Most importantly for Yasuke and the Jesuits, Nobunaga was a notable connoisseur of novelty. He carried a deep love for rarities from far-off places, promoting guns in his teens and, later, European-style body armor. He often wore a lion skin, sported Chinese or Portuguese clothing, flew hunting birds from as far away as Korea, and used exotic items such as globes, wineglasses and all manner of rare gadgets. He loved talking to foreigners whenever possible. Father Organtino was prime among his foreign conversants, but Nobunaga also employed and enjoyed the company of Chinese engineers and artisans, and—now for the first time—an African warrior.
He’d been born the son of a minor clan lord in Nagoya in 1534 and was, by all accounts, a spoiled, impetuous and eccentric youth. He preferred fooling around with his friends to studying for the future leadership of his people, and numerous stories are told of his scandalous actions, including disrespectful behavior at his father’s funeral in 1551. Instead of reverence for the deceased patriarch, he threw incense at the altar and dressed as if for a celebration. His actions won him the name “Great Fool,” and the clan despaired for its future.
Until one day in February 1553. As the snow still lay thick on the ground, one of Nobunaga’s senior retainers, Hirate Masahide—an Oda samurai who’d been Nobunaga’s tutor from birth, stood with him at his first battle and helped arrange his marriage—performed the rite of seppuku (ritualistic suicide via cutting open his own belly) to show his sincerity and dedication to his lord, and thereby draw attention to the perilous situation the clan seemed to face if Nobunaga continued in his erratic ways. And win his pupil’s attention it did. Nobunaga was shocked, and grieved publicly, even building a temple to honor his dead mentor. Through this loyal samurai’s death, Nobunaga seemed to grow up and focus. He had started upon the road to a greater destiny.
It is likely, also, that those earlier years of tomfoolery were simply a clever performance to convince his rivals for the leadership of the clan that he was little threat. Rivals, who soon became victims of Nobunaga’s novel methods, and brilliant acting. One by one, Nobunaga dealt with his competing family members, eliminating them until he was the unquestioned clan leader. Then he turned his attention to the rest of Japan.
The Battle of Nagashino at which Nobunaga is supposed to have refined the technique of volley fire.
While he was still in his teens and only a few years after the first European firearms had been introduced to Japan, Nobunaga already had a permanent corps of five hundred disciplined gunners. (By comparison, Elizabeth I had no standing army at all, and a corps of less than four hundred Portuguese musketeers in Ethiopia had recently changed the course of a decades-old war in 1542.) His fragile military position was more dramatically improved when, in his late twenties, Nobunaga inflicted a decisive defeat on the neighboring and hugely formidable Imagawa clan at the Battle of Okehazama in 1560. The plan that defeated a force of ten times his army’s size was audacious and decisive. He ordered a lightning cavalry strike during a rainstorm straight into the enemy camp and Lord Imagawa was decapitated. With the enemy army’s literal head gone, the Imagawa forces collapsed and retreated within days. This victory eliminated an enemy who’d threatened to overwhelm the Oda clan for years and left Nobunaga free to go on the offensive rather than merely look to the defense of his small domain.
Nobunaga continued to fight and expand the Oda territories in central Japan over the next two decades. His notable acts of violence and politics included the killing, or enforced seppuku, of various family members (he even turned his brother-in-law’s skull into a sake cup) and thousands of militant Buddhist monks, as well as legions of enemy combatants. He acquired a reputation for ruthlessness and cunning in addition to martial prowess, generosity and an eagerness to promote retainers on merit rather than only birth.
The “Great Fool” epithet ceased to be used and his personal seal came to include the ambitious words: Tenka Fubu. Loosely translated to mean “The Realm United by Might of Arms.”
In 1568, he made his mark on the national stage by intervening in the shogunal succession, enforcing his own candidate over a rival. This meant he could more easily manipulate the supposed military ruler in Kyoto. He also piously, or tactically, repaired a national shrine at Ise, socialised with the imperial family and bestowed funds upon that impoverished institution. These actions brought him honor in the eyes of all and grudging respect from his foes. The men and women under his rule adored him.
Throughout the 1570s, Nobunaga’s military campaigns enabled him to consolidate his power and extend it to the east and north of Kyoto. He was able to do all this not only through deft use of traditional tactics and the skilfull management of his retainers, but also through his invention and decisive deployment of the massed musket volley—three ranks of gunners taking turns to fire and reload, thereby assaulting an enemy with a continuous hail of bullets—which was refined at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575 where he all but annihilated twelve thousand of fifteen thousand samurai of the formidable Takeda clan under Lord Takeda Katsuyori.
Nobunaga’s father had been the lord of only one small domain; by 1581, when he met Yasuke, Nobunaga had taken full control of eighteen key provinces of the sixty-six, including the eight most important ones around Kyoto.
His generals were pushing ever onward in their efforts to reunify the realm, Tenka, under one ruler. Even now, he was putting exceeding pressure on the only other significant remaining clans and warrior monk bastions and, within a few years, his designs would have completed the reimposition of central Kyoto power over all of Japan. Tenka Fubu.
“Everything is under my control,” Nobunaga once assured the Jesuits. “Just do what I tell you and you can go where you like.”
And, for this short time, almost everything in Japan truly was under his control.
Chapter Ten
Feats of Strength
It was not Yasuke’s first time before an important man.
For most of his life, he’d worked and lived side by side with hugely powerful men: mercenary generals in India, captain majors on Portuguese ships, Valignano and now Nobunaga.
In Japan alone, he’d now spent two years with Valignano in or around the courts of minor lords and was used to the etiquette. Starting in China, Valignano had ensured that both he and his bodyguard were as prepared as possible for the protocols of Japanese courtly behavior. It wouldn’t further Jesuit interests in the slightest if they offended their hosts. Yasuke knew the appropriate depth of bow for each status and occasion, the convention of giving presents through a third party, and how to venerate gifts received by touching them to your head. A Japanese observer, Ōta Gyūichi, specifically praised his good demeanor. Here, certainly, was an occasion when the deepest and most respectful of bows was needed.
Yasuke kept the position of obeisance he’d adopted the moment he’d entered the room, waiting under the courtiers’ curious stares and hushed chatter until someone indicated in a loud voice full of laughter to Organtino they could both approach. Even with his face to the floor, Yasuke knew it had been Nobunaga. No one else in the room would have dared spoken.
The African rose slowly to his full height and walked upright and confident, despite his nerves, past the kneeling courtiers to the far end of the room. Father Organtino followed him and they approached together within a few feet of the great hegemon, Oda Nobunaga.
Directly before the mighty Japanese lord, Yasuke knelt again, bowing deeply. All chattering in the room had stopped, the courtiers seemingly stunned by his presence, and everything now took place in such complete silence that it seemed as if they were all moving in a dream.
Upon Nobunaga’s gesture to approach further, Yasuke crawled forward awkwardly on his knees. Given his size, he found the act difficult to do in a dignified way. Keeping his head as low to the mats as possible, he moved to within a few feet of the raised dais and lowered his head again all the way flat to the flo
or. Nobunaga addressed Organtino again, welcoming him, and asking the priest to tell this new man that he was gratified by his presence too.
Yasuke understood the words well enough without translation as Father Organtino raised his head and returned to a bolt-upright kneeling position. Yasuke mirrored the position, but keeping his eyes to the floor as Organtino explained to Nobunaga that Yasuke was able to communicate in Japanese if Nobunaga desired to speak to him directly.
Nobunaga tested the claim at once. He welcomed Yasuke and asked his name and if he was comfortable.
Yasuke, after two years of hearing courtly Japanese, replied with customary deference, and in an acceptable manner.
The Japanese lord nodded, pleased, then openly chuckled. A big grin still on his face, he rose incredulously to inspect this unique, curious visitor. He asked Yasuke to stand again. He’d heard about the cause of the great riot, was interested, but had serious doubts as to whether the man was actually black-skinned. Was this not in fact some public relations trick of the curious foreigners, concocted to grab attention from the populace and please him? Could he catch these Jesuits out in the joke? He would get to the bottom of it, and it was, in any case, an ideal excuse for a fun break from the business of forging a nation. Now, the added notion that the strange man from alien lands half a world away could also converse in “civilized language” was an even greater surprise and delight.
Yasuke did as he was bid while focused on remaining respectful. Too much rested on the next five minutes.
Nobunaga viewed the African warrior close up.
Touched his skin. Rubbed it.
Black was the color—if one believed in such things, which Nobunaga did not—of gods and demons. Not men. Nobunaga had seen such a “god,” Daikokuten, before in the Kiyomizu Temple, a short walk away. And, the protective guardian demons at the gates of most temples were often dark skinned: black or deep burgundy.
Nobunaga called for water and a brush. He commanded his guest, good-naturedly, with a quick smile to his vassals, to strip to the waist.
Yasuke bowed and promptly removed his shirt and doublet. The African warrior awaited the scrubbing and held a smile, little worried his skin would change color.
The servants quickly fetched a bucket and brush, and offered them up to Nobunaga in two hands from a kneeling position, their palms facing heaven and their heads remaining bowed to the floor. The Japanese lord snatched up the brush and scrubbed the giant man’s skin himself. Scouring at Yasuke’s exposed arm. Then his back. Along his neck. Throughout, Yasuke stood perfectly still and firm, flexed, muscles tensed and bulging. Knowing he was on display.
Of course, to Nobunaga’s great interest, no matter where he turned, Yasuke’s skin color remained stubbornly the same. He eyed his guest curiously, an incredulous grin returning to his face. With a big sigh of satisfaction, Nobunaga tossed the brush back into its bucket, still being held aloft by the prostrating servant. Nobunaga announced to the whole room he was at last convinced of the verity of this dark-skinned wonder. He nodded to the foreign warrior with a smile.
Yasuke bowed deeply.
Nobunaga called out for food and drink. There would be an immediate party to celebrate the coming of this miracle man to his court. Yasuke had become the new guest of honor.
The other men in the room burst out with cheers and genuine excitement. Only one of them—Takayama, who’d hosted Valignano and Yasuke the previous week—had ever seen Yasuke, or any black-skinned person before, and it was as much a surprise and novelty to them as it was to Nobunaga. Takayama was also visibly pleased. His friends, the Jesuits, had clearly already found favor with his lord, Nobunaga. It was not always easy for Lord Takayama to reconcile his loyalties to Nobunaga and to his faith, but Yasuke had just helped to bridge the two very nicely.
Nobunaga, oblivious to Takayama’s reflections on faith and reconciliation, just wanted to have a genuine celebration and welcome Yasuke to his realm. He sent a man to fetch three of his sons who were staying in the nearby Myōkaku-ji temple. This, for them, would be an educational opportunity; a chance to see a new and fascinating kind of person never before encountered in the capital.
While they awaited the arrival of Nobunaga’s sons and the serving of the feast, Nobunaga made small talk. The other courtiers conversed interestedly between themselves as Takayama quietly tried to address the various questions put to him by his curious colleagues.
Presently, Nobunaga’s three sons arrived. Nobutada, the eldest at twenty-four; Nobukatsu, twenty-three, and Nobutaka also twenty-three. They were invited together up to the dais. Yasuke remembered the story he’d heard of Nobukatsu’s humiliating thrashing by the ninja, but he knew little about the other two. As with almost everyone else in the room, they’d traveled into Kyoto from their own fiefs elsewhere and were in town for the umazoroe horse spectacle, in which they would play central roles.
As Yasuke was shown to them, servants entered with low tables and placed one in front of each man present, forming two neat rows leading up to Nobunaga’s dais. Some women entered to pour drinks and help out with the serving, kneeling in the customary Japanese fashion.
Nobunaga remained central on the platform, but Yasuke was led to a spot, and table, directly at the Japanese lord’s right and his sons knelt at his left in order, the heir, Nobutada, closest to his father. Organtino, his interpreting services no longer needed, relaxed and conversed with the samurai lords of the court. The servants quietly ran in and out of the room, bowing low as they did.
As everyone ate and drank, Nobunaga began a conversation with Yasuke—or, perhaps, an interrogation—as the foreign warrior giant had unmistakably become the evening’s main entertainment. Before the whole room, Yasuke was quizzed by the warlord on a range of matters. From his size to his birth country. How long had it taken to travel to Nobunaga’s court? How was the hunting, were the animals bigger than in Japan? Did his people eat rice? Who had he fought for and where? What kind of weapons did they use? Did he yet know tea? What were the people like in India (Nobunaga first assumed he was from India)? Did they eat animal meat, as he heard some barbarians did? Did he know the teachings of the great sage Confucius? Did the pink Jesuit barbarians treat him well?
Yasuke answered all Nobunaga’s questions with gusto. He replied he was from a land even farther than India. That many of the men and women of his people were as tall. Not all were as strong as he though, and of course, to the laughs of his audience, he claimed none as handsome either. And, no, his skin color was a permanent fixture, it would neither wash off nor turn pale if he stayed out of the sun. He had no idea why, but it was so. He told of his marshy homeland, the majestic glory of the Nile River, the hippos, the lions; of fish that were as big as a man, and of their succulent meat. He told of the cows his people revered, regaling Nobunaga and his court with tales of their beauty and grinning widely at the mention of their life-giving milk, knowing the idea of drinking another creature’s milk would make his audience squirm with disgust. To get an easy laugh—the idea, he’d learned while traveling the world, would be so alien to his audience—he told how, as a boy, he’d even stimulated the cows’ sexual organs with his own lips to increase milk flow. And of the warm showers in fresh running cow piss to dye his hair a deep golden color. He then told the room bitterly of the coming-of-age rituals and the facial scarification which signified a grown warrior that he’d missed because the slavers had taken him. He told of the mighty fighters his people became as men. Of his travels on ships, the terrors of storms and the boredom of the endless voyages. Of friends lost on the way. He enthralled his audience with tales of the palaces, cities and weapons of India, the spectacular beauty of her palaces, mosques and temples, the glory of Arabic art, and of the tall ships, stone churches and deadly cannon of the Portuguese.
Nobunaga called for his globe to the great satisfaction of all present. This was one of his newest and most treasured possessions and he
brought it out whenever he found an opportunity. Yasuke had never seen such a contraption, but he’d heard of them; the earth was round and you could see it rotating on these “globes.” Not only that, you could see all the lands and seas pictured too. Amazing. Most of the room had never seen one before either.
Nobunaga asked Yasuke to point to the place where he was born (a place the Japanese knew vaguely of as Rimia, derived from the name of the country we now know as Libya—it was sometimes mixed up with the name Korobou, a Japanese rendering of Colombo in modern-day Sri Lanka, and the blanket term for dark-skinned people), on the globe. This was difficult as Yasuke still had no real concept of where parts of the world were. Maps were the domain of navigators and nobles, and ordinary people rarely saw these precious and ever-changing records of geographical knowledge. The globe, a map stretched round a ball to represent the believed shape of God’s creations was still a stupefying concept to most in 1581. These were the latest thing, cost a king’s ransom and most people had never even heard of their existence, let alone seen one.
Yasuke: In Search of the African Samurai Page 13
