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When news reached Date Masamune of the fall of all the Hojo's outlying forts and of the final investment of Odawara, he recognized, from his place in Mutsu and Dewa, that an attitude of aloofness could no longer be maintained with safety.
It is historically related that, during the siege of Odawara, Hideyoshi invited Ieyasu to the former's headquarters on Ishigaki Hill, whence an uninterrupted view of the interior of the castle could be had. The Tokugawa baron was then asked whether, if the eight provinces of the Kwanto were handed over to him, he would choose Odawara for central stronghold. He replied in the affirmative.
Yomoto and the recommencement of the jinrikisha road is reached; a broiled fish and a bottle of native beer are consumed for lunch, and the kago coolies dismissed. The road from Yomoto is a gradual descent, for four miles, to Odawara, a town of some thirteen thousand inhabitants, on the coast.
Ujinori surrendered in obedience to Ujimasa's instructions after the fall of Odawara, but Hideyoshi, instead of punishing him for the heavy losses he had inflicted on the Osaka army, lauded his fidelity and bravery, and presented him with an estate of ten thousand koku.
Mustering an army said to have been 110,000 strong, he attacked the Hojo in Odawara. But Ujiyasu would not be tempted into the open. He remained always behind the ramparts, and, in the meanwhile incited Shingen to invade Echigo, so that Kenshin had to raise the siege of Odawara and hasten to the defence of his home province.
The castle at Odawara, however, was so strongly built and so stoutly held that its capture by storm seemed impossible, and Hideyoshi's forces were obliged to have recourse to a regular siege which lasted nearly four months.
In the middle of the twelfth century, the nobles of the court, who went to the wars, all blackened their teeth; and from this time forth the practice became a fashion of the court. The followers of the chiefs of the Hôjô dynasty also blackened their teeth, as an emblem of their fidelity; and this was called the Odawara fashion, after the castle town of the family.
So long did they hesitate in view of the might of Odawara, that the expression "Odawara-hyogi" passed into the language as a synonym for reluctance; and when at length they moved to the attack with eighty thousand men, Hojo Ujiyasu, at the head of a mere fraction of that number, inflicted a defeat which settled the supremacy of the Kwanto.
One, commanded by Ieyasu, marched by the seacoast road, the Tokaido; another, under Uesugi Kagekatsu and Maeda Toshiiye, marched by the mountain road, the Tosando, and the third attacked from the sea. None of these armies encountered any very serious resistance. The first approached Odawara by the Hakone range and the second by way of the Usui pass.
Ujitsuna proved himself a worthy son of Soun, but much had still to be accomplished before the Kwanto was fully won. Among the eight provinces, two, Awa and Kazusa, which looked across the sea to Odawara, were under the firm sway of the Satomi family one of the "eight generals" of the Kwanto and not until 1538 could the Hojo chief find an opportunity to crush this strong sept.
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