Toru: Wayfarer Returns (Sakura Steam Series Book 1)

by Stephanie R. Sorensen

  She had in fact won a major battle. No one now questioned her sartorial choices, or her right to command missions, even her father. The other lords now simply referred to her as Toranosuke-sama, which was fine with Masuyo even if they meant it as an ironic joke. She had found some protected middle space of neither male nor female nature where she was free to act in spite of her gender.

  She still held to silence in the meetings, for even the other young people, Tōru and Takamori and Asano, never spoke either unless specifically called upon by the great lords. Jiro, as a commoner, was never even invited to the meetings, although many plans revolved around his dirigible fleet. Some changes were still impossible. But some changes were real, and growing stronger every day.

  When summaries of the day’s discussions or new ideas were handed out for review and comment, Masuyo’s clear intelligent mind had touched and refined them, a fact most of the lords knew. And daimyōs whose engineers were stuck on an engineering problem now made frequent polite approach to her father, asking if “Admiral Jiro and Toranosuke-sama had any ideas—”

  Lord Aya had finally resorted to handing out little cards with a map showing where Jiro and Masuyo might be found in Castle Aoba, for consultations with the engineers.

  Tōru smiled, chastened by her outburst at him and relieved she had returned safely. He was glad to see her unleashed to her old self even here in this strange and unfamiliar environment.

  “We have to go back soon.”

  They knew Tōru meant to Edo, to Chiyoda Castle. “The lords are almost ready. To go back in force and give the Shogun our ultimatum. Representation on the council for the excluded tōzama lords. Pardons for Lord Aya and Lord Tōmatsu, and restoration of their lands and titles. Pardons for you and me as well, Takamori! We got our own line in the document.”

  Takamori laughed, his large frame shaking with mirth. “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. For tonight, no work talk. We’ll have to save the realm soon enough. For tonight, to old friends and new. Kanpai!” He raised his cup of saké in toast, joined by Tōru, Jiro, Asano and Masuyo, sipping her plum wine.

  “Kanpai!”

  They were gathered there together still a few hours later in the early hours of dawn when the telegraph line in the closet clattered to life. Jiro and Masuyo were quickest to decode the message, sent from Lord Shimazu, in the new encoded language.

  An American admiral, leading a fleet of warships, was docked in Hong Kong for supplies and fuel. Lord Shimazu’s traders said the crew boasted they were heading to Japan next, to force her to open to American trade.

  1853 Summer

  CHAPTER 18

  PERRY

  “The supreme art of war

  is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

  – Sun Tzu

  Satsuma’s traders were correct.

  The Americans were here at last.

  Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry took another month to gather supplies in Hong Kong and then moved on to the Ryukyu Kingdom, vassal state to Lord Shimazu and the Satsuma han. The telegraph lines crackled with the news of each new advance.

  On May 26, four American ships sailed or steamed into Naha Harbor in the Ryukyu Kingdom. This in itself was not unusual. American ships were already there, often, refueling and gathering supplies for the long journey back to the United States.

  Naha Harbor had long served as a fueling and supplies station to many foreign ships on their way to China. The sakoku policy was not strictly enforced in the not-quite-Japan and not-entirely-not-Japan Ryukyu Kingdom, in an elegant bit of unspoken agreement between the Shogun and the Satsuma lords. This non-arrangement was quietly managed by Lord Abe, who saw the benefits to Japan of some inconspicuous trade with foreign powers. Foreign traders exchanged their wares for Japan’s thin trickle of exports. Technically illegal, this trade’s existence was carefully ignored by the bakufu Shogunate as long the Satsuma lords did not flaunt it.

  As Lord Shimazu’s spies reported, these ships were the steamship Mississippi, the two sloops-of-war Plymouth and Saratoga, and the sidewheel steamship Susquehanna that served as Commodore Perry’s flagship.

  The Prince Regent of the Ryukyu kingdom went aboard the flagship to greet the Commodore. Some days later the Commodore and a handful of senior officers paid a return call on the Prince Regent at his palace. Impressions of the American commander swiftly made their way to Lord Shimazu and the rest of the rebel daimyos, and, the rebels hoped, the listening ears of the Shogun.

  For more than a month, the crewmen of the four American ships worked to resupply their ships, to repair and maintain them and to train and drill on land and sea. They sent survey missions around the coasts near the harbor, mapping each coastal curve and plumbing the depths of the sea. Perry’s crew boasted of their mission in merchant stalls they visited, intelligence that crackled along the telegraph network from Satsuma to all the allied revolutionary domains, and the listening ears of the Shogun’s men as well. These messages were sent unencoded, to maximize their impact on the Shogun and his allies.

  The long-feared threat was finally here.

  The Americans had come. With two sailing ships and two steam-powered ships, puffing black smoke against the pristine sky of the Naha harbor. They intended to challenge the Shogun’s sakoku isolation policy directly by acting on Commodore Glynn’s threat a few years ago “to sail straight to Edo” if his demands were not met.

  Tōru and the rebel daimyō made good use of the time the Americans spent resupplying and surveying the Ryukyu Kingdom. Gun batteries lined the western and southwest coasts of Japan, wherever the rebel lords ruled. Samurai skilled with katana and daikyu bows drilled with the new repeating rifles modeled on the one Tōru had brought back, now rolling off the assembly lines of a hundred small gun factories throughout the rebel hans. New dirigibles took flight nearly every day, guided by their brave and inexperienced crews. Bartenders throughout the land learned to hear the telegraph’s long and short beeps as words.

  When the Lords Aya and Tōmatsu failed to appear for their executions, the Shogun finally stirred himself to action. The rumors in the ukiyo pleasure district carried the whisper that he had arisen from his sickbed and stumbled into a Council meeting, shouting red-faced that the traitors must be punished. Lord Abe’s attempts to calm him only enraged the failing Shogun more. He commanded his top generals to capture the two lords and carry out their executions. He overruled Lord Abe who, according to the gossip, had counseled patience and a focus on building up defenses against the impending American visit.

  While the telegraph carried news in minute detail of every action the Americans took in the Ryukyu Kingdom, the Shogun did nothing to fortify borders. Instead he sent his forces to attack Lord Aya’s and Lord Tōmatsu’s lands.

  For the first time in Japan’s long history, the Shogun’s army reached a battlefield by train. The soldiers rode the train day and night from Edo, through Kyoto and then north to Lord Tōmatsu’s domain, making the three week journey in a matter of days.

  The cold civil war inched closer to bursting into a hot war. Allied rebel lords matched the Shogun’s move and sent impressive numbers of men to fortify the borders of Lord Tōmatsu’s land closest to the Shogun’s forces.

  They outnumbered the Shogun’s force by at least two to one and held the higher ground. The fleet of dirigibles, now twenty strong, flown by fledgling crews, hung low on the horizon behind the rebels’ forces, with Jiro’s Hakudo Maru holding the center and Masuyo’s Toranosuke Maru commanding the right flank.

  The Shogun’s men pointed and murmured with awe as the dirigible lines soared into position. The two armies faced each other across a wide plain, with mounted samurai and commoner pikemen arrayed in the thousands. War banners fluttered in the stiff breeze, darkly beautiful like a thousand poisoned flowers.

  Not since the battle of Sekigahara two and a half centuries ago had such large hostile armies faced each other on Japanese soil.

  A messenger from the Shogun�
�s side picked his way across the rocky plain until he reached the halfway point to the rebel commanders. Shouting to be heard across the distance, he proclaimed, “In the name of the Shogun, defender of the realm, I command that you surrender the traitors Aya and Tōmatsu, that they may be lawfully punished for their crimes against the Shogun’s leadership and the peace of the realm.”

  Lord Aya and Lord Tōmatsu mounted and rode unaccompanied to the messenger in the center of the field, their daishō swords belted to their sides.

  The Shogun’s general and a handful of his honor guards rode out to meet the two rebel lords.

  “You see we are here,” said Lord Aya.

  The general grunted and motioned for his guards to take them into custody. Lord Tōmatsu held up his hand to stop their action.

  The young guards fell back.

  “We are not here to surrender. Instead, we invite you to join us in protecting the realm,” said Lord Tōmatsu.

  The Shogun’s general stared at him in disbelief. No one had defied the Shogun’s command in two hundred and fifty years and lived to tell about it.

  “Enough. Let’s go.” He motioned once more for his guards to arrest the two daimyōs.

  “I would not do that if I were you,” said Lord Aya mildly.

  He pointed above them to the sky, where the Hakudo Maru, the Toranosuke Maru and the Yakaze Maru had moved into position directly above them. Archers and riflemen pointed deadly weapons at them from the ships above. Heavier guns bristled from portholes in the lower part of the airships’ frames.

  “You gave your word of honor you would return. How can you stand here shameless and refuse? Return with me and regain your good name and your honor.”

  “We sacrifice our honor to save our nation. Tell the Shogun we defend our honor and his by defending the realm against the Americans who sail here even now. We will not shed your blood willingly, but his men may not pass this border until he joins us against the foreigners. The lives of your men are as precious to us as our own, for we will need every soldier of the Emperor to fight off the foreign barbarians.” Lord Aya watched the general’s face for a response to his mention of the shadowy and hidden Emperor.

  In theory, though not in fact, the Shoguns ruled Japan in the Emperor’s name and in His service. The rebels had taken to reminding each other of this neglected nuance as they grew more comfortable in their rebellion against the Shogun’s rule.

  If the Shogun would not defend the people of Japan against the foreign threat, then the rebel lords must, in the name of the Emperor he supposedly served.

  The general glanced at the guns and bows trained on him from above and motioned his bodyguard to retreat. He wheeled his own horse around and scowled at them.

  “The Shogun will not forget this.”

  “Nor shall we. We invite you to join us. The American fleet is in the Ryukyu Kingdom even now. You know this. Think on it well, General. In our domains, our coastlines are well defended, and we will keep our people safe. But we know this American, this Perry, is not interested in Satsuma or Ise or Nagasaki or Sendai. Tell the Shogun the American goes to Edo. He is bringing a letter from the American Shogun. He will want a reply. Join us, so we may together reply from a position of unity and strength, whether our reply be written in black ink or spilled blood.”

  “The Shogun will defend the realm if this American comes.”

  “With guns from the last century? With fishing boats against steamships? With swords and arrows and pikes against guns? No, the Shogun will fail. Our people will fall to the Americans as the great Chinese nation fell to the British. We must unite. Make use of the technology the fisherman brought back for us. Please,” Lord Aya dismounted and bowed deeply to the Shogun’s general, “please, for the sake of our people, join us.”

  Lord Aya’s humility halted any response from the general. He stared down at the rebel daimyō, still holding a deep bow before him, and then kicked his horse to turn and ride back to his lines. Shouted orders and horns sounded up and down the Shogun’s lines.

  The Shogun’s men turned and retreated the way they had come, east to Edo.

  Lord Tōmatsu and Lord Aya watched them go.

  “Do you think they’ll be back?” asked Lord Aya.

  “The Shogun will execute that general and send another with a larger force.”

  “We’ll have to be ready.”

  “For the Americans, yes,” grunted Lord Tōmatsu.

  “We must return to Edo. Before the Americans get there. Before we are forced to waste time fighting the Shogun’s next general.”

  And so the fukoku kyōhei daimyōs went to Edo.

  Together. In force. Under strict discipline. Traveling together, the banners of a dozen daimyōs here, two dozen there. They were too many for the limited number of trains to carry on the slender lines now stretching across the country, so they rode and marched, streaming from the north and west toward Edo.

  They came armed with modern guns, coordinated with telegraphed orders, some in code, some transmitted openly that the Shogun might know they came. Jiro’s growing fleet of dirigibles was sent in squads to protect each procession of daimyō lords leading their samurai and their servants, floating in precise formations above the marching men.

  As the soldiers approached each gate on the Tōkaidō and gates of entry into the guarded heart of Edo, Shogunate guards swarmed them demanding their permits of passage. Soldiers not pledged to the bakufu were not permitted inside the capital, other than a handful of personal honor guards for each daimyō, according to his rank. Politely, respectfully, without arrogance and without threats of violence, the rebel leaders announced they had no permits to enter but that they would pass the gates nonetheless. They showed the Shogun’s guards their repeating rifles and their katanas.

  They pointed to the dirigibles above, bristling with crewmen holding rifles, with the heavier cannon extending out of their portholes on the lower hulls of the airships.

  “There is our permit.”

  The defending bakufu soldiers glanced uneasily above.

  “We do not wish to harm you,” stated each daimyō calmly. “The Americans are coming and we are here to protect the capital.”

  “We know nothing of Americans. You cannot pass without a permit.”

  “We need no permit. We have come to defend the realm. Join us.”

  The rebels then stood quietly, impassively, sometimes for hours in the hot summer sun, in groups of fifty, one hundred, several hundred, a thousand. They waited patiently until the frightened guards opened the gates before them without further challenge. Some processions waited by the gates through the night, to find the post abandoned by dawn, allowing them to enter. They left a handful of their own men to police the gates and welcome the next rebel daimyō procession.

  A few Shogunate guards made brave charges against the overwhelming odds, but were gingerly captured alive and disarmed by rebel soldiers determined not to shed Japanese blood. Soon the Tōkaidō was clogged with former bakufu guards heading west, leaving behind their Tokugawa uniforms and escaping the reach of the Shogun’s wrath and punishment for their failure to keep the rebels out. A handful accepted the invitation to join the insurgents.

  The rebel lords braced for a counterattack from the tens of thousands of troops in Chiyoda Castle, but whether due to the Shogun’s illness or Lord Abe’s calming influence, the Shogun’s main forces stayed inside their barracks in the Chiyoda compound.

  More rebel troops landed in the city’s center by air, on troop transport dirigibles, bypassing the Shogun’s gates altogether. A fleet of dirigibles that grew in number each week hovered above the Edo compounds of the great daimyō lords.

  Returning dirigibles lifted the wives and children and servants of the lords to safety, carrying them over the Shogun’s checkpoints, navigating by the Tōkaidō to the west, and the newly christened Tōhokudō to the north, back to their homes in the countryside, where they were safe and protected by trusted retainers.


  Entire forests were leveled in weeks to provide fuel for the airships, coal being scarce without open trade. Day and night without ceasing, the growing fleet of airships ferried troops and supplies into the capital and carried vulnerable families away.

  The common people watched the airships overhead with dread. What were these ships in the sky? Why were these armies in the city? Where had the Shogun and his troops gone? Who were the barbarian Americans and why were they coming? Soon a trickle of frightened commoners flowed west and north along the Tōkaidō and the Tōhokudō, returning to a countryside they found safer than living in a city full of soldiers. Their ragged bundles of possessions strapped to their backs, or carried on poles, they trudged home to their ancestral lands, dodging yet more processions of soldiers traveling east and south to the capital.

  Along the coastline, converging on Edo Bay, swarmed another of Tōru and Jiro’s inventions, a fleet of steam-powered underwater ships, tiny vessels, only big enough for crews of four brave men. These could pass invisibly beneath the waves and then rise to attack, firing a single big gun. They were prone to capsize and sink, and the guns occasionally backfired, with fatal results for their courageous test crews. But Tōru and Jiro were certain it would take only a few of these to sink even the largest American warship.

  It took weeks to gather them all, weeks in which daily reports were transmitted to all the lords of the Americans’ progress in re-supplying their ships. Satsuma men disguised as dockhands loitering on the harbor docks in Naha Harbor made careful counts of the American crews and analyzed the capabilities of their ships. Never was a fleet more carefully observed in all the history of ships.

  As they gathered in Edo, each daimyō went to his own compound, the home where he had always stayed when in attendance at the Shogun’s court, calmly and in good order, as though coming to the capital for the normal sankin kotai rotation. However, this time their families were safely back in strongholds on their own domains, rescued and sent to safety by dirigible, like Lady Tōmatsu’s now famous escape. Their homes in Edo overflowed with soldiers, both samurai and commoner, braced and ready to defend the capital. The shouts of squads drilling day and night competed with the cries of merchants calling their wares and priests chanting prayers in the cacophony that was the daily hum of the huge city.