.”
“Make him Shogun, even! My brains’ll still be good for something.”
“Don’t you think?”
“If you do, get your brother to fix me up as some big shot’s retainer.”

Nan'yōbō had risen above Hōrenbō through his master monk's pull and his peers' backing, but he alone—unlike the other junior monks—had originally recognized Hōrenbō's capabilities, become devoted to him, emulated him, and even received teachings from him.

No matter how devoted he had been, when being led around by the nose, hostility would naturally arise within him—there had even been times when it felt satisfying to surpass Hōrenbō—but now, such enmity was gone.
So he asked his brother for the favor.

Though the Toki clan were Mino Province's lords, at that time a retainer called Saitō Myōchin—a former monk—had seized actual power.
The Toki clan were nothing but nominal rulers.
Therefore, even Nagai Nagahiro—chief retainer to the Toki clan's vassals—had to put on the guise of being Saitō Myōchin's retainer and drive himself hard.
Shōgorō the oil seller became Myōchin's retainer through Nagai Nagahiro's recommendation, but at that time Nagahiro told Shōgorō:

“You are a man of such learning that Nan'yōbō prevailed upon his brother about you, so you cannot be ignorant of reason.”
“Mino Province has been established as the domain of the Toki clan since ancient times, but in recent years their vassal Saitō Myōchin has pushed aside his lord and acted willfully.”
“We wish to overthrow Myōchin and restore Lord Toki as our master as in former times—if you consent to this, we intend to recommend you as Myōchin’s retainer.”

“I see. Since I am not from this land, I have no obligation or personal ties compelling me to side with any particular person—but as you say, if I must choose a side, I shall align myself with righteous cause. Since it is evident in reason that Lord Toki has been this land’s rightful ruler since ancient times, I agree with your stated desire to restore his sovereignty.”

“That is most gratifying. The truth is, Myōchin has two children at odds with each other, each forming factions to claim his position. Should Myōchin die, a succession dispute will erupt—blood will flow freely—and the Saitō faction’s power will undoubtedly wane temporarily. We plan to seize this opportunity to eliminate Saitō and restore rightful rule. We want you to become his retainer, serve closely by his side, and maintain contact with us.”

So he recommended him to be Myōchin’s retainer.
For Myōchin—who had pushed aside his lord and seized the domain—preparing to fight enemies both within and without was necessary, and what he desired most of all was reliable retainers.

A sharp-looking scholar at first glance.
However, he was a handsome man as if he had stepped out of a painting, with what one might call fair-complexioned features.
A poet-philosopher-like purity emanated from him.
His scholarship was said to be that of Nan'yōbō’s senior brother.
Myōchin was smitten at first sight.
And he promptly came to entrust him with significant responsibilities.

Nagai was regarded as the leader of the anti-Myōchin faction due to his family lineage, but he lacked the capability to oppose Myōchin, and his frantic plotting to gather allies and hasten their plans was gradually becoming a cause for concern even among his own supporters.

They had begun to regret having allied themselves with Nagai.
They had come to fear that they too would soon be led to ruin for his sake.
Myōchin’s power was steadily growing stronger over time.
They had begun to feel Nagai more as a burden than someone to rely on.
The internal circumstances were such that anyone who could safely relieve them of this burden might even appear as a savior.

Shōgorō, seeing that Myōchin’s trust had become unshakable, submissively confessed Nagai’s conspiracy.

“Since I couldn’t secure an official post without making this promise, I had no choice but to feign agreement with Nagai for the time being.”
“Day and night I sought an opportunity to confess, agonizing alone over it.”

Myōchin rejoiced at Shōgorō’s loyalty.

“Can you defeat Nagai?”

“It’s a simple matter. As an apology for having unwillingly shown signs of collusion with Nagai, I shall take his head to demonstrate proof of my crimson loyalty.”

He easily ambushed Nagai. And he took the Nagai surname for himself, renamed himself Nagai Shinkurō, and fully became a member of the chief retainer’s house. Regarding the clan that did not acknowledge him as the rightful head of the Nagai family, he unhesitatingly condemned them in the name of the Nagai main family.

“Eradicate heretics through Nagai blood.”

That became the declaration of charges.
Justice was power.

Saitō Myōchin found Nagai Shinkurō’s methods both intriguing and faintly immature.

“Aren’t you getting too fixated on Nagai? It would be better if you stayed yourself.”

“You may call me ‘you,’ but there exists no one besides Nagai Shinkurō. I am Nagai Shinkurō.”

“I see.”

The former monk Myōchin thought Shinkurō was delivering a Zen teaching. There exists a Zen parable about a fool who keeps drawing water from an empty well. To be made the fool would be intolerable.

“I am Nagai Shinkurō.”

Shinkurō erupted in laughter that seemed to shake up from his very bowels.

This might have been his repayment for the humiliations once suffered as Hōrenbō. The Nagai pedigree—capable of transforming even a peddler-monk into an unrivaled priest-scholar—now resided wholly within him.

Myōchin assumed Shinkurō was making some Zen-inspired quip about abandoning monastic vows. Had he grasped the man’s true intent, his blood might have frozen. For Shinkurō was intently watching the Nagai blood coursing through his veins. That very blood sustained him.

The time had come for Myōchin’s own incompetence to exact its revenge upon him.
Nagai Shinkurō administered a dose of poison.
Myōchin became a gravely ill patient with an unclear cause.
And he died.

Myōchin’s family began stirring up a succession dispute. Then Nagai Shinkurō subdued them in the name of the deceased Myōchin and wholly inherited his domain. He also took possession of the Saitō house and its bloodline. Once again he changed his name, becoming Saitō Yamashiro-no-kami Toshimasa. Later he shaved his head and adopted the name Saitō Yamashiro Nyūdō Dōsan.

New blood flowed through his veins once more. Dōsan gazed intently at this transformation. The old blood had vanished entirely. Dōsan needed to verify this eradication.

The entire province of Mino was completely his.
All power was his.
However, the common people did not forget to revere the descendants of the Toki clan—Mino’s ancient military governors.

Dōsan became angry.
And he exiled Toki Yoriyoshi, that descendant, from the country.
However, there was no need to seize the Toki clan’s family name or bloodline, which were already incompetent and powerless.
Instead, he seized Yoriyoshi’s beloved concubine and made her his wife.

Dōsan wielded his greatest authority to test the new blood.

That blood seemed to desire cleanliness, like the precincts of a temple that had been swept clean within his domain.

For criminals who defiled the cleanliness of the precincts—though by the judgment of the criminals and people of his domain, these were exceedingly minor offenses—he would have their legs tied to separate oxen, set fire to each ox to make them run in opposite directions and tear the criminal cleanly in two, or boil them alive in cauldrons that their own wives, parents, or siblings were forced to stoke.

Dōsan’s infamy spread rapidly throughout Japan.
The title of Japan’s foremost villainous leader was now his.
A villain such as he—so celebrated for his infamy in his lifetime and yet receiving sympathy from none—seems to have had no equal in any other era.

However, he was a master of war.
While it was known throughout the provinces that he had stockpiled many long spears and many firearms—and had immersed himself in unique research regarding the latter—the secrets of his military strategies still remained beyond people’s comprehension.
His tactics were cunning and varied.
The Asai of Ōmi, the Asakura of Echizen, and the Oda clan of Owari often fought him, but there were instances where even after winning, they would be mercilessly crushed—crushing defeats of an unclear nature, where they suffered unexpected losses at unexpected times.

Compared to his tearing criminals apart with oxen or boiling them in cauldrons, he didn’t appear particularly enthusiastic about warfare.
In truth, he hadn’t actually resorted to ox-tearing or cauldron-boiling nearly as much as his infamous reputation across the realm would suggest.
Just as no amount of sweeping could prevent dust from accumulating in temple grounds, he knew the sand lances along the shore would never diminish.
He understood his enemies multiplied endlessly like those coastal fish.
Even if he crushed foes from San'yō and Shikoku, it brought no finality.
When he considered it all, war itself grew tedious.
This was how he thought.
It wasn’t some amusing game worth pursuing to extremes.
With enemies endlessly surging forth—an inevitability one simply endured—the least he could do was maintain rigorous firearms training.

In this way, he gradually approached old age.
However, even as he grew old, the fear he inspired in the surrounding regions not only failed to diminish—it only grew stronger.
No one could fathom the depths of his intentions, nor grasp the full extent of his strength.
No one could ever grasp his true nature.

He was not a great lord of a major province, but until he grew old and died, it appeared that no one could destroy him.

However, the blood he had stolen had flowed out from his body and undergone a strange transformation. And yet, through the very blood he had stolen, he had received a divine axe of retribution.

★

When he exiled Toki Yoriyoshi and took his beloved concubine, she was already carrying Yoriyoshi’s seed.
Therefore, the firstborn son Yoshitatsu was in fact of Toki bloodline.

However, there were no witnesses to this fact.
It may have been nothing more than Yoshitatsu believing so.
Dōsan had never responded to that.

Yoshitatsu had never been doted on by his father since birth.
As he grew, he became a six-foot-five giant.
He was, so to speak, a monster of a child.
However, Dōsan did not say so.

“He’s a fool.”

He said.

However, Yoshitatsu was astute.
As all who saw him recognized, this was indeed so.
Moreover, he proved an exceptionally diligent scholar—his eyes ever fixed on military treatises, Buddhist texts, and the works of sages—never slackening in study whether seated or reclined.
Save for his hatred toward Father Dōsan, every aspect of him appeared to walk the path of saintly wisdom.

Dōsan called him “Six-foot-five” rather than use his given name.

“Living saints and sages—they’re all fools when it comes down to it.”
“That six-foot-five imbecile!”

Dōsan said this while doting on his second son Magoshirō, third son Kiheiji, and their sister Nōhime.

"Magoshirō and Kiheiji are bright lads—they show real promise."

Though Dōsan told others this, his second and third sons were ordinary children.
The younger they were, the more he doted on them.

On the 22nd day of the 9th month of Tenbun 16 (1547 CE), Oda Nobuhide of Owari invaded Mino Province.
Their advance to Inabayama Castle town and burning of the settlement had gone well—until evening came, when Dōsan suddenly launched a surprise attack that sent them into total disarray. Leaving five thousand corpses behind, they barely managed to flee back to Owari.

For Oda Nobuhide, who was merely the lord of half of Owari Province, five thousand soldiers constituted the majority of his main force.
The blow Nobuhide suffered from this loss was far too devastating.
Even among the Owari generals who had been grudgingly submitting to Nobuhide, those who perceived his life force as spent began to turn against him.

Nobuhide put on a bold front and forced an invasion into Mino at the end of the following year. However, they did not actually press into Inabayama Castle town; they merely burned distant villages and conducted field raids.

But divine punishment struck him down—swift and merciless. He shouldn’t have forced such a hollow display of pride. While Nobuhide was away conducting field raids, members of the Oda main family in Kiyosu turned against him, attacked his residential castle at Furuwatari, burned down the castle town, and fled.

Nobuhide hurriedly returned to his castle and considered countermeasures, but even if the Oda main family in Kiyosu was weak now, they were still of prestigious lineage after all. If he dawdled in turning them into enemies, there was a possibility that defectors from among his allies would keep emerging.

The reason the Kiyosu Oda main family broke away from Nobuhide was likely because they foresaw that Nobuhide’s waning fortunes would eventually lead to his subjugation by Dōsan of Mino.

Now was the time to endure and seek peace with both the Kiyosu main family and Dōsan of Mino.

The one who insisted on this and personally took on this crisis was Hirate Masahide.

Hirate immediately negotiated peace with Kiyosu while at the same time hurrying off to Mino.
He met with Dōsan and pleaded that he wished to receive Dōsan’s beloved daughter Nōhime as the bride for Nobuhide’s eldest son Nobunaga, and to forge a long-lasting goodwill between both families.
Hirate was the stabilizing force who had raised Nobunaga.

It was Dōsan who had effortlessly crushed five thousand Owari soldiers with a single twist, laying the foundation for Nobuhide’s decline.
This Dōsan was increasingly in peak form, undefeated, and his men—hailed as the elite of the realm under the name "Mino-shū"—were only growing stronger.

Nobuhide’s act of conducting field raids from a distance around Mino’s castle town like a defeated dog’s distant howl before fleeing was laughable, but it wasn’t as though he didn’t feel anger.
However, to follow up field raids with a marriage proposal requiring three bows and nine prostrations was taking too much for granted.

However, Dōsan unexpectedly nodded lightly.

“How old is Nobunaga?”

“Fifteen.”

“That damn idiot’s reputation truly precedes him.”

“While rumors suggest as much, I perceive him as a great vessel whose keen insight and daring merely hint at his capacity.”

“A child so universally reviled is rare indeed.”
“Every last soul calls him a worthless imbecile.”
“They say he’s become the butt of every joke among your townsfolk and peasants.”
“Quite the remarkable specimen.”

“Hah?”

“Not one voice rises in his defense—how delightfully pure.”
“I’ll bestow Nōhime upon Nobunaga.”

“Hah?”

“Nōhime is like a jewel in the palm of my hand.”
“In return for her, send me one of Nobuhide’s daughters.”
“She’ll be the bride for my Six-foot-five.”
“We’ll exchange them within five days.”

“Hah?”

Hirate felt as if struck by lightning before he could feel joy.
He timorously looked up at Dōsan’s face.
Even in old age, Dōsan’s razor-sharp handsome features showed no emotion whatsoever.

“Nōhime’s sacrifice.”

Dōsan muttered.

The two families exchanged daughters.
This signified an equal alliance.
Yet at that time, Dōsan and Nobuhide were in no way equals.
Hirate had been in a position where he needed to bend his knees seven times over into eight while pleading desperately.
Nevertheless, Dōsan had established equal terms.
This became the villainous leader's sacrifice—bestowing his beloved daughter Nōhime.

Within the year, Nōhime became Nobunaga's bride while an illegitimate daughter from the Oda family entered Six-foot-five's household as his bride.
Though this occurred because Nobuhide's legal wife lacked a marriageable daughter, it pushed beyond equality—leaving Dōsan at a disadvantage.
Yet Dōsan remained unfazed.

While peace with Mino—deemed a formidable challenge—was settled in a single day, reaching terms with the weak and minor Kiyosu took a full year.
Kiyosu’s terms were simply too demanding.
And he did not yield.
To that extent had Nobuhide fallen.

Yet Dōsan gave his beloved daughter as a bride to the ridiculed idiot son of their declining family.

★

Four years later, Oda Nobuhide unexpectedly died young from illness.
The one who inherited the declining family was the now-infamous idiot.

Nobunaga appeared at his father’s funeral without wearing hakama, grabbed incense, and hurled it at his father’s mortuary tablet.
The fool’s behavior only continued to escalate.

The movement to install his younger brother Kanjūrō in place of Nobunaga grew blatant.
However, while this movement stood as an enemy to Nobunaga, it remained one that sought to protect the Oda family.
Those who rebelled in defiance increased daily.

Hirate, unable to endure it any longer, committed seppuku to admonish the idiot and died.
After Nobuhide’s passing, it became widely believed that Nobunaga could no longer maintain control.

It was then.
Dōsan requested a formal meeting with Nobunaga.
Dōsan had given Nōhime away without further involvement, and the two had yet to meet.

“I’ll go see Nobunaga’s idiotic antics for myself.”

Dōsan said this to the people.

The meeting place was Seitoku-ji in Tonda.
As this was an official meeting, each brought their primary official entourage.

To mock the idiot brat of Owari—renowned for his ignorance of etiquette—Dōsan gathered over seven hundred stern-faced elderly retainers with rigid postures, dressed them in antiquated stiff-shouldered kamishimo robes, lined them up along Seitoku-ji’s corridors, and devised this strategy to greet Nobunaga’s arrival.

Having prepared such an elaborate setup, he concealed himself in a commoner’s house on the outskirts of Tonda and peered through a gap in the door to await Nobunaga’s passage. No matter how much of an idiot Nobunaga was, he would surely moderate his behavior when meeting others; thus, the scheme was to observe his true idiotic nature when he had no one to be considerate toward.

Nobunaga crossed the Kiso River, bringing with him five hundred arquebusiers and archers, five hundred men with long spears measuring three and a half ken, and nearly all of his retainers. The number of soldiers was not large, but their equipment was splendid.

However, the lord riding a horse right in the middle of that procession was utterly outrageous. His head bore what was called a tea-stained chasenmage—his hair simply bound into a single bundle with a cord—the very image of a brat’s disheveled crown. The cord that day was moss green. This idiot brat had a peculiar taste in the color of cords for tying his topknot—it was already well-known that he would only use moss green or madder-colored cords.

He was wearing a myōi with its sleeves detached. He had thrust large and small swords with coarse rope wound around them at his waist and had seven or eight fire-striking bags hung there as well. The reason he adorned his waist with many small pouches was that such was the customary attire for monkey handlers at the time. Nobunaga’s appearance bore an uncanny resemblance to that monkey handler.

However, these fire-striking bags were the inevitable result of Nobunaga’s military strategies forged with his very soul.
That became clear if one looked at the waists of the arquebusiers following him.
Everyone had seven or eight fire-striking bags hanging from their waists.
Inside the bags were many bullets, gunpowder, and such.

It was no wonder that those unaware found it difficult to comprehend.
For them, the prevailing view had settled that arquebuses were things that could only fire a single shot.
They could not even conceive of the need to carry so many bullets and gunpowder on their waists.
And they knew only how to laugh at his monkey handler-like getup.

However, there was no reason Dōsan wouldn’t have understood the significance of the bags.

Nobunaga passed by on horseback, swaying lightly as though leaning into the wind.
He wore large split hakama made by sewing together four equal parts each of tiger and leopard skins.
From head to toe, it was utterly tasteless.

Dōsan could not stop laughing.
His stomach ached from desperately trying to stifle his laughter.

However, when Nobunaga arrived at Seitoku-ji, he secluded himself in a room, spread out folding screens around him, and secretly began applying makeup.
He arranged his hair into a folded topknot.
He donned a shoulder garment and long hakama.
A slender, beautiful decorative long sword.
He had prepared everything.

He swept aside the folding screens and appeared.
This was the first time his retainers saw Nobunaga in his adult form.
He was the very picture of dashing elegance, dripping with freshness.

Nobunaga ascended to the main hall.
A row of imposing, stern-faced retainers sat lined up.
He pretended not to notice them and passed by, then leaned against a pillar on the veranda.

Before long, Dōsan emerged from behind the folding screens and came before Nobunaga.
Nobunaga was still pretending not to know him.
Dōsan’s chief retainer Horita Dōkū—who had served as the envoy proposing this meeting and was already acquainted with Nobunaga—

“Lord Yamashiro-no-kami.”

he said to Nobunaga.
Then Nobunaga,

“So it is.”

Having said that, he stepped away from the pillar, entered the reception area, and then offered a bow toward the garden.

Immediately in a separate room, father-in-law and son-in-law faced each other.
With Horita Dōkū serving, they finished each round of cups and ate rice soaked in hot water.
The two men did not exchange a single word.

Dōsan suddenly became sullen.
his face twisting as if he’d swallowed poison,

“Let’s meet again.”

He stood up swiftly and left the room.

★

This was how the meeting that became known to the world had unfolded.

However, from this day onward, Dōsan and Nobunaga were bound together from their very souls.

When Nobunaga returned to his castle from the meeting at Seitoku-ji, Yamaguchi—a confidant of his deceased father—took advantage of his absence to rebel and was busily constructing fortifications.

Subsequently, numerous betrayals and rebellions broke out.
They believed that Dōsan had given up on that idiot son-in-law and that the fool’s domain would soon fall into Dōsan’s grasp.

However, the opposite was true.
They rebelled.
Nobunaga, with his meager forces, had no choice but to lead nearly his entire army on the punitive expedition.
Then Dōsan ordered his subordinates to deploy troops and had them protect Nobunaga’s castle in his absence.

Those reinforcements could have occupied the vacant castle indefinitely, had they desired.
And they could have eliminated Nobunaga and seized his domain.

Nobunaga never worried about that. He would always leave his completely empty castle and go off to war.
However, Nobunaga’s enemies still doubted Dōsan’s intentions.
They thought there was absolutely no way that could be the case.
They thought Nobunaga would be taken down before long.
A year passed, then two years passed.
Nobunaga wasn’t defeated.

People had no choice but to believe the archvillain’s true intentions.
It was becoming unsettling.
They began to feel that it might not be Nobunaga who would be defeated, but rather themselves—Nobunaga’s enemies.
They could no longer rashly make a move against Nobunaga.
Nobunaga’s lost military forces had begun to gradually recover.

★

Yoshitatsu began showing symptoms of leprosy.

“Six-foot-five fool with leprosy.
“No redeeming qualities at all.”

Dōsan was thoroughly disgusted.

Yoshitatsu secretly cultivated his own trusted retainers and gathered more to his cause.
He was diligent, conducted himself righteously, loved learning, and cherished his retainers.
Everything was what Dōsan did not do.

“Six-foot-five and still doesn’t know how to fart in public—what a fool.”

Dōsan’s caustic wit served not to convince people, but rather to draw them closer to Yoshitatsu and strengthen their solidarity.
Their faction gradually grew larger.

“Lord Yoshitatsu is of Toki bloodline.”
“The rightful bloodline to be lord of Mino.”

Those voices gradually grew more overt.

Inabayama Castle was a large castle.

However, within a single castle, for the castle’s lord and a child who viewed him as an enemy to coexist while each commanded their own retainers was bound to cause problems.

However, Dōsan was surprisingly unperturbed.

“Six-foot-five monster you are. I’ll be the one killed before long.”

It had been nearly ten years since Yoshitatsu began proclaiming himself of Toki bloodline—starting from when he was still around twenty. If he was of Toki bloodline, then Dōsan was not his father but his enemy. It was an obvious conclusion.

Dōsan had never missed an opportunity to kill people for his own advancement, and without a moment’s hesitation, he had killed them. Every time he saw a person’s face, he would think that he could kill this person right now. There were times when he found it strange that people could sit across from him with such nonchalant faces. I thought I wanted to show them my mind.

Of course, there had been opportunities to kill Yoshitatsu.
There had been a great many.
There could still be more.
Just as there were always opportunities to kill Nobunaga.

He could kill them at any time, but he had been reluctant.
Somehow, while lingering in that state of mind, things had come to their present state.
Now those loyalists had tightly encircled Yoshitatsu, making his elimination seem a formidable task.

Yet when he considered whether he could have easily killed Yoshitatsu earlier, he felt this too might unexpectedly not have been true.

Of course, he had the capability to kill.
Even now, he had the capability to kill.
However, it wasn’t a matter of capability, but rather a psychological issue—a truly peculiar one—of whether one could actually carry it out.

Why had he given Nōhime to Nobunaga? At that time, Nobunaga had been known as a notorious fool of a brat.
In his own domain, there was a rare young lord who was the bane of the townspeople and peasants.

Why was he called a bane? Because in town, he would steal goods from shops.
He would steal things like manju and mochi—large quantities of food.
In fields, he would dig up persimmons and chestnuts from people’s gardens, and when hungry, he’d even root out potatoes and radishes to eat.
He wrestled in the fields.
He would run around.
The nickname “Bane” wasn’t unfounded.

Of course, he wasn’t a fool in intellect.
He was a fool who only did things other lords’ children never did.

That fool had indeed won Dōsan’s favor—this much was fact—but when he pondered why, he realized it was likely because standing opposed to him was Yoshitatsu: damnably earnest, studious, playing the saint, doting on his retainers, and perpetually straining to act every bit the proper lord.
In other words, that must be it.

In other words, for Dōsan, Yoshitatsu might have been someone he was psychologically incapable of killing. Seeing that he had chosen someone as antagonistic as Nobunaga for an ally, he found himself thinking that way. He felt something fateful at work. And he found himself thinking more often about the possibility that Yoshitatsu might kill him than about killing Yoshitatsu. Even from the time when he could have killed Yoshitatsu at any moment, it had already been so.

Of course, it was not out of fear that Yoshitatsu would kill him that he had made an ally of the antagonistic Nobunaga. However, now that he looked back at the results, it seemed as though he had drawn up that plan and designated Nobunaga as Nōhime’s son-in-law. Or perhaps he would find himself thinking that he might have had such secret feelings without even realizing it himself.

It was an utterly baffling state of mind. Because even now, it wasn’t as though he couldn’t kill Yoshitatsu.

“Good grief—utterly insufferable bastard. Six-foot-five of pretentious airs, idiocy, and leprosy.”

However, everything was reluctance.
When it came to the six-foot-five Lord Leprosy, everything boiled down to a single word: reluctance.
And then, when he suddenly realized,

“Would I let that damn monster take my head in my sleep?”

He had been thinking this way.
As if the distant light fell restlessly, he had been thinking this way.

★

That autumn, he appointed his third son Kiheiji as Isshiki Uhyōe-no-suke.
He intended to eventually pass his position to him.
Dōsan doted on his younger children the most.

"Kiheiji is a clever man even I can't match."

He proclaimed his reverence in this manner, but no one took it seriously.
However, Dōsan found great satisfaction in revering Kiheiji.

Then, on the 22nd day of the 11th month, he descended from the castle to spend the winter at the villa at the foot of the mountain, as was customary each year.

Yoshitatsu’s illness had grown severe since the 13th day of the 10th month, and he had been bedridden.
It was said that by the time Dōsan returned from winter seclusion, Yoshitatsu would likely already be dead.
Dōsan did not question this either.
In short—"I suppose that’s how it is"—he left the castle.

However, Yoshitatsu’s illness had been feigned.
Because Dōsan had descended to the mountain’s foot, Nagai Hayato-no-kami—regarded as Dōsan’s elder brother—became Yoshitatsu’s envoy and came to retrieve Kiheiji and Magoshirō.

“It’s said Lord Yoshitatsu’s time has come and he has final words to impart.”

Since their uncle was the envoy, the two harbored no suspicions.
And when they entered their brother’s sickroom, they were cut down by people lying in wait.

When Dōsan received this news, he immediately gathered his personal troops and fled into the mountains of Mino.
He remained secluded in the mountains until April of the following year, and on the 18th day of that month, he emerged from the mountains to take up position at Tsuruyama for a decisive battle against the Six-foot-five malevolent spirit.

★

Because Dōsan had his castle taken by Yoshitatsu and fled into the mountains, Nobunaga’s enemies—who had until then lain low—began to stir.
There were those like Oda Ise-no-kami who immediately allied with Yoshitatsu to burn down Nobunaga’s castle town, and soon the situation approached where enemies would swarm forth from among their own allies all at once.

It became clear that Dōsan would march out on the eighteenth day of the fourth month, but if Nobunaga were to set out as reinforcements for Dōsan, there was a fear that his own castle would be seized in his absence.
It was unclear who might seize it, but his relatives and senior retainers were all lined up—any of whom could betray him without it being surprising.

However, he wanted to save Dōsan.
Regardless of victory or defeat, he thought that if he did not join this relief force, then Oda Nobunaga would amount to nothing.

Yet if his castle were seized in his absence, it would only make Dōsan smirk wryly.
The twenty-three-year-old Nobunaga wrestled with this crisis, straining every fiber of his being.

The original military governor of Owari Province had been the Shiba clan.
Their descendants were living as dependents under Nobunaga's roof.

In Mikawa Province, the Kira clan—second in prestige only to the Ashikaga shogunate—had declined into a hollow shell of its former status.
Though under the Imagawa clan's protection, they remained a house of higher standing by one rank than their caretakers.

Nobunaga dispatched envoys to Imagawa, proposing to install Shiba as governor of Owari and Kira as governor of Mikawa while seeking to forge an alliance between both houses—a plan to which Imagawa gave consent.

It was already April.

Nobunaga personally escorted the Shiba clan to Mikawa Province, had the Kira and Shiba clans meet, held a formal ceremony to achieve an alliance, and returned to Owari.
Subsequently, he proclaimed the Shiba clan as governor of Owari Province.
He surrendered the castle's main keep to the Shiba clan—who had been dependents—and moved to Kitayagura, where they had previously resided as dependents themselves, to retire.

Having done this, he hurried to Mino.
Dōsan had already set out.

His own castle was now no longer his castle but the Shiba clan’s. He was nothing more than a retired dependent there. Whether Nobunaga’s enemies would refrain from seizing his castle through this stratagem remained unclear, but this was the desperate stratagem Nobunaga had wrung from every fiber of his being.

However, Dōsan had not counted on Nobunaga’s reinforcements. At that time, the forces under Nobunaga’s command numbered a thousand, or at most fifteen hundred. In Mino, over ten thousand elite troops were assembled. Of course, it wasn’t a matter of military strength. Sentiment was useless. Reinforcements were an unnecessary complication.

“You brat.”
“Sweating through quite the ordeal, aren’t you? A brat who insists on overreaching.”

Dōsan gave a wry smile but found it gratifyingly true to form—the idiot’s actions were characteristically crude yet oddly satisfying.

Dōsan did not permit Nobunaga to approach his camp’s vicinity.
He withdrew even his own retainers far to the rear.

Dōsan descended from Tsuruyama and deployed his forces across Nagara River’s gravel banks.
With only a handful of personal guards at his side, he positioned himself squarely at the vanguard.

“If Arquebus Dōsan loses his castle along with his guns,” he said, “he’ll have no heart left for proper warfare.”

Dōsan laughed and said.

“It’s regrettable I can’t show you a model war as in the manuals, but I’ll show you how a villain dies in style.”

And when parting with his retainers, he said these words.

“Since we’re not waging war today, I won’t lose.”
“All I’ll do is die.”

Dōsan donned his armor and helmet, covered them with an arrow-stopping horo cloak, had a camp stool placed at the very front of the riverbank, and settled heavily onto it.

The enemy vanguard was Takekoshi Dōjin’s six hundred soldiers.
They crossed the river and attacked but were overpowered; Dōsan slew Dōjin, then sat on his camp stool brandishing his bloodied sword, shook his horo cloak, and laughed.

Next, the enemy’s main force crossed the river and charged like locusts; amidst the swarm resembling a black cloud, Dōsan was hacked to pieces.