Yasushi Inoue - The Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan

The short man went back to his room.

Daizen laughed contemptuously, but the man who entered the room did not even acknowledge the ridicule. From inside the rather dark room, the man’s face was fixed on a red chrysanthemum. He remained this way, totally ignoring Daizen.

“It is rather difficult to attack a person without wounding him. I, Aoki Daizen, have never done something like that before.”

But the man inside the room said nothing.

“Say something, Yamamoto Kansuke!” shouted Daizen with a rush of emotion. His face suddenly contracted in anger and emotion

From inside the room, the hoarse voice finally emerged,

“You can injure him, but I don’t want him to be killed. It would be meaningless.”

Daizen disliked Yamamoto Kansuke. He had met Kansuke only half a year ago, but from that time on he hated this man.

Whenever he heard Kansuke’s voice, he could not help wanting to bully him and abuse him to the point that Kansuke totally surrendered. To beg for money was one reason he came, but fundamentally he had a stronger motivation to harass Kansuke.

The name ronin Kansuke was well known among the three territories of the Imagawa Clan, Suruga, Totomi, and Mikawa. He was a masterless samurai from Ushikubo, of Mikawa Province, which was one of the Imagawa Clan’s territories. It had been nine years since he had come to Suruga. For those nine years, he had been asking the Imagawa to employ him. For unknown reasons, he had never been offered any position. During these nine years, he had been protected and fed by the chief retainer of the Imagawa, Iohara Tadatane. It was rumored that the reason Iohara had been providing Kansuke’s supply of rice and salt for such a long time was that he and Iohara were related.

It was also rumored that Kansuke had mastered his swordsmanship in the school of Gyoryu and no retainer of the Imagawa Clan could defeat him. However, nobody had actually seen him draw his sword, nor heard any stories of his prowess on the battlefield; nor were there any stories of him having killed or wounded anybody at all. His gruesome face might have played a large role in this rumor.

His height did not reach five feet, he had a dark complexion, one eye was blind, and he had a limp; he also had no middle finger on his right hand. He must have been close to fifty years of age.

Whenever he left his house and walked the castle town, which was not very often, children turned around to look at him, but the adults ignored him. His appearance was both gruesome and painful to look at. Although the children turned around to stare at him, they never followed him, most likely out of fear.

It was said that since he was twenty years old, he had traveled all over Japan, had excelled in planning military strategy, had great knowledge of the old and new arts of war, and was known as an expert on battle formation and the capturing of castles. The fact that he had not been hired for nine years, in spite of his military acumen, helped fuel his fame. Most felt that there was someone powerful near Lord Imagawa who was jealous of Kansuke’s intelligence, experience and talent, therefore this officer prevented the hiring of Kansuke. It was then rumored that the jealous officer was actually his protector, Iohara Tadatane, himself. People rarely visited Kansuke, even the Imagawa’s vassals. His house was always quiet.

Only Daizen did not believe the rumors surrounding Kansuke. Deformed fraud! This was how Daizen thought of him.

It was not that he analyzed every possible achievement of Kansuke; his opinion of him was based solely on his intuition. It was impossible for him to imagine Kansuke standing with his sword in his hands. If he forced the image into his mind, he did not appear to be a dashing or brave samurai, rather a pathetic one.

It was some six months ago that Daizen had met Kansuke, but from the very moment of the meeting, he did not trust him. He thought a master of the sword should not be like him. He wished to challenge him with his sword once and peel off his deception. Several times he tried to entice him into drawing his sword, but Kansuke never responded to the temptation; every time Kansuke tactfully escaped from Daizen’s challenge.

Daizen occasionally visited the house of Yamamoto Kansuke to verbally abuse him. Kansuke always remained silent. Daizen started to accumulate feelings of disgust and hatred toward Kansuke. His existence was the only entertainment in Daizen’s unemployed, impoverished daily life. When it came to the art of war and the information about many fiefdoms, Daizen himself had no knowledge, therefore he could not test or judge Kansuke, but he thought that this was probably quite similar to his ability with the sword. It was probably all a fraud. How could he talk about battle formation and capturing castles without a single retainer of his own?

It was doubtful that he had traveled abroad. Once Daizen asked him about the geography of the Odawara area where Daizen was born, but Kansuke did not reply. He assumed Kansuke knew nothing.

Today, Daizen was pleased with the fact that Kansuke had revealed his nature as a fraud. He was walking faster than usual along the Abe River. Even if Kansuke’s idea of attacking Itagaki Nobukata was a trick, at least it excited Daizen. “You deformed bastard, although you have been deceiving the world, you cannot deceive me!” he thought.

Daizen was walking along the pebbly shore of the Abe River, from where the fallow fields spread out along the horizon. No rice would be cultivated this year! This idea darkened his mind. When it came to rice, it was a serious matter. Many peasants had abandoned their land and had become itinerants. Consequently, there were hardly any people who cultivated their fields. On top of that, it had rained heavily this year, for ten consecutive days. East of Kyoto, everybody was suffering from the terrible flood. Even in the Imagawa’s land, countless houses were washed away along the Abe River. Not only the rice fields, but also cows and horses were washed out toward the ocean. Last year, during the ninth year of Tenbun 9, once in the spring and once in the autumn, the country was hit by a huge typhoon. Disastrous things continued to happen.

Should I apply for service in the province of Kai10? Could things be better there? I am not totally willing to work with Kansuke, but even working with a deformed bastard like him, would be better than being alone in an unknown land.

“But I can’t stand him! I hate him!” Daizen stopped suddenly.

He detested the idea of working with Kansuke. Other people did not like him, but Kansuke was worse, he thought. When he was a child, he had once ground a caterpillar into the earth with a stone, and now he felt his rage would not dissipate unless he did the same thing to this infamous deformed ronin.

It was early August. There was no wind, but the night air was cold. Fall was rapidly approaching.

Not very far from the Imagawa mansion, the samurai residences were scattered around as if to surround the mansion protectively. Beyond the residential area, the road went down the hill to the castle town. Normally this road was crowded during the day, but after sunset, hardly anybody travelled it. Stores along the road closed their doors tightly when night came.

Daizen stood near the large enoki 11tree for over an hour. He was waiting for Takeda’s chief vassal, Itagaki Nobukata. Itagaki was visiting the former daimyo 12of the Takeda Clan, Nobutora, who had been exiled by his son Harunobu and had found protection under the Imagawa for the past five years. 13Itagaki was supposed to return to the residence of Shinonome Hanjiro, who had accompanied Nobutora from the Takeda. Daizen was there to attack them on their way to the Shinonome’s residence.

He had not seen Kansuke today, but this was certainly the place they had planned to meet, under the enoki tree on the slope. As soon as he saw Itagaki, he was to run out from behind the tree and attempt to kill him. If there were vassals, he was supposed to kill them as well. Kansuke was then supposed to appear.