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173. A yin-yang (onmyd) deity, moving in a regular sixty-day cycle, descended to earth after sixteen days in the heavens and circled the compass, spending five or six days in each of the eight compass directions, thus blocking each in turn. Travel in a blocked direction was shunned.
174. A great temple in the Saga area, west of the capital.
175. The custom was to reward a messenger by draping a gift of clothing over his shoulder.
176. The Shingon (esoteric) mysteries of body (mudra), speech (mantra), and mind (meditation).
177. A unit of distance, of uncertain length, often mentioned in the Buddhist scriptures.
178. Because the lunar calendar slowly fell behind the movement of the sun, it was necessary in some years to insert an intercalary (supplementary) month that repeated the number of the month preceding it.
179. It seems to have been customary in Japanese antiquity to bury a person alive as a “human pillar” (hitobashira) in order to ensure success when constructing a bridge or harbor.
180. Rygen (912–85), the eighteenth abbot of Mount Hiei and a major figure in its history.
181. The poem reads the name Kiyomori to mean “pure wealth.”
182. A rei is a passage of Chinese verse selected to be sung aloud, to the accompaniment of musical instruments.
183. This rite, the Daininne, was a last resort that could be performed only once in an imperial reign.
BOOK SEVEN
1. Shimizu no Kanja
(recitative)
Early in the third month of Juei 2, [1183]
discord broke out between Yoritomo and Yoshinaka.
Yoritomo sent a hundred thousand horse into Shinano to destroy Yoshinaka,
then ensconced in the fortress of Yoda.
Yoshinaka left there when the news reached him
and established his camp at Mount Kumasaka, on the Shinano-Echigo border.
Yoritomo reached Zenkji, also in Shinano.
(speech)
Yoshinaka had his foster brother, Imai no Shir Kanehira, take him this message there: “You say that you want to get rid of me—please explain why. You now control the eight provinces of the eastern lowlands, and I understand that you mean to follow the Tkaid to drive out and destroy the Heike. In the same way, I now control the provinces of the eastern mountains and of the north, and I am eager to overthrow the Heike as soon as possible. Why should you and I be at odds and invite Heike ridicule? It is true that our uncle, Yukiie, came to me because, he said, he had a complaint against you. I took him in because I did not feel that I, too, could very well ignore him. This most certainly does not mean that I bear you any ill will.”
Yoritomo replied, “So you say, but there are those who insist that you are planning to rise up against me and kill me. I am not prepared to believe you.” Word had it that he would be sending a force under Doi and Kajiwara to attack.
To prove that he wished Yoritomo no harm,
Yoshinaka sent him Shimizu no Kanja, his eldest son, then in his eleventh year,
escorted by such famed warriors as Unno, Mochizuki, Suwa, and Fujisawa.
(song)
“So he really has no such feelings,”
Yoritomo said to himself.
“Well, I have no grown son of my own,
so by all means I will make him mine.”
He took Shimizu no Kanja
with him back to Kamakura.
2. The Northern Campaign
Soon rumors spread that Yoshinaka,
who now dominated the eastern mountains and the north,
was already moving on the capital with an army of fifty thousand.
The Heike had been saying since the year before,
“Next year, when the spring grass comes in for the horses, there will be war.”
Now hordes of warriors rushed to join them from the provinces to the south
on both sides of the mainland and from Shikoku, Kyushu, and elsewhere.
On the Tkaid side, no one came from anywhere east of Ttmi,
but the men from the west all arrived.
No one came either from Wakasa province northward.
The punitive force set out for the provinces of the north
to dispose first of all of Yoshinaka and then Yoritomo.
The force followed these senior commanders:
the Palace Guards captain Koremori,
the Echizen governor Michimori,
the Tajima governor Tsunemasa,
the Satsuma governor Tadanori,
the Mikawa governor Tomonori,
the Awaji governor Kiyofusa,
and such field commanders as these:
Moritoshi, Tadatsuna,
Kagetaka, Nagatsuna,
Hidekuni, Arikuni,
Jirbye Moritsugi,
Gorbye Tadamitsu,
Akushichibye Kagekiyo.
Those six senior commanders
and these able field commanders—
in all over three hundred and forty—
led the force of one hundred thousand,
which, as the hour of the dragon began [ca. 8 A.M.]
on the seventeenth day in the fourth month
of Juei 2, set out for the north.
Authorized to live off the land,
once past the saka barrier
they took to appropriating at will
all goods saved to pay government taxes
by prosperous houses along the way.
From Shiga to Karasaki,
from Mitsukawajiri to Mano,
Takashima, Shiotsu, Kaizu,
they confiscated whatever they pleased.
For the locals this was too much.
They fled into the wilds.
3. The Pilgrimage to Chikubushima
The two commanders in chief, Koremori and Michimori, moved on ahead,
but their deputies, Tsunemasa, Tadanori, Tomonori, and Kiyofusa,
paused at Shiotsu and Kaizu in the province of mi.
Among them Tsunemasa was especially skilled at poetry and music,
and even amid these troubles he sought peace and quiet beside the lake.184
Gazing out over the water, he saw in the distance an island.
He summoned his attendant, Tbye Arinori, and asked its name.
“That is the famous Chikubushima,” Arinori replied.
“Oh, yes, I have heard of it,” Tsunemasa said. “I should like to go there.”
Arinori, An’emon Morinori, and several others boarded a boat with him,
and off they sailed to Chikubushima.
It was the fourth month, the eighteenth day,
and the boughs were clothed in green
that harked back to the glories of spring,
while warblers in secluded dells
trilled their already halting song185
and cuckoos, soon to voice their first call,
sped past, heralding summer to come.
Blossoming wisteria billows
so prettily festooned the pines
that he hurriedly disembarked
to drink in indescribable beauty.
The mighty First Emperor of Qin
and Wudi, the emperor of Han,
sent, the first, comely youths and fair maidens,
the second, a far-seeing diviner,
to find the elixir of the immortals
on the ocean isle of Penglai,
warning that should they not succeed,
they were not to come back again,
so that in the end they grew old,
after wasted lives aboard their ships
searching in vain the boundless sea.
Surely, though—Tsunemasa felt—
the Penglai they sought must look like this.
It says somewhere in the scriptures,
“There is in Jambudvīpa a lake,
with, in its midst, a crystal mountain
that rises from the depths of the world,
and on it dwell heavenly maidens.”
The passage describes this very island.
Tsunemasa knelt before the god
Daibenkudoku-ten. He said,
“Long ago you were Shakyamuni,
the very embodiment of the Law.
Both deities, Benzai and Myon,186
separate in name, share nevertheless
in unison your higher nature
and offer salvation to all beings.
One pilgrimage to your shrine assures, they say, fulfillment of every prayer.
In you I therefore place my trust.” So he spoke.
For a while then he offered the scriptures,
but in time the sun went down, and the moon of the eighteenth night rose,
illumining the lake’s expanse and setting the sanctuary gleaming.
So lovely a scene emboldened the resident priests to say,
“Word of your skill has reached us, sir,” and to place a biwa in his hands.
Tsunemasa proceeded to play,
and when he reached those secret pieces
“High Mystery” and “On the Rock,”
the sanctuary filled with light
and the divinity, deeply moved,
appeared on Tsunemasa’s sleeve
in the form of a white dragon.
Awed, overjoyed, Tsunemasa
in tears expressed his feelings thus:
Could the mighty god,
great in mercy, really mean
to answer my prayers?
So plainly do I behold,
revealed, the sacred presence.
“You will subdue the raging foe
before my eyes and sternly crush
his evil hordes with your assault:
Of that I have no doubt at all.”
Filled with joy, he boarded the boat
and sailed from Chikubushima.
4. The Battle at Hiuchi
Yoshinaka, then in Shinano, nonetheless built in Echizen the fort of Hiuchi.
Among the garrison were liturgical preceptor Saimei, abbot of Heisenji;
Inazu no Shinsuke; Saitda; Hayashi Mitsuakira; novice monk Togashi Bussei;
Tsuchida; Takebe; Miyazaki; Ishiguro; Nyūzen; Sami; and others,
to the number of six thousand mounted men.
The site, surrounded by soaring crags and towering peaks, defied all comers.
Before it and behind it rose mountains.
Past the fortress flowed two rivers,
the Nmi and the Shind. Where they met,
huge felled trees formed an abatis,
and a mighty weir, running east-west
below the mountains, made the fort
seem to face a lake. As the poet wrote,187
“Reflecting the mountains to the south,
the water spreads wide, deep, and blue,
its ripples red in the sinking sun.
Beneath the Lake of Bitterest Cold
lies a sandy floor, gold and silver;
off the shore of the Kunming Lake
ride the vessels of enlightened rule.”
This man-made lake at the fort of Hiuchi
exploited dikes and turbid water
to trick the gaze of any observer.
One could cross, it seemed, only by boat.
The Heike army therefore set up camp
below the mountains on the other side
and wasted there many motionless days.
One among the Hiuchi garrison, Saimei of Heisenji,
profoundly sympathized with the Heike.
Skirting the foot of the mountains, he wrote a message,
inserted it into the bulb of a whistling arrow,
and stealthily shot the arrow into their camp.
“The lake you see,” he wrote, “is new.
It is just a mountain torrent, dammed.
Send foot soldiers tonight to dismantle the weir. The water will soon drain away. Your horses will have good footing. Cross without delay. From the enemy rear, I will support you with my arrows. This message is from Saimei, abbot of Heisenji.”
Very pleased, the army commanders sent soldiers to do just that.
Being only a mountain stream, what had seemed a broad lake swiftly emptied.
The Heike army crossed straight over.
The garrison fought back awhile,
but the enemy were too many
and they themselves far too few.
Obviously they could not prevail.
Saimei had served the Heike well.
Inazu no Shinsuke, Saitda,
Hayashi Mitsuakira,
the novice Togashi Bussei—all fled,
still intent on fighting the Heike,
to the province of Kaga and to refuge
at Kawachi under Hakusan.
The Heike crossed right behind them
into Kaga and put to the torch
the forts of Hayashi and Togashi.
Their onslaught seemed irresistible.
From their lodgings nearby, the Heike sent the news by courier to the capital. Lord Munemori and the others who had remained behind went into transports of joy.
On the eighth of the fifth month, the Heike forces gathered at Shinohara in Kaga. One hundred thousand men split into main and flanking forces. The former, seventy thousand men under Koremori and Michimori, assisted by Moritoshi and others, headed for Mount Tonami on the Kaga-Etchū border. The latter, thirty thousand under Tadanori and Tomonori, supported by Musashi no Saburzaemon and others, started for Mount Shiho on the Etchū border with Noto.
Yoshinaka was in the Echigo provincial capital.
When he heard what had happened,
he quickly dispatched over fifty thousand horse in seven corps—
a tactic that he felt had already served him well in battle.
He first sent his uncle, Yukiie,
with ten thousand riders to Mount Shiho,
then Nishina, Takanashi, and Yamada no Jir
with a rear assault force of seven thousand
to North Kurozaka.
Higuchi Kanemitsu and Ochiai Kaneyuki
he ordered with seven thousand men
to South Kurozaka.
Ten thousand and more he stationed, concealed,
at the main access point to Mount Tonami,
at a spot below Kurozaka,
at Matsunaga no Yanagihara,
and at Guminoki-bayashi.
Imai Kanehira, with six thousand,
crossed the shallows at Washi-no-se
and camped at Hinomiya-bayashi;
while Yoshinaka himself, with ten thousand,
forded the river at Oyabe and camped
at Haniū, north of Tonami.
5. A Prayer to Hachiman
“The Heike being so many,” Yoshinaka declared,
“they are sure to cross Mount Tonami and pour onto the plain beyond,
there to challenge us head-on. But in a head-on confrontation,
numbers make the difference. We cannot afford to concede that advantage.
If instead we send standard-bearers ahead, bearing white banners,
they will assume with alarm that our vanguard is before them
and that we, too, must be many. ‘If we end up having to fight on the flat,’
they will say, ‘they know the terrain, and we do not.
They may surround us. We cannot let that happen.
This mountain is all cliffs and crags. They will never get around behind us.
We had better dismount awhile and rest the horses.’
That is what they will say, and that is what they will do.
And when they have done so, I will go through the motions of an engagement
to pass the time until sunset. Then I will drive them all down Kurikara Ravine.”
He first had thirty white banners planted on Kurozaka.
Sure enough, the sight moved the Heike to exclaim,
“Look out! Here comes the Genji vanguard!
There must be a great many of them! If w
e are obliged to fight on the flat,
they know the terrain, and we do not.
They may surround us. We cannot allow that to happen.
This mountain is all cliffs and crags. They will never get around behind us.
The place seems to offer plenty of forage and water.
Better now to dismount awhile and rest the horses.”
So right where they were on Mount Tonami, at a spot called Saru-no-baba,
they all slipped down from their mounts.
Yoshinaka, camped at Haniū,
surveyed the scene around him.
From the summer mountains’ green
peeped a shrine’s red, sacred fence
and trim sanctuary crossbeams,
with a torii before it.
He called for someone who knew the area.
“What is that shrine?” he asked. “What deity resides there?”
“That is Hachiman,” the answer came. “All this land belongs to Hachiman.”
Very pleased, Yoshinaka summoned his attendant secretary, Kakumei.
“It is great good fortune,” he said, “that before engaging the enemy
I find myself in the presence of a shrine to Hachiman.
I believe that victory will be mine.
Therefore, for the sake of generations to come and to pray for aid in the present,
I wish to compose a formal prayer. Do you think that would be a good idea?”
“It would indeed,” Kakumei replied. He dismounted and prepared to write.
Kakumei on this occasion
wore, over a dark blue hitatare,
a suit of armor laced in black leather,
with a black-lacquered sword at his side.
Twenty-four arrows, fletched with black hawk feathers, filled the quiver at his back,
and under his arm he clasped a rattan-wrapped, lacquered bow.
Removing his helmet, he hung it on a cord over his shoulders,
then drew from his quiver a small inkstone and folding paper.
He was a model of the man versed in both letters and war.
This Kakumei had been born into the house of a Confucian scholar. He served in the Kangaku-in188 as a chamberlain named Michihiro, then renounced the world, took the name Saijb Shingyū, and frequented the southern capital.
When Prince Mochihito sought refuge at Miidera and Miidera appealed to Mount Hiei and Nara, the Nara monks commissioned Kakumei to write their reply. “Kiyomori is the dregs of the Taira house, the rubbish and sweepings of those who bear arms,” he had written then.