After reclaiming the Kuroda name and changing his family crest to the Fuji-domoe (Wisteria Whirl), the first thing Kanbe’e did was neither to pray nor to lament his lost health. In the suffocating silence of his private chamber, he began to "calculate."

  His right leg, which had nearly rotted in the dungeon of Arioka, no longer allowed him to brandish a spear on the front lines. Yet, as he dragged his crippled limb and glared at the maps with piercing eyes, his mind had transformed. Through the darkness of hell, it had evolved into a monstrous engine capable of deriving the most meticulous and cruel "Mathematical Formulas for Victory."

  January, Tensho 8.

  Under the heavy winter clouds of Harima, the siege of Miki Castle—the campaign to subjugate the powerful local daimyo Nagaharu Bessho—was approaching its gruesome climax.

  Nagaharu was a man of "half-hearted betrayal." Though he had once followed Nobunaga’s banner, he recoiled at Hideyoshi Hashiba’s arrogance and the Oda clan’s ruthlessness. He had suddenly aligned himself with the Ishiyama Hongan-ji and the Mori clan, betraying the Oda in a direct challenge.

  Following the dying wish of Hanbe’e Takenaka, Hideyoshi avoided a direct assault on the formidable fortress. Instead, he adopted a policy of total "Starvation Warfare." Decades of forts were built around the castle, completing a blockade so tight that not a single grain of rice could enter. It was as if Hideyoshi were faithfully obeying a curse left by Hanbe’e before his death: "Continue the starvation."

  Though Kanbe’e had finished his recovery in Arima, he still could not walk unaided. Supported—almost carried—by Zenuske Kuriyama and his men, he finally arrived at the encampment on Mount Hirai. Upon seeing him, Hideyoshi welcomed him with open arms.

  "Oh! Kanbe’e, you've returned! Look, the time for Miki Castle to fall has finally come. This blockade that Hanbe’e spent his life-force building... with your wisdom added to it, it’s finally bearing fruit!"

  Hideyoshi slapped Kanbe’e’s thin shoulder and laughed heartily.

  "Nagaharu says he’ll offer his own head in exchange for the lives of his soldiers. I can’t bear to see the people starve any longer. From now on, you and I shall create a world so brilliant that the soil of Harima will never be stained by blood again."

  Hideyoshi’s words were, as always, filled with a sun-like warmth. But in the profile of Kanbe’e, illuminated by that light, there was no longer the pure emotion of the past. Kanbe’e was coldly inhaling the peculiar scent drifting from the castle—the stench of despair where horses were devoured, wall plaster was eaten, and eventually, humans fought over the flesh of the dead.

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  "Lord Hideyoshi," Kanbe’e spoke, his voice as still as a frozen lake. "In the dungeon of Arioka, I heard it constantly. The voices of my retainers growing thinner by the day, the ugly struggles over meager scraps, and finally... the silence of despair when everything had withered away."

  He continued, "There is no longer a need to swing a spear. Humans die from the stomach first. That is the most certain, the quietest victory. On that day, in that darkness, I was taught: War is not about shedding blood, but about severing the sustenance of life. This is the sole answer I have brought back from hell."

  The Siege of Miki, which had lasted nearly two years, ended on January 17 with the ritual suicide of the castle lord, Nagaharu Bessho.

  "In exchange for my life, I ask that the lives of my soldiers and people be spared."

  The surrounding generals wept and praised Nagaharu as a "Paragon of Samurai" for accepting these terms. But away from the commotion, Kanbe’e looked up coldly at his newly raised Fuji-domoe banner.

  (To die and leave a great name behind... that is an easy thing. To live through disgrace, to crawl through the mud, and yet still create a new world... Lord Nagaharu, you lacked that resolve.)

  Behind the scenes of the victory celebration, Kanbe’e began to secretly organize a different kind of army. Aside from Zenuske, Tahe'e, and those who fought with spears—later known as the "Kuroda Twenty-Four Generals"—he began to formally employ "Ninja". He had begun the serious utilization of covert units: Ninjas.

  In the dead of night, deep within the camp, Kanbe’e issued orders to several shadows.

  "Listen well... In war, ninety percent of the victory is decided before the spears ever clash. Your job is not to cut down the enemy. It is to steal the enemy's 'heart' and bring it to me."

  Setting aside his cane and sitting in the darkness, Kanbe’e’s eyes were no longer those of a loyal vassal shown to Hideyoshi. They were the eyes of a monster, sharp as a serpent’s, stalking its prey.

  "I learned it in the darkness of Arioka. Those who cannot see can only crawl until they wait for death. Become my 'eyes' and see through every corner of this land. Do not miss a single distortion in the shadow of this world Nobunaga is building."

  This shadow army would be secretly passed down as part of the Kuroda clan's military tradition—through the Chujo-ryu and Kuroda-han Ninjutsu—until the end of the Edo period.

  After Miki fell, the army of Hideyoshi and Kanbe’e moved against Tottori Castle in Inaba. Here, Kanbe’e deployed tactics even more refined than those at Miki. He manifested a hell even greater than the one before, an event later known in history as the "Starvation of Tottori." Because Miki had taken twenty-two months, the Kanbe'e who had evolved into a monster in the dungeon sought even greater efficiency and speed.

  "My Lord, this is not heartlessness; it is mercy. The sooner they know despair, the fewer will die in useless resistance."

  Using the "Terror of Hunger" he had experienced as his greatest weapon, he drove the castle lord, Kikkawa Tsuneie, to the brink of death. Each time Kanbe’e’s fingers flicked the beads of his abacus, a life inside the castle vanished. It was all to secure Hideyoshi’s supremacy—and to dominate the "Next Era" after Nobunaga’s passing.

  In the shadow of Hideyoshi, who walked in the light, Kanbe’e continued to solve his cold mathematical formulas. What he brought back from hell was not a prayer for peace, but "Military Strategy as Absolute Power" to realize that peace.

  Produced and written by a Japanese author, rooted in authentic Japanese history. Translated with the assistance of Gemini (AI).