"I demand," he said, "the execution of one of the three following alternatives: let Fide-Yori give up the fortress, and spend seven years at Yamato; let me receive Yodogimi as hostage; or let the walls of Osaka be razed, and the moats filled up."
The last proposition only was received with favor by the assembled generals in council of war. But Yoke-Moura regarded the destruction of the ramparts as almost sacrilegious.
"This peace will not last long," said he; "and If the war is renewed, what will become of us with our dismantled castle?"
There was a question of letting Yodogimi go.
"My mother! How can you think of such a thing?" cried the Shogun. "Such a hostage once in his hands, we should cease to be aught but the slaves of Hieyas."
"True," exclaimed General Harounaga; "it is impossible."
"Our walls once destroyed, we are left defenceless. War is preferable to such a peace," broke in Yoke-Moura. He would willingly have surrendered Yodogimi; he cared but little for a woman.
"Hieyas specifies," said some one, "that the moats are to be filled up in such a way that children of three can run up and down into them at play."
"Ten thousand laborers are to be set to work on the walls in all haste," said another.
Yoke-Moura sighed.