Now, Maeda swung into the open, a formidable army loomed to the southward, and Yodogima breathed easier; her estimate thus far had proven correct; the attack would come as expected; Ieyasu had employed the only tactics he knew—Sanada apparently slept at the nearest gate.
Directly across the intended battlefield, well in advance of the outer moat, running from the water front on the right to the river Nekogawa at her left, a low embankment, some ten feet in height, had been unexpectedly thrown up and faced of rock, with a deep water-trap hugging the farthest side, from end to end.
The invaders mistook this to be the outer moat: the patriots lay low, behind Sanada; who, to their astonishment, only snored.
Then, Hidetada wheeled his van, the flower of Yedo, well onto the plain; they were loyal men, but as yet in the measurement, as to their fullest capacity; the commander-in-chief had recruited of the newer Tokugawa, and any sudden charge might be expected to stampede the whole, in case of Maedas rout, in advance—Harunaga, mobilized just inside the last regular moat, at the right-hand gate, awaiting only a chance.
Yodogima had not as much confidence in his boldness, as respect for his courage; their strategy, like the enemys valor, must abide younger heads or hearts than those of Harunaga and Ieyasu.
Lastly, Ieyasu showed his face, and the veterans of his experience, samurai tried and found true, on many a scarred and fought-to-the-finish contest, their steps more studied and ears better cocked, these trusties ranked in, on the farthest side of the broad open, still beyond, in the rear. This, then, were the division that Hideyori, young and untried, should meet, if needs be, in a final determination of their destinies: the decisive conflict of an age.
Hideyori at the beginning: Ieyasu at the end of a career.
It is blood against experience, and who would change it? half whispered, half shouted Yodogima, a mother, as she swept the horizon with those eyes that had never failed her, looked into the faces which had gathered, and drilled, and armed, in behalf of manliness.
My dear men, said she, turning to them, from her seat above, you cannot fail. Whatever may become of me, however I or mine may demean himself, manhood is the secret buried underneath or revealed of any and every godlike doctrine, thought, or action. It is Godly, and the trend of the devil is toward the flesh. A strong heart knows its haven: a weak one abides the fires that consume. Manhood has made this world what it is, perhaps soared here, to this, from planets above; is making the world of to-day, however prosperous lying may seem; shall continue to make it, till there remains no need of a hell—thus and then, only, may heaven be attained. On with the work, and let no guilty thing escape!
Ieyasu, too, had spoken; climbing to a hill-top, Chausu, close at hand, on the right, the would-be besieger levelled his glasses, scanning the field before him. His own division of some sixty thousand samurai occupied the open lying between the hill on which he stood and the sea to the left; on the extreme opposite side of the field to his right stood Hidetada and his army of equal size, extending on toward the eastward, till the hill Okayama, rearing up as a sentinel, shut out all intervening space between his forces and the river Hirano: the top of which hill afforded also the commander-in-chief, Hidetada, a most excellent vantage point.