by Gai-Jin(Lit)
Sumomo, and then they were in the saddle galloping the leagues, all aware such a gallant fighter deserved a courteous bow from the conqueror in front of the fire--particularly as the fighter was shishi and a woman who soon would be subject of songs and legends, as would the blow that had sliced her in half. And Koiko the Lily too, she who threw herself in the way of the first shuriken and so had saved the life of their Lord, to whom he had then given the gift of painlessness.
But Yoshi, Guardian of the Heir had said coldly, "Their death poem is this:
"From nothing into nothing,
A corpse is a corpse,
And nothing--
Mine, yours, even theirs.
Did they exist? Do we exist?"'
Onwards, under the lash, then gaining the castle.
But still no rest there, the castle and Yedo and the whole
Kwanto in uproar over gai-jin preparations for war--precipitated by the tair@o's ultimatum, as he had expected.
"It was inevitable," Yoshi said at the meeting of the Elders he had immediately called for, adding, to give Anjo a way to extract himself, "You were given ill advice--remove the fool who suggested it and drafted the letter."
"It was the Emperor's command, and the
Sh@ogun's, that all gai-jin be expelled,"
Anjo said angrily.
"Command? The Sh@ogunate commands, not an underage boy who mouths the words the Sh@ogunate puts into it--or the Emperor, who can only request us to do something!"
"As tair@o I considered the ultimatum necessary."
"And again I ask, what do you propose we do when the fleet comes here?"
"They will not, we attack first," Anjo had said, then winced as a pain stabbed him, holding his side. "I have them surrounded, Yokohama is like a dead fish waiting for gutting. The attack force is almost ready."
"And their fleet?" he had asked, furious that all his advice had been discarded and once again they were in a trap of their own making. No point in reminding Anjo, and the others, of the plan he had meticulously set up to provide months of time for further delaying tactics against the gai-jin, while the Sh@ogunate gathered strength and more particularly dealt with the vital, pressing problem of smashing the hostile coalition of Tosa,
Choshu and Satsuma that would destroy the
Sh@ogunate if allowed to prosper.
"First we surprise Yokohama, burn it,
I suggested it months ago," Toyama said, shaking with excitement. "Burn them!"
"And how do you sink the fleet?" Yoshi snarled. He had noticed Anjo's pain and was glad of it, remembering his pact with Ogama of
Choshu that must be instituted quickly to keep that enemy off balance and neutralized.
Toyama said fiercely, "The gods will sink their ships, Yoshi-dono, like they did against
Kublai Khan and his Mongols. This is the Land of the Gods, they will not fail us."
"And in case the gods are away, or sleeping," Anjo said, "we are going to send out fire ships--I have hundreds already under construction, hundreds. If the enemy break through this barrier to bombard Yedo, only peasants, tradesmen, artisans and parasitic merchants will die, our legions will be intact."
"Yes, they will be intact," Toyama said gleefully.
Anjo rushed on, "Once Yokohama is gone, the gai-jin fleet must sail away because they've no base where they can regroup.
They must sail far away to their colonies in
China, there will no longer be a foothold here.
If they come back we'll..."
"When they come back," Yoshi had said.
"All right, Yoshi-dono, when they come back with more ships we will sink them in the Shimonoseki
Straits, Ogama will, or elsewhere for by that time we will have more cannon, fire ships, and we never allow them to land in force, they will never be able to land in force and set up a base, never again. No more
Treaties to protect them! None. We close our land like before. That is what I plan," Anjo said triumphantly. "I have torn up the
Treaties as the Emperor wants!"
"You are godlike, tair@o, the gods will protect us with a Divine Wind," Zukumura chuckled, wiping saliva off his chin.
"The gods won't protect us from gai-jin shells," Yoshi said, "nor fire ships. If we lose Yedo we lose our Sh@ogunate citadel, then every daimyo in the land will join against us to carve up the spoils--led by Ogama of
Choshu, Sanjiro of Satsuma and Yodo of
Tosa. Without Yedo our Sh@ogunate is over, why cannot you understand that?"
Anjo had twisted under another pain and flared,
"I understand very well you think you are the Lord of the
Land and the gods' gift to Nippon but you are not, you are not, you are under my orders and my command, I am tair@o, I AM!"
"You are tair@o and... but why are you in pain?" he asked with a pretense of concern--as though he had just noticed--wanting to stop the confrontation.
"How long has this been going on, what does the doctor say?"
"Say? He..." Again Anjo sipped some of the bitter extract of herbs. The medicine allayed his pain hardly at all. The pains had been getting worse, with this new Chinese doctor useless like the others, so much so he was even considering a clandestine examination by the famous gai-jin doctor giant of Kanagawa. "Never mind my pain. I know you."
Yoshi saw Anjo's hatred, knowing the hatred was because of his own youth and strength--little does the fool know how tired of life I am. "Can I
..."
"You can do nothing. We will attack when I order the attack and that is the end of it! The meeting is over." Anjo stormed out.
Now that he was tair@o, Anjo ruled imperiously and treated all others with olympian disdain.
In a fury Yoshi prowled the castle like a caged tiger. After that first awful day he had compartmentalized Koiko and locked it tight. Even so from time to time she would peep out smiling.
Angrily he would thrust her back--no way to find out now if she had really rushed forward to save his life as Abeh assured him, no way to find out why she had employed a shishi assassin, Sumomo Fujahito, of course a false name but certainly one of Katsumata's acolytes.
And where is Katsumata now?
He had already issued orders to find him, wherever he was, and had put a large reward on his head, and orders to hunt down and destroy all shishi and their protectors. Then he had sent for
Inejin, his spymaster.
The old man had limped in and bowed. "It seems, Sire, the gods guarded you like one of their own."
"By allowing a shishi assassin, shuriken-armed, to be in the inner sanctum of my courtesan," he exploded, "allowing my courtesan to be a traitor and part of the plot?"
Inejin shook his head, and said easily, "Perhaps not a traitor, Sire, nor part of a plot, merely a woman. As to the shishi, Sumomo, she simply exercised your fighting ability which proved to be perfect--for which you were trained."
The singular strength of his old retainer sent his rage to China. "Not perfect," he said, ruefully, "the cat clawed me, but the wound healed."
"Shall I drag Meikin, the mama-san, here,
Sire?"
"Ah, the pivot. I have not forgotten her.
Soon, not yet. You still watch her?"
"Like her second skin. You sent for me,
Sire?"
"I want you to find Katsumata, alive if you can," he had said. "Did you remove the traitor ronin working for the gai-jin as I ordered?
What was his name? Ori Ryoma, a Satsuma, yes that's it."
"That man is dead, Sire, but it seems he was not the traitor. Gai-jin killed Ori some weeks ago. They shot him trying to break into one of their houses. The man supplying them with information, still, is a Choshu ronin named
Hiraga."
Yoshi was startled. "He of the poster? The shishi who led those who murdered Utani?"
"Yes Sire. For the moment I cannot remove him, he is under the protection of the Chief
Ing'erish and stays close
to their building. I have a spy in the village and can tell you more in a few days."
"Good. What else? All this talk of war?"
"I hope to have more news in a few days."
"Make it fewer than more," he said curtly, dismissing him. "When you have serious news come back."
Inejin won't fail me, he thought, sorry that he had been short-tempered. Spies must be cherished like no others... on them depends your ability to move... Ah, Sun-tzu what a genius you were--but even my intimate knowledge of your precepts do not tell me what to do about the gai-jin, about that stupid boy and my arch enemy, the
Princess Yazu--both still gorging on the honeyed gruel served by Court sycophants obeying that dog, the Lord Chancellor. What would you do to destroy the enemies that surround me? Anjo, the
Elders, the Court, Ogama, Sanjiro--the list endless. And impossible. And atop them all, the gai-jin.
Then he had remembered the invitation to go aboard the Furansu--French--warship. The coaling venture that his wife, Hosaki, had positioned in conjunction with the Gyokoyamas and the gai-jin prospector, made it easy for him to send
Misamoto, his make-believe samurai, the fisherman interpreter, to make the arrangements.
This had taken place yesterday.
He had slipped away from Yedo by oared galley to a sea rendezvous without fanfare, just beyond sight of land--with Abeh, twenty guards and
Misamoto. The experience had been awesome. The size and power of the ship's engines, and cannon, the amount of powder and shot and coal carried, and the stories they told, lies or truths he could not yet tell about the extent of their Furansu
Empire, its wealth and power, the leagues of travel such a ship could cover, numbers of warships and cannon, and size of their armies as they stated them, were beyond belief.
Misamoto interpreted, with the interpreter who called himself Andreh Furansu-san. Though they had their own language this meeting was conducted mostly in English.
A lot of what he was told, Yoshi had not understood. The words used were strange and much time was spent explaining miles and yards and powder and pitch and pistons, paddle steamers against screw power, breech blocks and flintlocks, factories and firepower.
Yet all of it was illuminating and certain pieces of information of major importance: the vital necessity of coaling facilities and safe harbors, without which steamer warships were so many hulks--unable to carry all the coal needed for the voyage out, for naval operations, and then the voyage back. And second, as he had witnessed at the Council meeting with gai-jin in Yedo
Castle and found it difficult to believe the true extent, any mention of Ing'erish gai-jin brought sneers to Furansu gai-jin faces who had no hesitation in showing the extent of their hatred.
This delighted him and enhanced what Misamoto had said earlier, that Ing'erish were hated by nearly every other nation on earth because they had the biggest
Empire, they were the strongest and wealthiest nation, with the greatest, most modern fleets, the most powerful, disciplined and best-equipped armies, as well as enjoying their gains by producing more than half of the world's goods. With, best of all, an impregnable island redoubt to guard it all.
Of course they are hated. Like we
Toranagas are hated. And therefore, he thought with an ache in his bowels for his past mistake, these
Ing'erish gai-jin are the ones to be fawned on, to befriend, and handle with the most exquisite care.
Best fleets? And arms? How could I tempt them into building me a fleet? Providing me with one? Would coal pay for it?
"Misamoto, say to them that I would like to learn more about these marvelous Furansu devices," he said blandly, "and yes, I would like friends amongst gai-jin. I am not opposed to trade--perhaps I could arrange my coal concession to go to the
Furansu and not the Ing'erish."
This caught their immediate interest. At this time they were below decks in the largest cabin in the stern, that he found cramped and foul-smelling, with odors of oil and coal smoke and human waste, with a fine coating of coal dust everywhere. They sat around a long table, half a dozen officers in gold-braided uniforms and their leader,
Seratard--Serata as it was correctly pronounced--in the center. Abeh and half his guards were at his back, the rest on deck.
The moment he had seen Seratard and heard his name he liked him immediately--totally different from the tall, sour-faced Ing'erish High Leader with the unpronounceable name. Serata, like
Furansu-san Andreh, were easily pronounceable. In fact the names were Japanese.
Serata was a miraculous omen.
Serata was the name of his family's ancestral village in which their ancestor, Yoshi-shigeh
Serata-noh Minowara had settled in the twelfth century. In the thirteenth, the warrior daimyo
Yoshi-sada Serata, raised an army against his overlords, the Hojo, obliterated them and captured their capital Kamakura and made it his own. Since then his direct descendants, the
Yoshi noh Toranaga noh Serata still ruled
Kamakura--Sh@ogun Yoshi Toranaga being buried there in his great mausoleum.
"So we are related," he had joked, after explaining the coincidence to Seratard. Seratard had laughed and, with the others who chattered like so many monkeys in outlandish uniforms, then had explained that his own family was an ancient one in
Furansuland too, but in no way as illustrious.
"My Master," Andreh said with a bow, "my
Master, he greatly honored be friend and gai-jin part of your great family, Sire."
"Tell him that I consider his name a good sign," he had said, noting this man seemed much more than just interpreter.
"My Master thanks and says what Ing'erish promise, Furansu promise better."
Misamoto said, obsequiously, "Lord, he means they will make a better deal--money arrangement. The Furansu make cannon as well as Ing'erish though not as many."
"Tell them I will consider a proposal to give them the coal concession. They must tell me how many guns or cannons, with powder and shot, and when I can have them, for how much coal. And I want a steamer, a steamship with officers to train my officers and sailors. In fact," he added innocently, "perhaps I could grant Furansus the sole right to build, sell and train a navy. Of course I would pay. If reasonable."
He saw Misamoto's eyes widen, but before
Misamoto had time to begin, the gai-jin Andreh who had been listening equally carefully, "My
Master sure King of Furansuland, greatly honor assist Lord Yoshi Toranaga in ships." Fascinated, he watched Andreh turn to Leader Serata and begin talking, the naval officers listening and nodding, quickly becoming as excited. Astonishing how easy to manipulate these men with trade and the future promise of money, he had thought. If the Furansus react so quickly, surely the Ing'erish leader will do so also. Two fish fighting for the same hook is better than one.
They had talked of other matters, not enough time to cover them all, but he learned enough to want to learn more. One detail Andreh Furansu-san had mentioned had rocked him. They had been discussing modern medical knowledge, and how easy it would be to train and equip a hospital: "Chief Medicine
Doctor in Kanagawa good, Sire. Hear
Tair@o Anjo sick. Hear maybe tair@o see Chief Doctor-sama."
"When and where is this meeting to take place?"
"My Master say: not sure if arranged yet, Sire. Perhaps Chief Medicine Doctor help tair@o."
"If a meeting is arranged, tell me.
Tell Serata also that a hospital is an interesting possibility."
He decided to let it go at that. For the moment.
But that was another piece of information that Misamoto had better forget. How can I get a personal interpreter I can trust? I must have one. Perhaps
I should train Misamoto, he is my running dog, dependent and in my grasp. So far he has been obedient. Certainly he handled the prospectors well. Pity he was away, detailing progress to Hosaki, when they fought-- like wi
ld beasts, the samurai reported, how apt! Had Misamoto been at the mine, perhaps he could have stopped them. Not that it matters, one dead is one less to worry about, and surely the survivor is not long for this world. Coal! So we have an abundance of coal, Hosaki says, and that for these gai-jin coal is as good as gold.
Deliberately, he changed tack. "Ask
Serata-san why gai-jin fire cannon and rifles and send warships up and down to disturb the peace of this Land of the Gods? Do they prepare for war?"