upon the waves, passing the time on board their ships. The Gen fleet arrived at the bay of Katsura, in the province of Awa. They had been victorious in the conflicts engaged in in various places, and had taken the palace of Yashima. They now followed the movements of the Hei ships, pursuing them by land, as the hawk urges the pheasants when the moors are burnt and no cover is left. The Gen fleet reached a place called Oitsuheitsu, twenty chō or more [about two miles] from where the adherents of the Hei House were stationed.
"On the 24th day of the third month of the same year [1185], Yoshitsune [the Gen general, brother of Yoritomo] and his army, in seven hundred ships or more, attacked the enemy at dawn. The House of Hei were not unprepared. With five hundred war-ships or more, they advanced to meet him, and the exchange of arrows [by way of formal defiance] took place. The Gen and Hei troops numbered together over 100,000 men, and the sound of the battle-cry raised on both sides, with the song of the turnip-headed arrows [a special kind of arrow which made a noise like a humming-top] as they crossed each other's course, was startling to hear—audible, one would think, as far as the azure sky above, and re-echoing downwards to the depths of the sea.
"Noriyori [with other Gen generals] had arrived at Kiushiu with 30,000 cavalry, and had cut off the retreat in that direction. The Hei were like a caged bird that cannot escape, or a fish in a trap from which there is no exit. On the sea there were ships floating, by land were bridle-bits in ranged lines. East and west, south and north were closed, and on no side was evasion possible.
