Pathway to Japanese Literature

The fate of death is certain—what can hidden weeds do? The fixed tale transcends all.

--Nobunaga’s Favorite Ditty-- When Tateiri Sakyonosuke came bearing two imperial decrees and a court lady’s official document to visit Nobunaga, Nobunaga was out hawking. The Imperial Court’s delegation consisted solely of Isobe Shinyuemon Hisatsugu as guide and Tateiri Sakyonosuke as envoy—just two men in total—with their official pretext being a pilgrimage to Atsuta Shrine. When Tateiri Sakyonosuke proposed issuing an imperial decree and court lady’s document to Nobunaga, Madenokōji Dainagon Korefusa exclaimed, “You speak madness!” then fretted, “This is disastrous—utterly disastrous!”

I didn't know how strong-armed this half-mad wild warrior Nobunaga might be or how promising a commander he could become—but what terrified us was those Miyoshi holding power now...and above them that cold-blooded old man Matsunaga Danjo who seemed neither snake nor demon yet both. Truth told—even snakes and demons couldn't match that old bastard Danjō Hisahide! Didn't he still want rice sometimes? Didn't he crave warm bedding come winter? "People above clouds"—how right they were. Enshrined among clouds they endured—thin futons against winter winds—sucking meager rice grains through teeth—life hanging by threads. Not just our Dainagon either. The Retired Emperor himself—the Emperor too—all lived like this.

This is a story from later days: Nobunaga, having seized control of the realm, repaired the Imperial Palace, presented funds, and through various acts of devoted service, rescued the Imperial Court from decline—so it is said. At this time, Nobunaga implemented a method of lending rice to Kyoto's townspeople and allocating interest rice to sustain the Imperial Court's finances. The yield from this interest rice amounted to roughly thirteen koku per month. Half of these thirteen koku was meagerly consumed by the Imperial Court. The other half was converted into side dishes and seasonings. Nobunaga rescued it from decline—so it is said. Having been rescued yet still confined to this meager subsistence, those people above the clouds led a truly wretched existence.

The Emperor generally sends his imperial princes and princesses to temples. The imperial princesses become nuns. The Regent and the Dainagon were no exception. The Ashikaga Shogun was no exception. Children are made into monks or nuns. These institutions—called monzeki temples or imperial-family temples—operated through a system where they leveraged their temple status to receive monthly and annual stipends from the temples. There was no other means of livelihood. Even Madenokōji Dainagon Korefusa found the eyes of Matsunaga Danjō, the Old Viper, terrifying. However, he wanted to eat his fill of rice. Therefore, he was troubled. This has become a grave matter," he said, "most troubling—most troubling.

However, while tormented by anguish, he took up his brush and wrote two imperial decrees. Jōrō Fusako wrote the court lady’s official document. As he handed these to Tateiri Sakyonosuke—Ah, this has become a dire matter, most troubling, most troubling—the Dainagon kept muttering to himself. Thus, that night found him unable to sleep a wink. Even Tateiri Sakyonosuke and their guide Isobe grew so burdened with anxiety that they too passed the night without rest.

The following dawn, the Emperor summoned Korefusa. “We are pleased by the court ladies’ and your thoughtful efforts,” he declared. “Now redouble your prudence—exercise discretion upon discretion and act with utmost secrecy.” After deliberating over gifts for Nobunaga—“Nothing too elaborate... A priestly robe would suffice”—the envoys departed in stealth. Since they could not visit Nobunaga directly at Kiyosu Castle, they went to call upon Dōkai Owari-no-kami—an acquaintance of Isobe’s who served as Nobunaga’s informant. At that time, Nobunaga was out hawking.

On his return from hawking, it was Nobunaga’s custom to rest at Dōkai’s residence, take a bath, and then return to his castle. “Since Lord Nobunaga should arrive soon, please first bathe to wash away your travel weariness,” they were told, and the two men entered the bath. At that moment, Sakyonosuke handed the bundle containing the imperial decree and court document to Dōkai. Dōkai reverently received the bundle, clapped his hands, and exclaimed, “Ah, what fortune! The realm has become Lord Nobunaga’s! He must be well satisfied!” Then he hurried off to his wife’s room.

His wife was called Yasui, a talented woman whom Nobunaga greatly favored. Thanks to his wife’s influence—and because even her husband now basked in Lord Nobunaga’s favor—he began urging, “Quickly—fix your hair, straighten your robes, and await our lord’s return! This—all of this—means the realm has at last become Lord Nobunaga’s! This bundle holds two blessed imperial decrees and a court document! We can’t just stand here! Come now—hurry, hurry—make ready! A joyous occasion! A blessing!” All the while, he capered about alone in reckless abandon.

Nobunaga returned. As was his custom, he briskly headed to the bath chamber. Dōkai chased after him, explaining, "Actually, regarding this matter—imperial envoys have arrived." "Ah, is that so?" said Nobunaga, leaping into the bath. He stuck his head out from the tub and fired off questions about the envoy: "Are new kosode robes prepared?" "Of course—the preparations are flawless," replied Dōkai. "After all, His Majesty has deigned to bestow Japan upon you." He repeated "Japan has been granted—granted!" like an incantation. So Nobunaga splashed about noisily in the bath, in high spirits.

However, it was no grand imperial decree that commanded control over Japan. "You have lately become renowned for your military fortune and are openly worshipped as a great general of the realm by your petitioners," it declared. "Therefore, demonstrate loyalty to the Imperial Court by contributing funds for the Crown Prince’s coming-of-age ceremony, repairing the Imperial Palace, and restoring the imperial estates"—such was the substance of the imperial decree. It was simply a matter of requesting that something be done about the dire living circumstances of the Imperial Household. Well, it was essentially just a larger-scale loan request, but even this much meant that he had attained the stature to be entrusted with such an appeal by the Imperial Court—in other words, a validation of his capabilities.

Nobunaga donned the priestly robe received as a gift, exchanged cups with Sakyonosuke, and—now bursting with vigor after accepting the two imperial decrees—declared, “Be at ease: I’ll first settle matters with the neighboring regions, then pacify the realm. For now, stay three to five days and rest.” Next came a pre-celebration for the realm’s unification—goose soup and crane sashimi—as he summoned five senior retainers and hosted a banquet.

Thinking to send similarly auspicious items to the Imperial Court as well, from the next day onward he diligently hunted, capturing geese and cranes in abundance, then had them returned home bearing gifts accompanied by gold coins.

At that time, Nobunaga was thirty-four. Nobunaga was a man raised like the alpha of stray dogs—untamed and unrestrained. He obeyed no one’s orders, imitated no one’s ways, made willfulness his creed, and through self-styled methods forged himself into a rascal general. Rascal generals—such types—all too readily fix their ambitions on becoming supreme ruler of the realm. When Hase no Jōshu of Anō Village, Kuwata District, Tanba Province—Akazawa Kaga-no-kami—journeyed to the eastern provinces, procured two hawks, visited Nobunaga in Kiyosu upon returning, and said, “Please accept whichever pleases you as tribute,” Nobunaga responded cheerfully: “Ah! Your devotion gratifies me exceedingly. Very well—I’ll take it! I’ll keep it until I seize the realm. My gratitude shall come in due course.” “Country bumpkin spouting grand delusions,” people mocked his bravado—yet Nobunaga was twenty-eight then. He crafted and favored a seal bearing *Tenka Fubu*—*Rule the Realm by Military Force*—making his consuming passion for unification his daily companion, though such ambition was hardly his alone.

As for supreme ambition to rule the realm: any rascal general possesses that much. Yet confidence does not accompany it. Rather, the more masterful one becomes, the less confidence they possess. This stems from their understanding of fear. The blind do not dread serpents, and fools remain oblivious to their limitations—yet through fear do masters attain progress. Thus confidence forms not through self-creation, but through others' crafting. Only via external recognition can one discern their true capabilities. Capabilities revealed through such means alone constitute genuine confidence; the aspirations of ambitious men and their vanity prove worthless.

Nobunaga was a self-forged, daring rascal general, yet even in his youth—having discerned the disadvantage of short spears—he proved cautious enough to have his retainers prepare 3.5-ken long spears. Subsequently realizing the advantage of matchlock guns, he changed his primary weapon to firearms. This brought about his unification of the realm, but behind this prudence and insight lay a heart filled with fear. Perhaps it was fear's absolute pinnacle. For a Nobunaga such as this, three or four victories could not bestow true confidence. Nobunaga possessed boundless conceit bred from his feral upbringing. He carried equal measure of dread. To transmute this conceit into genuine confidence required matching dread and others' supreme, absolute acknowledgment.

Nobunaga’s retainers thought that the rascal general did indeed have qualities befitting a true commander, yet they remained half-convinced. Approximately fifty chō (5.45 km) from Kiyosu, near Hira Castle, there was a place called Akama Pond. There was a legend called Snake Pond—an eerie place where reed fields stretched for thirty chō (approximately 3.27 kilometers).

Though it was mid-January—still a cold season—a man named Matazaemon from Anshoku Village was walking along Akama Pond’s embankment at dusk when he came upon a black torso about an armful in size lying on the bank, its neck stretching over the edge and submerging into the water. When it raised its head at the sound of a person, he saw something with a face resembling a deer’s—eyes gleaming like stars, a crimson tongue also glowing radiantly—and what looked like a single arm, akin to a human palm splayed open, flickering and flaring. Startled, he fled in panic back home.

About ten days later, this story reached Nobunaga’s ears. He immediately summoned Matazaemon to hear his account, and the following day gathered peasants from five neighboring villages. They lined up hundreds of buckets and began drawing water from all sides of Akama Pond—but even after four hours, the water’s edge remained out of sight. “Alright then,” he declared. “I’ll dive in and check.” Stripping down to just his fundoshi loincloth and gripping a short sword between his teeth, he plunged into the frigid water. In the middle of the pond, he dove with all his might, bubbles rising furiously, but encountered no snake. “Maybe I’m not diving deep enough,” he thought, climbing onto the bank. He ordered Usaemon, a master swimmer, “You—dive in.” When even Usaemon found no serpent, Nobunaga muttered, “Well, well—nothing here after all,” and withdrew to Kiyosu Castle. This was the twenty-nine-year-old Nobunaga.

This empirical mindset was innate to Nobunaga. He stripped naked the Ethiopian brought by Valignano and made him wash to verify authenticity, then summoned an itinerant monk named Muhen—who claimed to be Born of the Boundless Land and performed mystical arts—exposed his fraud, and exiled him. When he learned Muhen had continued deceiving women and children post-exile, he sent hunters across provinces to capture and execute him. Though he could strip away human sorcery’s disguises, even Nobunaga couldn’t deny monsters’ existence in that era. Rather than denial—indeed, precisely because he believed—he dove in seeking proof. His voracious curiosity transcended theory: utterly reckless, he forbade others from attempting first, plunging himself into winter waters wearing only a loincloth with a dagger between teeth—madness by any measure. No conventional daimyō would act thus. Retainers and peasants may have marveled at his death-defying audacity, hairs standing in terror—yet Nobunaga’s true greatness remained half-grasped by them. At twenty-nine—when men were deemed mature—this general had five villages drain a pond until its bed vanished, then dove alone into its depths clad only in a loincloth.

This too was at the age of twenty-eight. He suddenly took eighty retainers and traveled to Kyoto. No one knew what purpose this journey served. All neighboring domains were enemies. "What fine prey—have at him!" declared Saitō of Gifu, sending dozens of assassins in pursuit. Having by chance detected this plot, Nobunaga marched straight to the Kyoto inn where the assassins lodged and glared at them. "You—thinking your sort could kill me? Fools! Try stabbing me now!" he challenged. The assassins paled and trembled violently. Among Kyoto's townsfolk who heard of this incident, two schools of critique emerged—some argued it didn't reflect the commander's full capabilities, while others insisted a young commander required such fiery mettle.

Nobunaga had been sightseeing in Kyoto and Sakai when, at rainy dawn, he suddenly departed and blasted through twenty-seven ri of mountain paths day and night to return to his castle. This reason, too, was beyond the comprehension of any of his retainers. To his retainers—constantly being dragged about and startled—it remained unclear even as Nobunaga turned thirty whether their commander was truly great or merely a half-mad brute.

It seemed he had subdued Mino and driven his longtime enemy, the Saitō clan, from Gifu. Nobunaga was thirty-four at the time. However, behind him still loomed Shingen the Great Monk, Kenshin the Warrior Priest, and the Hōjō—each a renowned warlord in a league far beyond the likes of Saitō. In close proximity were the Rokkaku, Asakura, and Azai; the Miyoshi faction and Matsunaga Danjō—the Old Viper—coiling menacingly; the Mōri as well. Given his innate arrogance, he could hardly maintain any firm confidence.

Thereupon came an imperial decree from the court. First and foremost, it was an imperial decree hardly grand—merely a debt notice writ large—but in any case, it amounted to having gained official recognition as one of several great commanders in the realm, now positioned nearly on par with Shingen and Kenshin.

Nobunaga too had found some measure of confidence for the first time—but it could hardly be called substantial. What was the Imperial Court? Even the Ashikaga shogunate—whose Seii Taishogun had been appointed by the Imperial Court, and whose father too had finally been granted Danjō by that same court—stood as Japan’s foremost noble house. That said, in reality, the Imperial Court was but a hollow vessel; the Ashikaga Shogun lived or died solely at the whim of Matsunaga Danjō—the Old Viper—and all governance of the realm lay within his grasp.

An imperial decree may sound noble in name, but its true significance—was it not merely a promissory note permeated by nothing but the chilling sorrow, pitifulness, and wretchedness of a declining noble house? Fund the imperial prince’s coming-of-age ceremony; reclaim our revenue lands—stolen from us, leaving not a single coin of profit; do something about the Imperial Palace, crumbling under rain and winter winds yet beyond repair—these decrees reeked less of inspiring Nobunaga to heroic fervor than of wretchedness that first drained him of vigor.

Of course, Nobunaga’s discernment had already pierced through the utility of that hollow vessel—one that could not be overlooked. Yet it remained clear these imperial decrees—ostensibly proper borrowing notices and requisition orders—lacked any substantial real power. Through them, Nobunaga could at least recognize the sprouting of his confidence toward ruling the realm, though he could not yet attain genuine confidence.

After that, a year passed. Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the last Ashikaga shogun, came to rely on him. Around this time, Matsunaga Danjō—the Old Viper—sent a letter declaring that if Nobunaga were to lead troops in a march on the capital, he too would strip off a sleeve to assist, smoothly asserting that Nobunaga was the general who ought to shoulder the next era and command the realm.

The Old Viper—that heinous and lawless administrator of the realm—had indeed begun to feel the heat. He compelled his lord to rebel against that lord’s master, slaughtered the master’s child to usurp their house, assassinated the Shogun, plucked away each obstruction one by one—until at last he coiled himself into power as ruler of the land. Yet such methods left him without true allies—for every comrade doubled as a potential foe. In the years since murdering the Shogun, he had ricocheted between pursuing and being pursued by his supposed allies—the Miyoshi triumvirate—resorting to desperate acts like torching Nara’s Great Buddha Hall, fleeing to Sakai to beg forgiveness, and abandoning all pretense of governance. For all his cunning, the Old Viper found himself mired in petty scrambles: fleeing ambushes, spinning deceptions, launching midnight raids—so frantically occupied that steam seemed to rise from his brow.

Yet, this was indeed the Old Viper. He saw through Nobunaga. He discerned the coming era and understood the gap between generations. He did not cling to the insubstantial prestige of titles like Ruler of the Realm, yet knew how to depend on the next generation's players. He who had pushed aside and killed the previous generation's spent players to seize his own era had learned from his own bloody history the wisdom of depending on the next.

Compared to this，Ashikaga Yoshiaki’s manner of dependence on Nobunaga lacked any firm conviction．Yoshiaki—who had made dependence his nature，using his birth family’s status as a mere facade—had fled and relied on Wada Koremasa after his brother the Shogun was killed by Matsunaga Danjō，then turned to Rokkaku Yoshikata，sought aid from Kenshin，depended on Takeda Yoshimune，leaned on Asakura Yoshikage—relying on anyone he could find．His entire life was one of dependence—without discrimination between friend or foe，he possessed neither trust in others nor loyalty．If he had utilized［others］，it would have sufficed．

Exploitation was also Nobunaga’s own family art. Yet in true rogues, there exists after all honor. Do not say that Nobunaga is no rogue. He is a rogue. Does he not stake his very being and cast it aside? He differs from the counterfeit rogues of gambling dens like Anchan. True rogues are pitiable things—for they behold humanity’s true form. Those who fix their gaze upon humanity’s true form are ogres. They are devils. This devil, this rogue—they too tread a path that approaches the divine. Was it not Dostoevsky—who ultimately forged Alyosha’s character—who could only write of rogues along that passageway leading to divine communion?

Both the Old Viper Danjō and Nobunaga were no different in their roguish ways. The Old Viper usurped his lord’s house and killed the Shogun, but Nobunaga achieved independence without needing to kill—if anything, Nobunaga was likely far more ruthless when it came to taking lives. The Old Viper lived his entire life in his own brazenly self-taught manner—a perfect counterpart to Nobunaga—proclaiming he would live to 125, applying life-prolonging moxibustion, insisting that with proper care anything could achieve longevity, and even demonstrating this by painstakingly raising pine crickets for three years.

The Old Viper possessed a peculiar, viper-like integrity all his own. And while Nobunaga did not trust Yoshiaki’s heart, he did believe in the Old Viper’s integrity. The peculiar nature of the two rogues’ friendship and the Old Viper’s integrity—how bizarrely twisted they were—would gradually come to light. The Old Viper’s ulterior motive of dependence on Nobunaga likely provided the greatest stability to Nobunaga’s confidence. And by believing in the truth of dependence—the truth of the Old Viper’s integrity—he rendered both that dependence and integrity into genuine truths. By believing in him, Nobunaga conquered the Old Viper.

The Old Viper killed Ashikaga Yoshiaki’s brother—the Shogun—and burned his mother to death. His second elder brother was also killed, and Yoshiaki alone managed to escape, preserving his precarious life. The Old Viper stood as Yoshiaki’s sworn and mortal enemy. Yoshiaki had been driven from the capital, with governance of the realm now coiled within the Old Viper’s grasp. Yoshiaki clung indiscriminately to any who might aid his desperate campaign to restore the shogunate—yet the day of its restoration would become his reckoning with the hated Old Viper. Through Nobunaga’s intervention at last, Yoshiaki reclaimed Kyoto and routed the Old Viper’s forces. Could he then have the viper torn asunder? No, no. It was Nobunaga who granted clemency. The Old Viper—having foreseen this outcome—had already taken it upon himself to guide Nobunaga’s march to Kyoto.

There exists such a thing as betrayal in this world. They betray their masters and sell out allies without realizing it. The Old Viper sold out his allies. Yet he could not sell out his lord. For he himself was the supreme commander. A supreme commander’s betrayal ought not exist. This was not betrayal—it was what they called surrender. Yet when it came to surrender, the Old Viper surrendered; when it came to betrayal, he betrayed—resolving matters in such inexplicable fashion that anything passing through his hands inevitably took on bizarre and uncanny form. He had been defeated by Nobunaga’s Kyoto-bound forces, fled and surrendered—yet months before this defeat and flight, he had already surrendered to Nobunaga and personally urged that very march on the capital.

The surrendered Old Viper promptly visited Nobunaga to offer various suggestions—such as “This is how Kyoto’s public order should be managed”—but by declaring things like “The suppression of Christians is both necessary and crucial,” he angered the missionaries. Thus, Yoshiaki could not have the Old Viper torn into eight pieces, but at any rate, he was able to attain the long-coveted shogunate. At that time, there were two senior retainers of Yoshiaki who worked actively on negotiations dependent on Nobunaga. One was the honest Wada Koremasa, and the other was the intellectual strategist Akechi Mitsuhide. And through Yoshiaki’s recommendation, Mitsuhide became Nobunaga’s retainer.

Thus, Nobunaga’s demonic reign had materialized like a castle conjured overnight by a magic lamp upon the squirming of vipers and rogues—but what exactly was Nobunaga? This itself remained an even greater enigma of the age.

★

What was Nobunaga? Even his retainers did not understand. The elderly retainer of unwavering loyalty who had raised him—driven to despair by the Demon Commander’s reckless antics—took his own life.

The Demon Commander excelled at brawling above all else. He adored combat practice. Even as a youth, he had mastered brawl tactics to such an extent that he recognized the superiority of long spears over the then-popular short spears, arming his retainers with 3.5-ken-long weapons. From April through October he would submerge himself in rivers until his water training attained supernatural mastery; his daily routine included morning and evening horsemanship drills, archery under Ichikawa Daisuke, firearms instruction from Hashimoto Ippa, and strategic studies with Hirata Sanmi. Beyond these, sumo wrestling and hawking remained his greatest passions from his Demon Commander days until death—a man who even after unifying Japan would strip naked to wrestle servants.

The Demon Commander, a master of brawling, fought wars using those very techniques and—well—somehow kept winning. The retainers could only think of it that way. Nobunaga had defeated Imagawa Yoshimoto, transforming from the “Fool Commander” into a commander of questionable renown across the realm—yet among his retainers, suspicions that this victory had been merely a miraculous fluke clung more stubbornly to their minds than to those of strangers who knew nothing of him.

Imagawa Yoshimoto was a powerful figure in Tokai, a renowned commander, and a candidate universally approved for unifying the realm. The Imagawa lineage was a prestigious house second only to the Ashikaga. Compared to this, Nobunaga was nothing more than the son of a minor daimyo’s magistrate—a country brawler who had relied on brute force to crush his lord’s house, overthrow his clan members, and carve out his independence. Facing the attack of Imagawa’s forty-thousand-strong army, the Oda forces numbered barely three thousand; to engage in open battle would mean annihilation. Thus, at the military council, the senior retainers unanimously resolved to fortify Kiyosu Castle—but the Demon Commander alone stood resolutely opposed. At that moment, Nobunaga said, “The outcome rests on the fortune of the hour.” For him, that was everything—and with that alone, it sufficed. Because he had completed all necessary preparations and had staked his life. In the end, for him, everything now rested on fortune. When human effort has been exerted, the subsequent outcome should be entrusted entirely to fortune as an absolute. There was no regret in that. How many among a million could await such fortune with composure?

Embedded within Oda territory stood Imagawa-held Odaka Castle. The Imagawa army advanced while scattering and crushing Oda forts across all directions, but soon revealed their intent to occupy Odaka Castle—resting there, stockpiling military provisions to establish a forward base. Nobunaga had constructed two forts—Marune and Washizu—flanking Odaka Castle’s front, stationing Sakuma Morishige and Oda Genba to guard them as he awaited the Imagawa advance.

The Imagawa forces were advancing on Marune and Washizu. On the night when alerts flew in like comb teeth being plucked, Nobunaga held no military council at all; instead, he stayed up late engrossed in idle chatter until deep into the night, then dismissed his retainers with a curt “It’s late—go home.” Upon exiting the castle, the senior retainers exchanged glances. Muttering that even wisdom’s mirror clouds when fortune wanes—declaring *“That Fool Commander meets his end today”—* they walked home along dark roads while scoffing at Nobunaga.

The following predawn. A report arrived that the Imagawa forces had finally begun their assault on Washizu and Marune. At that moment, Nobunaga stood up and commenced performing the Dance of Atsumori, his voice resounding as he sang: Human life lasts fifty years— Measured against life’s transformations, —like a fleeting dream. Once having obtained life— Should there be anything that does not perish? This was the chant and dance Nobunaga cherished throughout his life. Nothing defined his worldview more clearly. These lyrics sufficed. For he had staked his life.

The chant had ended, but Nobunaga was still dancing. And while dancing, he commanded them to blow the conch shell trumpet, ordered his armor brought forth, donned it mid-dance, ate standing up, fastened his helmet, and then—still dancing—slipped out to lead the charge. The retainers, exasperated by the Fool Commander, had returned home and were sleeping. Even if they awoke to the conch shell’s blast, there was nothing they could do immediately.

The retainers who followed Nobunaga on his campaign numbered a mere five horsemen. Even so, he would occasionally make his horse gallop in circles on the road, waiting for some of his retainers to prepare and catch up. And by the time they reached Atsuta, their numbers had grown to six horsemen and over two hundred foot soldiers. After praying for victory at Atsuta Shrine, when it was time to depart, Nobunaga leaned against his saddle, humming through his nose, and leisurely refrained from giving orders. It was a reenactment of the reckless brat who used to sling his arm over people’s shoulders, munch on melons, and stroll through town.

On the way, news arrived that the fort had fallen and that the garrison commander, Sakuma Daigaku, and others had died in battle. Along the way, soldiers fleeing from fallen forts joined them, and their total number swelled to around three thousand men. The vanguard of the Imagawa army had entered Odaka Castle and was in the process of supplying provisions, while Yoshimoto had gathered his main forces at Dengaku Hazama and was chanting a victory song.

Nobunaga launched a surprise attack there. While Imagawa Yoshimoto was still processing whether his allies had started fighting among themselves, Oda’s samurai had already leaped forward and severed his head.

Nobunaga’s wars were always like this. Without waiting for his retainers’ preparations to be completed, marching out with only about ten men from his immediate circle was not something unique to this war. The retainers panicked in confusion, dragged around by Nobunaga without being allowed to utter a word of protest, then suddenly noticed the war had ended—and they had won. Because the victories lacked logical coherence and seemed irrational—and yet they kept winning effortlessly—Nobunaga declared that victory hinged on fortune, but his retainers could only perceive that fortune as a fluke, a mere coincidental stroke of luck. They could not rationally comprehend Nobunaga’s greatness.

For Nobunaga, everything was constructed. That is what it means to be an expert. There were plenty of soldiers and generals. There was no shortage of commanders or marshals. But true experts were few among them. The same applied to artists. For Nobunaga, the twenty-seven years from his birth until toppling Imagawa—everything he saw and heard had been constructed for that purpose. But this purpose was not limited to Imagawa alone. It could have been Takeda or Uesugi; either would have sufficed.

Everything had been constructed for precisely what lay before him—this framework operated with machinelike rationality, yet his retainers could not grasp it. Precisely because they had been blinded since his youth by Nobunaga’s rule-defying idiocy, his men found it impossible to shake off their gnawing suspicion that his triumphs were mere flukes.

Nobunaga lost his father when he was sixteen. When Nobunaga appeared at the incense offering for his father’s funeral, he was not wearing hakama. He had his hair in a chasen-gami—a loincloth-tied topknot—with a shimenawa rope wrapped around the long sword at his waist; appearing like some delinquent boy returning from river fishing, he stomped up to the Buddhist altar, grabbed a fistful of incense, and hurled it toward the mortuary tablet.

What are the dead? They are white bones. It was the truth expounded by Buddhist practitioners and known to all people—but how many could coldly confront that reality? The delinquent Nobunaga walked through town munching chestnuts, stuffing rice cakes in his cheeks, biting into melons, leaning on shoulders or hanging off people—he couldn't simply walk without doing these things. The Foolish Young Lord who left them aghast; the Grand Buffoon—that was his established reputation throughout the castle town.

The old retainer Hirate Nakatsukasa, who had raised Nobunaga, left a remonstrance suicide note and took his own life. That loyalty—that sincerity—even the notorious delinquent found his innards torn asunder. The delinquent threw a bird he’d obtained from hawking high into the air. “Old man, eat this,” he said. Standing at the riverside where he practiced water training, occasionally tearing up suddenly, kicking up river water with his foot, he shouted, “Old man, drink this!” The sight of those who empty themselves moves the souls of rogues. What Nobunaga saw in Hideyoshi’s loyalty was also a self-emptying sincerity. What Nobunaga saw in Ieyasu’s alliance was also a self-sacrificing loyalty close to that. The unruly ambitious youth Nobunaga must have wanted to keep the sincere old man alive at least until the day when even a fragment of his ambitions took shape, to show him. However, the delinquent’s madcap antics showed no change whatsoever despite the Old Man’s admonitory suicide.

The sincere old man, gauging the future of the Grand Buffoon Foolish Young Lord, took a daughter from the neighboring province’s Saitō Dōsan and married her to Nobunaga. The Saitō and Oda clans, neighboring each other in Mino and Owari, had been sworn enemies for years—attacking and being attacked, fighting evenly to hold their ground—but with the advent of the Foolish Young Lord’s era, there loomed the peril of being swiftly crushed. The old man had feared this. Saitō Dōsan was also an old man around sixty. This man was also one of the undisputed great rogues of the realm at that time—a chief instigator. The Old Viper was the realm’s de facto ruler; this dandy old man was a daimyo. While there was some disparity in their statuses, when it came to being chief instigators of atrocity, everyone at the time would count these two old men on their fingers—but stopped short at bending a third.

He was born into a rōnin family and sent to Myōkaku-ji Temple in Kyoto during his childhood to become a monk. A beautiful youth like a flower, intellectually astute and beloved by his master monk, he swiftly mastered the profound mysteries of Buddhism. With his refreshingly eloquent speech, he came to be hailed as a renowned monk by his youth. There was a junior fellow disciple two years his junior named Nanyōbō—a scion of nobility who was likewise erudite, a young monk versed in diverse studies—and the two shared an exceptional closeness. But Dōsan grew weary of monastic life, renounced his vows, took a wife, and began peddling oil.

He would stand at crossroads, gather a crowd with his smooth-talking stream of lies—essentially operating as a huckster—deceive them with his silver tongue, and extract a single coin.

“Step right up, gather ’round! Clumsy merchants sell oil using funnels—their skills are poor and their oil is bad.” “Smoothly, steadily—the oil flows out in a single unbroken thread. This here’s good oil, I tell ya.” “Come on, gather ’round!” “My oil’s good oil, I tell ya.” “Understood?” “I scoop oil into a ladle.” “I pour that—like this—into the vessel.” “Smoothly, smoothly—a single unbroken thread. See here? Through the hole of this holed one-mon coin—smoothly, smoothly.” “If even a drop touches the edge of the hole—by mistake or otherwise—I won’t take your coin.” “Look closely, you all—does even a single drop touch the edge? There you go—smoothly, smoothly.”

The marvel of his practiced skill—through the hole, oil never once touched the edge. It became a huge sensation that the best oil was exclusively that of the oil seller with the one-mon coin, and he rapidly grew wealthy. While selling oil, he devoted himself to military strategy, relied on his former monk companion Nanyōbō to become a retainer of Nagai in Mino, killed Nagai, received a son-in-law from Nagai’s overlord the Toki clan, poisoned that son-in-law, expelled the Toki clan, became master of all Mino Province, and took up residence at Gifu’s Inabayama Castle.

To kill one’s lord and murder one’s son-in-law was the height of treachery—in the past it was Nagata, now Yamashiro. This was the lampoon of that era. Yamashiro referred to Saitō Yamashirō Nyūdō Dōsan. He tore apart criminals guilty of minor offenses by oxen, boiled them alive in cauldrons, and even forced their wives and family members to stoke the fires beneath those very cauldrons. The originator of boiling in cauldrons was not Ishikawa Goemon. He was a treacherous and cunning schemer, but a master of military strategy. Like Nobunaga, he had realized the advantage of long spears and recognized matchlock guns as formidable weapons, devoting himself to artillery. Akechi Mitsuhide was a master of artillery, but it was said he had studied under Saitō Dōsan.

With such a schemer in a neighboring country, Nobunaga’s father would attack when opportunities arose or be attacked in turn, as they had been sworn enemies for years. Therefore, Hirate Nakatsukasa—Nobunaga’s guardian—arranged for the young Nobunaga to marry Dōsan’s daughter, preparing for the future.

Dōsan found the political marriage splendid. If the other party was willing, he saw no reason to object. He had no intention of hesitating to twist the life out of a son-in-law or two.

However, Dōsan—true to a rogue’s instincts—saw through this: the Grand Buffoon, the Foolish Young Lord. "In this lord’s generation, the house will surely collapse"—such was the prevailing sentiment. None other than the Oda clan’s own retainers’ established doctrine. Yet even this rogue did not simply swallow the world’s established doctrines as they were. Whenever people claimed that brat was a fool, he would demand: "Is that true? Why?" And he would declare that Nobunaga was no fool.

He tied up his topknot over a patched fundoshi, wore a yukata with one sleeve torn off, hung seven or eight fire striker pouches and gourds at his waist, dangled from people’s shoulders, and walked down the road munching on melons and gnawing rice cakes all the while. Indeed, his behavior was not that befitting a young lord. To sneak into his father’s funeral wearing everyday clothes, scoop up a handful of incense, and hurl it—what a fool. But isn’t it said that his water training rivals even a water demon’s? Is it not said that he is a master who can drive a wild horse mercilessly in all directions and ride it to death? Is it not said that he has mastered artillery and discerned the advantage of long spears? Is he not a schemer, if only for the strength of his arms?

However, not a single person agreed with Dōsan’s opinion. “Ha ha ha, preposterous! He’s undeniably the biggest fool there is,” everyone said in unison. “So, in any case, you can’t know without seeing the real thing,” the dandy old rogue smirked as he conceived the idea. “Let’s summon that foolish son-in-law and have some fun with him.” He dispatched a messenger to arrange a meeting on [date] at Seidōji Temple in Tomida. At that time, Nobunaga was nineteen. It was precisely the sort of thing an old rogue who’d casually trick his son-in-law and twist the life out of him would do—but Nobunaga didn’t hesitate at all. Nobunaga immediately gave his consent.

Dōsan’s original idea had been to judge for himself whether [Nobunaga] was a fool or not by seeing him in person, but since everyone kept persistently branding the man an utter big fool, he too naturally grew more inclined to mock this foolish son-in-law. Dōsan arrived first at Seidōji Temple in Tomida and deliberately lined up seven or eight hundred elderly samurai of imposing dignity along the temple’s veranda—all clad in stiffly starched kamishimo and hakama, arranged in a grand, ceremonious display. The rude, foolish brat passed before this display. The idea was this: with nothing but imposing high priests—their eyes bulging, arrayed in a formidable line while maintaining an air of ceremonial dignity—even that foolish son-in-law would surely gape in astonishment.

Having done this, Dōsan hid in a small house on the outskirts of town, peered out from there, and waited for Nobunaga to pass by. Nobunaga’s entourage arrived. Following Sakibure came seven to eight hundred retainers, along with five hundred crimson spears of three-and-a-half ken (~6.3 meters), five hundred bows and matchlock guns—all splendidly appropriate in their quality.

However, the foolish son-in-law was too extreme. Just as the rumors had foretold, he looked exactly as he did when dangling from people’s shoulders and munching on melons while walking through the castle town. His hair was tied up in that signature patched fundoshi style. His hair was tightly bound with a mōegi cord twisted around in coils. Formal attire was out of the question. He wore a yukata loosely draped over his shoulders—and what’s more, stripped to the waist. His waist swords were bound with straw rope coiled tightly around them, his bare arms wrapped with rope in what seemed a crude attempt at armbands. Around his waist hung seven or eight fire striker pouches and gourds, making him look exactly like a monkey handler. With his horsemanship in mind, he wore half-length hakama made by patching together tiger and leopard pelts.

When this procession entered the temple designated for Nobunaga’s rest, Dōsan—having confirmed the fool’s true nature—returned to his own temple with an air of feigned innocence. However, Dōsan too had been forced to swallow a dose of his own medicine. It wasn’t just Dōsan. Nobunaga’s retainers had their livers nearly ruptured from shock. Upon entering the rest area, Nobunaga immediately drew screens around himself, retied his hair into an impeccable style, donned long hakama trousers—dyed at some unknown time that even his secretary Ōta Gyūichi hadn’t been aware of—fastened a dagger crafted in secret, and emerged in magnificent lordly attire. Not a single member of the entourage had ever even glimpsed such an appearance in their wildest dreams.

Nobunaga slid smoothly into the hall. As he ascended the veranda—"Now then, please come this way"—the guiding samurai official urged while indicating the inner chambers, but Nobunaga feigned ignorance, gliding past the grand monks with bulging eyes arrayed in ceremonial display before leaning against a veranda pillar with a vacant expression. As Nobunaga remained leaning against the pillar, Dōsan pushed aside the screen and emerged. Dōsan too pretended not to recognize him. When the samurai official approached Nobunaga and announced, "This is Saitō Yamashiro-no-kami," Nobunaga—still leaning against the pillar—

“So it is,” he said. Then they stepped inside, exchanged greetings with Dōsan, proceeded together to the reception room, shared cups of sake, ate hot water rice, concluded their entirely ordinary meeting, and parted with a promise to meet again. Dōsan saw him off for about twenty chō, but upon noticing that Nobunaga’s spears were longer than his own, he seemed to lose interest; after parting with Nobunaga, he didn’t utter a single word.

When they had walked in silence and arrived at a place called Akanahe, Inoko Hyōsuke turned to Dōsan and,

“What do you think? As expected, that guy’s a fool, don’t you think?”

When he said this, “So it seems.” “Much to my chagrin and regret, my own fool children are bound to end up holding the reins of Nobunaga’s horse before long.”

“So it seems,” Dōsan answered. His grim visage showed no sign of softening for the time being. He realized he had been utterly outmaneuvered by Nobunaga. He had meant to be the puppeteer, yet now tasted only bitter dregs. Dōsan had pierced through Nobunaga’s essence with clear-eyed perception, but Nobunaga’s retainers—lacking such clarity—remained blind to their lord’s true nature. When they first beheld Nobunaga’s lordly bearing, they wondered if his earlier madcap antics had been mere theatrics to deceive enemies—yet even then, they failed to comprehend their master in full.

Nobunaga never even considered such things as deceiving enemies. He mocked people. He did not regard people as human beings. The world's speculations—what society itself might be—were of no concern to him. It was simply that the patched fundoshi topknot proved convenient, and he wanted to eat melons while walking. Even as a splendid general in his prime, it was Nobunaga who—clad only in a loincloth under winter skies, dagger clenched between his teeth—would plunge bubbling into ponds to investigate rumors of giant serpents.

Because the very foundations of their reasoning differed, Nobunaga’s retainers could never properly comprehend him—this man of such crystalline rationality.

A monk named Tenzaku from Ten’ei-ji Temple near Kiyosu passed through Kai on his way down to the Kantō region. When he heard that a monk from Nobunaga’s territory had come, Takeda Shingen summoned Tenzaku to his residence. What Shingen wanted to know was what kind of man Nobunaga was. Shingen’s directive to Tenzaku was this: "Report exhaustively on every detail of Nobunaga’s daily life." So he answered matter-of-factly: every morning and evening he rode horses; he studied matchlock guns under Hashimoto Ippa, archery under Ichikawa Daisuke, and military strategy under Hirata Sanmi—these were his daily routine—and besides that, he frequently went hawking.

“Hmm.” “So he likes hawking. What else does Nobunaga enjoy?”

“Dances and ballads.” “Dances and ballads, huh? Does he even have Kōwakidayū coming to teach him?” “No, his teacher is a Kiyosu townsman named Tomoyasu. He only performs the Dance of Atsumori—nothing else. ‘Human life lasts fifty years—compared to the realm of mutability, it is like a fleeting dream. Once born, there should be none who escape destruction.’ He seems to enjoy singing and dancing this very passage himself. Apart from that, it’s said he usually sings one particular ballad.”

“Hmm.” “He favors unconventional tastes.” Shingen laughed as he said this, yet remained utterly serious. “What manner of ballad is this?” “Death comes without fail—what use the herb of secrecy? The tale’s end stands fixed—such are its words.” “Improvise a melody and perform it for me.” “I’ve never before set tune to ballad and sung.” “Being but a monk, I’m wholly unversed in such refinements.”

“No, no. Never mind. As you heard firsthand—just try to mimic it.”

Monk Tenzaku, having no choice, imitated and sang an absurd little ballad, but Shingen listened in fixed silence. Then, he inquired about Nobunaga’s hawking—asking in precise detail: how many people participated, what locations were used, and what methods were employed.

There, Tenzaku answered. For Nobunaga’s hawking expeditions, first there were twenty bird scouts. These men would venture two or three ri ahead, and whenever they found a hawk in that village or a crane in this hamlet, they would leave one guard per bird behind while one would dash back to report. Then Nobunaga, accompanied by three archers, three spearmen, and a mounted man named Yamaguchi Tarōbee, rushed to the scene.

As the mounted Tarōbee, disguised with straw, stealthily circled closer to the birds, Nobunaga—hiding the hawk on his fist in the horse’s shadow—drew near, then swiftly dashed out to release the hawk. Then there was a role called *Mukaimachi*; these individuals would pretend to be farmers, act as if tilling fields while waiting, and when the hawk grappled with the bird, they would restrain it. “Lord Nobunaga is quite skilled, so he often captures birds himself.”

Takeda Shingen nodded deeply, “I understand.” “It stands to reason that man’s a master of warfare.” He appeared thoroughly convinced by these explanations. When Tenzaku mentioned Itoma, Shingen cheerfully advised him, “You should be sure to stop by on your return journey,” with kind consideration.

Of course, to Shingen too, Nobunaga remained a deeply perplexing warlord. From Tenzaku’s account—had he truly grasped an accurate portrait of Nobunaga? Tenzaku’s narrative had indeed touched upon the essential facets of Nobunaga’s character. Nobunaga’s singular hunting methods, his cherished recitations, one of the keys to unraveling him—these elements were undeniably present there. Yet though Shingen had pinpointed and meticulously extracted these details—though he might have grasped Nobunaga’s persona through the historically complete lens through which we now assess him—there remained a blind spot where Shingen failed to comprehend him rightly. That curiosity—diving alone into a giant serpent’s den wearing nothing but a loincloth—executed with such death-defying audacity would make even Shingen click his tongue in awe, never stooping to scorn it. Yet for Shingen, this remained ultimately mere curiosity. That Nobunaga embodied the rarest and loftiest scientific spirit the world had known—this truth eluded Shingen’s understanding. He wouldn’t have minded dying serpent-devoured. For a samurai—one whose life belonged on battlefields—to perish by snakebite! But to the absolute being, what difference lay between death in combat and death by serpent’s fang? It wasn’t that his empirical drive—this urge to witness serpents—held nobility or elevation. What was realm unification? What constituted ambition? What defined an empirical spirit? Peel back one layer, and humans are merely death’s inevitability. Was that not all?

The final philosophy of renunciants was embodied in Nobunaga’s very being. However, he did not renounce the world. He simply devoted his fleeting existence to war and his transient life to unifying the realm. If one peeled back a layer, there remained only the inevitability of death—that constituted his entirety, while things like ruling the realm meant nothing at all. He could have died at any moment yet might have lived indefinitely. And Nobunaga—who could have perished whenever—understood better than any what life truly was. To live meant total play. Every painstaking effort, every deliberation, every shred of soul—a game wagered with life itself. All time amounted to nothing more.

Nobunaga was a demon. For he was a man who perfectly embodied that final philosophy.

However, this demon had almost no lasciviousness about him. He neither hungered for rare delicacies and fine dishes nor coveted golden palaces and jeweled towers. It wasn’t morality that made him so. He simply felt no need for such things.

Old Viper was appallingly atrocious and lecherous. He administered the realm's governance while summoning retainers to his bedside and amusing himself with several beautiful women. This too was not due to morality. It was due to necessity. To a demon, that was all. Nobunaga's solemnity and Old Viper's lechery were ultimately no different.

Nobunaga had Katsuyori, Takeda Shingen’s heir, take his adopted daughter in marriage and frequently sought to foster goodwill. He had no desire to clash with Shingen the Monk, a master of warfare. There was no need to actively court disadvantage. For Nobunaga, fostering goodwill was child’s play. Then Nobunaga received an imperial decree; the following year he accepted an ambiguous overture from Old Viper that might have been surrender or friendship; and then he took on Yoshiaki’s request.

Nobunaga promptly welcomed Yoshiaki, met him at Nishishō and Risshōji, immediately prepared military forces to retake Kyoto, swiftly advanced, and in no time leapt into Kyoto. Because the work proceeded far too quickly, even Old Viper was flustered. Despite having colluded extensively and long demonstrated friendship, Nobunaga had suddenly pressed in upon him without so much as a greeting—like a bird taking flight from one’s feet—so Old Viper, flustered and steaming from the head, tried to fend him off while grumbling, but this old serpent was never strong in warfare to begin with. Somehow using tricks and smooth talk, he seized the realm—but when it came to actual warfare, he rarely achieved victory. In a reckless frenzy, he launched a night attack on the Great Buddha Hall and set it ablaze, yet even while creating this shameful spectacle, the Old Viper ultimately lost and fled. He would always lose, then smooth things over with empty words and brush it all under the rug.

As usual, Old Viper’s skill in retreat was unmatched. When it came to retreating, there was not a hint of peril. He gathered his troops, swiftly escaped to Yamato, and submissively surrendered. Having entered the capital under Nobunaga’s escort and assumed the position of shogun, Yoshiaki left all matters to Nobunaga’s discretion and put on a thorough show of treating his benefactor’s favor as virtuous—but when it came to Old Viper’s execution, he obstinately insisted. However, Nobunaga would not take it up.

Not only was Old Viper’s life spared, but he was also permitted to retain Shigi’s main castle as it was, and the entire province of Yamato was entrusted to his governance. It was a friendship between fellow demons. Old Viper promptly came to pay his respects and, with utmost fervor, expounded his erudition while offering all manner of politically oriented advice. Yet it must be said that this bizarre friendship was remarkably pure. It was a mystery beyond mortal comprehension. Now, how did this friendship grow, and how would it come to be destroyed?

(Unfinished)