elty in Japanese
defensive warfare was that the castle donjon was heavily built and
armoured after a fashion. The three-storey donjon was framed in huge
timbers, quite unlike the flimsy structure of most Japanese
buildings, and the timbers were protected against fire by a heavy
coat of plaster. Roof and gates were covered with a sort of
armor-plate, for there was a copper covering to the roof and the
gates were faced with iron sheets and studs. In earlier "castles"
there had been a thin covering of plaster which a musket ball could
easily penetrate; and stone had been used only in building
foundations.

THE KOMAKI WAR

After the suicide of his brother, Nobutaka, and when he saw that his
nephew, Samboshi (Hidenobu), was relegated to the place of a vassal
of Hideyoshi, Nobukatsu seems to have concluded that the time had
come to strike a final blow in assertion of the administrative
supremacy of the Oda family. He began, therefore, to plot with that
object. Hideyoshi, who was well served by spies, soon learned of
these plots, and thinking to persuade Nobukatsu of their
hopelessness, he established close relations with the latter's three
most trusted retainers. No sooner did this come to the cognizance of
Nobukatsu than he caused these three retainers to be assassinated,
and applied to Ieyasu for assistance, Ieyasu consented. This action
on the part of the Tokugawa baron has been much commented on and
variously interpreted by historians, but it has always to be
remembered that Ieyasu had been Oda Nobunaga's ally; that the two had
fought more than once side by side, and that had the Tokugawa leader
rejected Nobukatsu's appeal, he would not only have suffered in
public estimation, but would also have virtually accepted a position
inferior to that evidently claimed by Hideyoshi.

The course of subsequent events seems to prove that Ieyasu, in taking
the field on this occasion, aimed simply at asserting his own
potentiality and had no thought of plunging the empire into a new
civil war. In March, 1584, he set out from Hamamatsu and joined
Nobukatsu at Kiyosu, in Owari. The scheme of campaign was extensive.
Ieyasu placed himself in communication with Sasa Narimasa, in
Echizen; with Chosokabe Motochika, in Shikoku, and with the military
monks in the province of Kii. The programme was that Narimasa should
raise his standard in Echizen and Kaga, and that Motochika, with the
monks of Kii, should move to the attack of Osaka, so t