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When the pursuing general pressed him hard and called aloud "It is a disgrace for a warrior to show his back to the enemy," Sadato reined his horse; upon this the conquering chief shouted an impromptu verse Scarcely had the words escaped his lips when the defeated warrior, undismayed, completed the couplet "Since age has worn its threads by use."
For several generations the Abe family had exercised sway there, and its representative in the middle of the eleventh century extended his rule over six districts and defied the authority of the provincial governors. The Court deputed Minamoto Yoriyoshi to restore order. The Abe magnate was killed by a stray arrow at an early stage of the campaign, but his son, Sadato, made a splendid resistance.
In December, 1057, Yoriyoshi, at the head of eighteen hundred men, led a desperate assault on the castle of Kawasaki, garrisoned by Sadato with four thousand picked soldiers. The attack was delivered during a heavy snow-storm, and in its sequel the Minamoto general found his force reduced to six men.
Hence in old warfare it was not at all rare for the parties to a conflict to exchange repartee or to begin a rhetorical contest. Combat was not solely a matter of brute force; it was, as, well, an intellectual engagement. Of such character was the battle fought on the bank of the Koromo River, late in the eleventh century. The eastern army routed, its leader, Sadato, took to flight.
This name grew to be a terror to the enemy, and it was mainly through his prowess that his father and their scanty remnant of troops escaped over roads where the snow lay several feet deep. On a subsequent occasion in the same campaign, Yoshiiye had Sadato at his mercy and, while fixing an arrow to shoot him, composed the first line of a couplet, "The surcoat's warp at last is torn."
Sadato, without a moment's hesitation, capped the line, "The threads at last are frayed and worn,"* and Yoshiiye, charmed by such a display of ready wit, lowered his bow. Yoshiiye's magnanimity towards Sadato at the fortress of Koromo-gawa has always been held worthy of a true bushi. *The point of this couplet is altogether lost in English.
It turns upon the fact that the word tate used by Yoshiiye means either a fortress or the vertical threads in woven stuff, and that koromo was the name of the fortress where the encounter took place and had also the significance of "surcoat." Sadato was ultimately killed, but his younger brother Muneto had the affection and full confidence of Yoshiiye.
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