Mori Motoharu in Sanuki, Spring 1570



The great fortress of Takamatsu

 Mori Motoharu spent a pleasant day exploring Takamatsu Castle in Sanuki with his captains. He was impressed by the vastness and the height of this fortress, and the strength of its rock foundations. Properly defended and provisioned, Takamatsu can hold out against the world! he thought.

The thought that he had accomplished what his brothers, Mori Takakage and Mori Takamoto, could not, took a while to sink in, but when it did it gave him no end of ironic satisfaction. He was the tortoise who started late, but finished first. If Mori Takamoto will forever be remembered for the conquest of Kyushu, then his name will forever be associated with the conquest of Shikkoku. Better still, he will live to enjoy it!

That evening as he and his captains feasted in the main audience room of Takamatsu, a message arrived from the young Daimyo Mori Sanemune.

Dear uncle,

It is with great joy that I hear of your repeated successes in Shikkoku and, lately, the victorious assault on Takamatsu Castle. As the conquest of Shikkoku is practically finished, it is my wish that you hand over command of your army to Kobayakawa Mototsura who will be tasked with subduing the remaining provinces (an easy prospect). I greatly desire that you come back to Aki and sit at my right hand where I will be pleased to receive the benefit your wisdom and guidance in managing the many pressing affairs of the clan.

Mori Motoharu read it, laughed, then casually threw it into a brazier of burning coals. Takamatsu and Shikkoku are mine now and I will never leave it. I will set up my banner here.  With my army and the walls of Takamatsu around me, here I will stand, an eagle upon the crags. Not even the Daimyo himself can touch me now.

~ ~ ~

When Mori Sanemune learned of his uncle's refusal to return to Aki, he shooked with anger. That fool, he thinks that I am after his head for what happened to my father! But it is not him I am concerned about...

Not many days after Mori Sanemune became the new daimyo of the Mori, the old monk Jizo, asked to see him. When Sanemune visited the monk in his humble dwellings, he found him lying on a bamboo mat on the ground, breathing weakly.

"How are you, old father?" Sanemune asked.

"I am dying," Jizo answered plainly.

Sanemune starred at the ground in silence for a few moments in a gesture of regret, then said,"You served the Mori faithfully throughout your life. I will have shrines built in your honour. We will pray for you."

"No, my young daimyo," said Jizo weakly, "I will pray for you! Listen to me, in the days to come, you will face perils that your fathers have never faced. I know that you have Mori Motoharu on your mind. For now you must swallow your pride and make your peace with him. You will need him, for I will tell you of a greater enemy that even now you are not prepared for - the dragon hidden behind the mist, in whose coils all the islands of Japan are entwined...