Nobunaga quickly gave orders to his senior retainers. They called together the head of the servants and the commander of the foot soldiers and discussed the peacetime duties of retainers: the repair of armor, lectures, the practice of Zen meditation, and inspection tours around the province. Then, most important, training in firearm and spear techniques, engineering projects in the castle and for the servants, when they had time, the shoeing of horses. The reason? Not to give them leisure. To a military commander, his samurai retainers were as dear as his own children. The bond between lord and retainers, who had pledged themselves absolutely, was as strong as that between blood relatives.
On the day of battle, these were the people who would give up their lives before his very eyes. If he did not hold them dear, or if that affection and benevolence were not felt, there would be no brave soldiers dying for him. Therefore, during peacetime it was very easy for a lord to be too generous—against the day of battle.
Nobunaga had the daily routine strictly enforced, leaving his retainers no leisure time. At the same time, he made the serving women who looked after the housekeeping go through training and even practice being confined in a castle under siege, so that he established a daily regimen of no leisure from morning till night. This, of course, went for himself as well.
When Tokichiro was there, he would cheer up.
"Monkey, how have things been recently?"
"Good! I've seen the effect of your orders, but you have a way to go."
"It's still not enough?"
"There's still much more."
"Is something still lacking?"
"The way things are done in the castle has yet to be introduced among the towns-people."
"Hm. I see." Nobunaga listened to Tokichiro. His retainers always made bitter faes and looked askance at this. There were few examples of someone like Tokichiro, who, in such a short space of time, had risen from the servants' barracks to sitting in his lord’s presence, and even fewer cases of someone going before the lord and speaking his own recommendations. Naturally, they frowned as though this were the same as some outrageous act. Nevertheless, the yearly consumption of charcoal and firewood, which had been over a thousand bushels, was significantly reduced by midwinter.
Since the retainers had no spare time, they no longer idled around the hearth, wasting charcoal. Even when there was some leisure time, because the men were moving their bodies and continually exercising their muscles, fires naturally became unnecessary and fuel was only used in cooking. The fuel formerly used in one month was now enough last for three months.
Nevertheless, Tokichiro was not satisfied that he had carried out his duties to the fullest. The contracts for charcoal and firewood were awarded in the summer for the following year. At the head of a group of castle suppliers, he set out to make the annual survey, which until then had been a mere formality. The officials in charge had never gone beyond asking how many of this kind of oak were on this mountain, and how many of that kind on that mountain. With the suppliers acting as his guides, Tokichiro conscientiously took note of everything he saw. He believed he could understand the conditions on the farms and in the towns, but, lacking experience, he could not even guess how much fuel could be got from a single mountain. And he had to admit that the finer points of buying charcoal and firewood were beyond him.
Like other officials before him, he went through the motions of the survey, mumbling, "Hm, hm. Is that so? I see, I see." Following custom, the day ended with the suppliers inviting the official to a banquet at the house of a local magnate. Much of the time was spent exchanging small talk.
"Thank you for coming out all this way."
"We haven't got very much, but please make yourself at home."
"We hope you'll favor us with your custom in the future."
One after another, they flattered Tokichiro. Naturally, attractive young women served the sake. They were constantly beside him, rinsing his cup, refilling it, and offering him one delicacy after another. He only had to express a wish and it was fulfilled.
“This is good sake," he said. He was in a good mood; there was no reason not to be. The perfume of the serving girls charmed his senses. "They're all beautiful," he said. “Each and every one."
“Does your honor like women?" one of the suppliers asked lightheartedly.
Tokichiro replied very seriously, "I like both women and sake. Everything in the world is good. But if you're not careful, even good things can turn against you."
"Please feel free to enjoy the sake and the young flowers, too."
"I'll do just that. By the way, you seem hesitant to talk business, so I'll break the ice. Would you show me the tree ledger for the mountain we were on today?" They brought it in for his inspection. "Ah, it's very detailed," he observed. "Are there no discrepancies in the number of trees?"
"None whatsoever," they assured him.
"It says here that eight hundred bushels were delivered to the castle. Can that much charcoal and firewood come from such a small mountain?"
"That's because demand was less than the year before. Yes, that's the amount from the mountain we surveyed today."
The next morning, when the merchants presented themselves to pay their respects, they were told that Tokichiro had gone off to the mountain before daybreak. They set off after him. When they caught up with him, he was supervising a group of foot soldiers and local farmers and woodsmen. Each man had a bundle of ropes cut to about a meter in length. They tied one length of rope to every tree. Knowing that they had started out with a given number of ropes, when they finished and did their calculations, they could count the total number of trees. Checking the number of trees against the figures in the ledger, Tokichiro suspected there had been an overcharge of almost one-third.
He seated himself on a tree stump. "Call the suppliers over here," he told one of his men.
The fuel dealers prostrated themselves before him, their hearts racing at the prospect of what was to come. No matter how many surveys of the mountains were conducted, the number of standing trees was not a fact that could be easily determined by an amateur, and, in fact, the overseers of fuel supplies had always taken the amount recorded in the ledger at face value—swallowed it whole, so to speak. Now the suppliers were faced with an official who was not going to be taken in.
"Isn't there a large discrepancy between the number in this ledger and the actual number of trees?"
They answered yes, but hesitantly and full of apprehension.
"What do you mean, 'yes’? What's the reason for this? You're forgetting the many years you've reaped His Lordship's patronage. Aren't you being ungrateful, deceitful, and complacent, and isn't your sole interest in making a profit? It seems you've put your lies in writing and you've been greedy."
"Isn't that a bit too strong, your honor?"
"The numbers are different. I'm asking why. Judging from the records, only sixty or seventy bushels out of a hundred ordered—that's only six or seven hundred out of a thousand— are actually delivered to the warehouses."
"No, well, er, with that sort of reasoning—"
"Silence! There's no excuse for men who've been supplying fuel from these mountains to have engaged in this kind of huge deception year after year. If I am right, you're guilty of deceiving officials and defrauding the provincial treasury."
"We-we hardly know what to say."
"You could be convicted for what you've done and have all your possessions confiscated. However, former officials have also been guilty of neglect. I'll let it pass just this once… but on the following condition: you must correctly state the number of trees. The figures you submit in writing had better correspond exactly with the facts. Is that clear?