d
Morimasa into imagining that they had a powerful backing. These
things happened during the night of April 19, 1583. Katsuiye, on
receipt of the intelligence, sent repeated orders to Morimasa
requiring him to withdraw forthwith; but Morimasa, elated by his
partial victory, neglected these orders.

On the following day, the facts were communicated to Hideyoshi, at
Ogaki, distant about thirty miles from Shizugatake, who immediately
appreciated the opportunity thus furnished. He set out at the head of
his reserves, and in less than twenty-four hours his men crossed
swords with Morimasa's force. The result was the practical
extermination of the latter, including three thousand men under
Katsuiye's adopted son, Gonroku. The latter had been sent to insist
strenuously on Morimasa's retreat, but learning that Morimasa had
determined to die fighting, Gonroku announced a similar intention on
his own part. This incident was characteristic of samurai canons.
Hideyoshi's victory cost the enemy five thousand men, and demoralized
Katsuiye's army so completely that he subsequently found himself able
to muster a total force of three thousand only. Nothing remained but
flight, and in order to withdraw from the field, Katsuiye was obliged
to allow his chief retainer, Menju Shosuke, to impersonate him, a
feat which, of course, cost Shosuke's life.

Katsuiye's end is one of the most dramatic incidents in Japanese
history. He decided to retire to his castle of Kitano-sho, and, on
the way thither, he visited his old friend, Maeda Toshiiye, at the
latter's castle of Fuchu, in Echizen. Thanking Toshiiye for all the
assistance he had rendered, and urging him to cultivate friendship
with Hideyoshi, he obtained a remount from Toshiiye's stable, and,
followed by about a hundred samurai, pushed on to Kitano-sho. Arrived
there, he sent away all who might be suspected of sympathizing with
Hideyoshi, and would also have sent away his wife and her three
daughters. This lady was a sister of Nobunaga. She had been given, as
already stated, to Asai Nagamasa, and to him she bore three children.
But after Nagamasa's destruction she was married to Katsuiye, and was
living at the latter's castle of Kitano-sho when the above incidents
occurred. She declined to entertain the idea of leaving the castle,
declaring that, as a samurai's daughter, she should have shared her
first husband's fate, and that nothing would induce her to repeat
that error. Her three da