“Fire! Loose your arrows!"
“Strike into them!"
Observing the confusion of the enemy, the mounted men and spear corps suddenly charged.
“Don't let them get close to His Lordship!"
The shouts surrounding Hidetsugu were now only wild voices calling to protect his life.
Here, there, from among the trees and shrubs, from everywhere along the road, came swarms of enemy soldiers. The only force that was unable to open up an escape route was one made up of Hidetsugu and his retainers.
Hidetsugu had been slightly wounded in two or three places and labored furiously with his spear.
"Are you still here, my lord?"
"Hurry! Retreat! Move back!"
When his retainers saw him, they spoke almost as if they were scolding him. Every one of them died fighting. Kinoshita Kageyu saw that Hidetsugu had lost sight of his horse and was now on foot.
"Here! Take this one! Use the whip and get out of this place without looking back!"
Giving Hidetsugu his own horse, Kageyu planted his banner in the ground and cut his way through as many of the enemy soldiers as he could before he was finally killed as well. Hidetsugu put his hand on the horse, but before he could mount it, the animal was hit by a bullet.
"Lend me your horse!"
Fleeing desperately through the midst of the fighting, Hidetsugu had spied a mounted warrior hurrying by close to him and had yelled out. Abruptly pulling the reins and turning around, the man looked down at Hidetsugu.
"What is it, my young lord?"
"Give me your horse."
"That's like asking for someone's umbrella on a rainy day, isn't it? No, I won't lend it to you, even if it is my lord's command."
"Why not?"
"Because you're retreating and I'm one of the soldiers still charging ahead."
Flatly refusing, the man dashed off. From his back, a single strand of bamboo grass whistled in the wind.
"Damn!" Hidetsugu swore as he watched him go. It seemed that in that man's eyes, he had been less than a leaf of bamboo grass along the roadside. Looking behind him, Hidetsugu could see a cloud of dust being raised by the enemy. But a group of routed soldiers from different corps carrying spears, firearms, and long swords saw Hidetsugu and shouted for him to stop.
"My lord! If you run that way, you'll meet up with yet another enemy unit!"
As they approached, they surrounded him and then pulled him away to escape toward the Kanare River.
On their way they picked up a runaway horse, and Hidetsugu was finally mounted. But when they took a short rest at a place called Hosogane, they were again attacked by the enemy and, suffering another defeat, fled in the direction of Inaba.
Thus the Fourth Corps was routed. The Third Corps, which was led by Hori Kyutaro, consisted of about three thousand men. A distance of one to one and a half leagues was maintained between the corps, and messengers had constantly kept communications open between the forces, so that if the First Corps took a rest, the advance of the other corps was naturally halted as well, one after another.
Kyutaro suddenly cupped his ear and listened. "That was gunfire, wasn't it?"
Just at that moment, one of Hidetsugu's retainers whipped his horse into the resting camp and tumbled forward.
"Our men have been completely routed. The main army has been annihilated by the Tokugawa forces, and even Lord Hidetsugu's safety is uncertain. Turn back immediately!" he wailed.
Kyutaro was taken by surprise, but his composed brow checked the impulse of the moment.
“Are you in the messenger corps?"
“Why are you asking me that now?"
“If you're not one of the messengers, why have you come running up so upset? Did you run away?"
“No! I came here to inform you of the situation. I don't know if it was cowardly or not, but this is an emergency, and I came as fast as I could to inform Lord Nagayoshi and Lord Shonyu."
With that parting remark, the man whipped his horse and disappeared, continuing on to the next corps up ahead.
“Since a retainer came instead of a messenger, we can only surmise that our men at the rear have suffered a total defeat."
Suppressing the restlessness in his heart, Kyutaro remained seated on his camp stool for another moment.
“Everyone come here!" Already aware of the situation, his retainers and officers gathered-around, their faces pale. "The Tokugawa forces are about to attack us. Don't waste bullets. Wait until the enemy has come to within sixty feet before firing." After instructing them in the disposition of troops, he made one concluding remark. "I will give one hundred bushels for every dead enemy warrior."
What he anticipated was not off the mark. The Tokugawa force that had struck Hidetsugu’s corps with an obliterating blow was now descending on his own corps fiercely. The Tokugawa commanders were themselves frightened by the unrelenting force of their troops' spirit.
Froth covered the horses' mouths, the men's faces were tense with determination, and the armor that was coming in waves was covered with blood and dust. As the Tokugawa forces pressed closer and closer into firing range, Kyutaro watched carefully and then gave the command.
“Fire!"
At that instant, gunfire created a dreadful roar and a wall of smoke. With matchlock firearms, the time it took to load and fire was a period of perhaps five or six breaths, even for well-practiced men. Because of that, a system of alternating volleys was used. Thus, after each fusillade, another fell upon the enemy in rapid succession. The assaulting army fell helter-skelter before this defense. Their vast numbers could be seen on the ground between the clouds of gunpowder smoke.
“They're prepared!"
“Stop! Fall back!"
The Tokugawa commanders yelled orders to fall back, but their charging soldiers not be so easily stopped.
Kyutaro saw that the moment had come and shouted to the troops to counterattack. The victory was now clear, both psychologically and physically, without anyone having to wait for the actual result. The corps of warriors that had been so brilliantly victorious now received themselves what they had given to Hidetsugu only moments before.
Throughout Hideyoshi's army Hori Kyutaro's spear corps was famed for its great efficiency. The corpses of men who had been pierced by the points of those spears now deterred the horses carrying the commanders who were trying to flee. The Tokugawa generals escaped, swinging their long swords behind them as they fled the pursuing points of the spears.
Master Stroke
The plain of Nagakute was covered with a thin veil of gunpowder smoke and filled with the stink of corpses and blood. With the morning sun, it smoldered with all the colors of the rainbow.
Peace had already returned there, but the soldiers who had brought carnage with them were now heading for Yazako, like the clouds of an evening shower. Flight simply provoked more flight, endless flight and destruction.
Kyutaro did not lose his head as he pursued the Tokugawa troops. "The rear guard should not follow us. Take the roundabout way toward Inokoishi and pursue them along two roads."
One unit broke away and followed a different road, while Kyutaro led six hundred men against the retreating enemy. The dead and wounded abandoned along the road by the Tokugawa could not have numbered less than five hundred men, but Kyutaro's soldiers also grew fewer and fewer as they continued.
Although the main corps had advanced far ahead, two men still breathing among the corpses now crossed spears, then abandoned them as too cumbersome and drew their swords. Grappling, then breaking loose, they fell down, stood up again, and fought interminably in their own private battle. Finally one took the other's head. Yelling almost insanely, the victor chased after his companions in the main corps, disappeared once again into the miasma of smoke and blood, and, struck by a stray bullet, fell dead before he catch up with his comrades.