Passages from the Taiheiki, composed c. 1370−71

Kusunoki Masashige and other Southern Court loyalists have quickly built a castle (the Kami-Akasaka in the Osaka area) but they are besieged by Ashikaga (Northern Court) supporters

So the attackers divided themselves into a group of 100,000, which was directed toward the mountain at the rear, and a group consisting of the remaining 200,000, which surrounded the castle like rice, hemp, bamboos, or reeds. Even then, there was not a single arrow shot out of the castle nor was a single man seen. Emboldened by this, the attackers grabbed onto the fence to climb over it. Actually, though, the fence was two-layered, the outer layer to be cut off and dropped. Indeed, men within the castle simultaneously cut the ropes tying the outer fence on all four sides, so that the 1,000 attackers who had held onto the fence fell as if under a weight, and while they were pinned down, only their eyes moving, large logs and large rocks were thrown and hurled at them. As a result, in the battle this day seven hundred attackers were killed.

Punished as they were in battle for two consecutive days, not one among the many soldiers from the Eastern provinces was now willing to attack the castle. They set up camp in places near it, merely laying siege from a distance. They remained in that state for four or 6.ve days, but then they began to think: "It isn't manly to maintain such a passive offense. This is a castle on flat land with a circumference of less than four hundred yards, and only four or five hundred men are entrenched in it. If we, soldiers from the eight eastern provinces, are unable to attack it but end up merely laying siege, it will be the sort of disgrace for which people will make a laughingstock of us in years to come. This won't do."

"Come to think of it, before, we were so excited that we attacked without carrying shields or preparing proper attack weapons. That's why we created casualties uselessly. This time we'll change our approach."

So all the attacking soldiers were made to hold overhead shields to which hardened leather was nailed to make them hard to break. And even though it would have been easy to jump onto the fence because neither was the moat deep nor the bank high, in case the fence was again a hanging one they did not try to hold onto it thoughtlessly. Instead, standing in the moat they tried to pull it down with rakes. When it appeared that the fence was about to be tom down, however, men in the castle dipped up boiling water with three- to six-yard long ladles and poured it on the attackers. The boiling water got through the holes in their helmet-tops and the spaces in their shoulder-guards and burned them. Unable to bear it, the attackers dropped their rakes and shields and suddenly retreated, presenting a ludicrous spectacle. Even though no one really died on the others became ill with their whole bodies injured, and these numbered a couple of hundred.

The attackers had attacked with a new approach, and those in the castle had defended themselves with a new stratagem. The council deeded that now there was nothing special that could be done but to wait until the enemy's food ran out. After this decision they altogether gave up any kind of battle; instead, they built a lookout tower in each camp and constructed obstacles around it as they laid siege. As a result, the warriors in the castle began to lose their mettle with little to divert them.

Kusunoki had built this castle in great haste, with no time to prepare adequate provisions. In a mere twenty days after the battle had started and the castle was surrounded, there were only four or five days' worth of provisions left in the castle. So Masashige faced his men and said: "We've won several battles and destroyed countless enemies. But their number is so great they didn't think anything of it. Meanwhile we're running out of food and there isn't any rescue force. Since I was the first among the soldiers of this country to rise with a decision to help His Majesty [Go-Daigo] unify the land, I wouldn't hesitate to give up my life if the time was right and the act was just. Still, a courageous warrior is someone who takes precautions on an important occasion and chooses to plot things out. For this reason I, Masashige would like to let this castle be taken and make the enemy assume that I have committed suicide. Let me explain why.

"If they find out that I have committed suicide, the men from the Eastern provinces will be overjoyed and return to their lands. When they have, I'll come out and fight; if they come back here, I'll again withdraw into deep mountains. If I annoy the forces from the East in this fashion four or five times, they're bound to become exhausted. This is how by preserving myself I plan to destroy the enemy. Gentlemen, what do you think of this?"

His men gave him full assent, so at once they dug a large hole about ten feet deep in the castle, picked up twenty to thirty corpses from those killed and lying in the moat, threw them into the hole, piled up charcoal and firewood on top of them, and waited for a night of powerful wind and rain. Masashige's fortune must have been what Heaven favored. A sudden wind began kicking up sand and the rain that also started fell like bamboos shot down from the sky. The night was pitch dark, and everyone closed up his tent.

It was exactly the kind of night they had been waiting for. Masashige left a man in the castle with the instruction: "When you have determined that we are four or five hundred yards away from here, set fire to the castle." Then the men removed their armor and left in fives and threes, mingling with the attackers, quietly passing by the officers' quarters and the pillows of the soldiers lying asleep. When Masashige was passing in front of Captain of the Imperial Police Nagasaki Takasada's stable, an enemy soldier spotted him and asked, "Sir, why are you passing in front of our officer's quarters without announcing your name and so surreptitiously?"

"I'm one of the general's retainers, but I lost my way," Masashige said as he quickly walked away. The one who tried to stop him cried, "He's damned suspicious! I'm sure he's a horse thief. Shoot him dead!" And he himself ran up close and shot at him. The arrow struck Masashige's elbow and should have implanted itself deeply, but it did not; it bounced back, its direction reversed. Later, when Masashige checked the spot, he saw that the arrow had struck where he carried a talisman containing the Sutra of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara that he had believed in and read for many years. In effect, miraculous though it may seem, the poem in two phrases in praise of the bodhisattva had blocked the tip of the arrow.

So escaping death to be brought by a deadly arrow, Masashige went on about 2,000 yards, then turned back to look. As had been agreed upon, the man left behind had already set fire to the officers' quarters in the castle. The men on the attacking forces were startled by the fire and raised battle cries: "Look, the castle's fallen! Don't let a single man get away!" They made a big commotion among themselves. When the fire quieted down and they went into the castle to check, they found a number of corpses burned in a large hole stacked with charcoal. When they saw this, there was not one among the many who did not praise Masashige, saying, "Poor fellow! He committed suicide. Though our enemy, he met his death with dignity as a man of bow and arrow."

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This section is preceded by an account of a pitched battle in which Kusunoki Masashige and 700 men battle more than 500,000 men under Ashikaga Tadaysohi (Takauji's brother)

At once 6,000 horsemen of Kira, Ishitō and Uesugi galloped the east side of the Minato River and encircled the Kusunoki force cut off its rear. Masashige and Masasue turned back and attacked these forces, killing or wrestling the enemies down as they galloped and out of them. In about six hours they had sixteen engagements. Their force was reduced gradually, until only seventy-three riders remained.

Even with this small force they could have broken out of the enemy and escaped, but since leaving Kyoto Kusunoki had had a mind to bid farewell to the world here, so he fought without retreating a step. But their spirit now drained, he and his men hurried into a house in a village north of the Minato River. When he removed his armor for disembowelment, he found eleven sword wounds on his body. Each of the remaining seventy-two men also had five to ten wounds. The thirteen members of the Kusunoki clan and their sixty retainers sat in two rows in the guest room with six pillars, chanted a Buddhist prayer ten times in unison before disemboweling themselves.

Masashige, sitting at the head of the group, turned to his brother, Masasue, and asked, "They say your thought at the last moment determines whether your next life is going to be good or bad. Tell me, brother, what is your wish in the Nine Realms?"

Masasue laughed cheerfully and said, "I'd like to be reborn in the Human Realm seven times so that I may destroy the imperial enemy."

Masashige was pleased to hear this and said, "That's a truly sinful, evil thought, but I think exactly as you do. Well then, let us be reborn in the same way and realize our wish."

With this vow the two brothers stabbed each other and died side by side. The eleven other principal members of the clan, including Governor of Kawachi Usami Masayasu, Jingūji no Tarō Masamoro, of the Middle Palace Guards, and Wada Gorō Masataka, as well as the sixty retainers, disemboweled themselves all at once, each sitting in the place of his choice.

Kikuchi Shichirō Takeyoshi, who had come to observe the battles in Suma as the representative of his older brother, the Governor of Higo, happened upon Masashige's death. Perhaps he thought it would be a disgrace to see something like this and return. He also killed himself and fell into the fire.

 

from Sato, Legends of the Samurai