Chapter 1099: The Celestial Dynasty's Samurai Swords (Please Subscribe)

"Ah!"

"Hah!"

These were the shouts of two women. In the martial arts hall (really just a gymnasium) beside the Cool Breeze Pavilion of the East Lake Palace, Tokugawa Taka was facing off against a girl about her own age, testing their martial skills! Not hand-to-hand, not swordsmanship, but spear techniques. There were no real long spears, of course; both women held long, slender wooden rods, one end of each wrapped in a round cloth ball dusted with white powder.

But the two of them were not using the rods to thrust or strike at each other; instead they were striking poses, punctuated now and then with loud, fierce shouts.

Zhu Cilang and Wu Sanmei sat side by side, watching with rapt attention — though the two of them were looking at very different things!

Wu Sanmei was an expert, someone who understood spear techniques, so she was watching their stances, nodding as she watched — the poses were quite good, clearly the result of genuine training.

Zhu Cilang had little interest in fancy spear-play, but he was very much interested in the two women's figures and faces. Both women wore kendo uniforms cinched tight at the waist; the already tall Tokugawa Taka showed off a slim waist and long legs. The girl facing her was shorter, but her chest was full and upright. Both small faces were set tight. The tall girl had a long face with slender, high-arched brows — she really did have a certain heroic bearing. The other girl had a round face and very large eyes, glaring wide in an expression of extreme ferocity.

Both were beauties, and both were quite good at striking poses. Once they had settled into their stances, they did not so much as twitch; they simply glared at each other with those two pairs of beautiful eyes.

Zhu Cilang stroked his beard and admired them with a smile. No need to keep looking at the tall girl — better to look at the short one. She was a bit short; by his estimate, about one meter fifty-something, which was not short among Japanese of this era. But the girl looked a little fierce, biting her white teeth, eyes wide with fury. It was said she also possessed excellent martial skills — she was a successor of the Takada branch of the Hozoin school, named Takada Miho, and she had a grandfather skilled with the great spear, called Takada Yarihyoe or something of the sort. This Takada girl had studied spear techniques with her grandfather and father since childhood and had already received the true transmission.

Originally she was to have entered the Ooku to protect that foolish shogun, but as it happened, when the tall girl was married off far away, Tokugawa Mitsukuni arranged for her to become a lady-in-waiting and come along to China.

The tall girl was also a lass who liked playing with spears and staves, so the two of them got along well and often practiced together. Somehow Wu Sanmei happened to see them, and after Sanmei mentioned it to Zhu Cilang, today's exhibition match was arranged.

But Zhu Cilang had not seen any martial skill at all in this little Japanese wench. Instead, a certain wicked impulse stirred in him. What was this little Japanese wench's status? A court lady? A palace maid? If she was a court lady, it would be a bit troublesome; if she was a palace maid, then he could have his way with her.

The Zhu Emperor was watching so raptly that he forgot he was supposed to be watching a martial contest. Just then, Takada Miho suddenly let out a fierce shout, and the long staff in her hand shot out like lightning. The tall girl hastily swung her staff to parry, but she was half a beat too slow — a white dot appeared on the chest of her blue kendo uniform.

"Excellent!" Wu Sanmei called out.

Zhu Cilang, however, was startled. How could she be so fast? Could this little wench actually have some real skill? Better not bully her after all. Later he would issue an edict promoting her to the rank of Selected Attendant!

With that thought, Zhu Cilang smiled and nodded, then spoke in Japanese: "Yoshi, little Takada girl, you — come here!"

"Hai!" Takada Miho actually understood the Zhu Emperor's "Japanese." She quickly set down her wooden staff and came bouncing over to Zhu Cilang, knelt, kowtowed once, and then prostrated herself before him.

She looked quite obedient.

"You — raise your head!" the Zhu Emperor said.

"Hai!"

Takada Miho answered, straightened her body, and knelt sitting before the Zhu Emperor, her small chest thrust out high.

Zhu Cilang smiled and beckoned to the tall girl: "Tall girl, you come over too!"

Tokugawa Taka immediately set down her long spear and came before Zhu Cilang. Like Takada Miho, she first saluted, then knelt sitting, and like Miho, raised her small face to look at the Zhu Emperor.

"Tall girl," Zhu Cilang said, using Tokugawa Taka's nickname directly, "your elder brother's formal memorial arrived in Wuhan yesterday. He has already recruited a full 10,000 samurai for Us in Nagasaki!"

"10,000 samurai? How can there be so many?" Tokugawa Taka said in surprise. "Nagasaki and the Goto Islands do not have much kokudaka at all."

The Goto Islands had a kokudaka of a little over ten thousand koku. Nagasaki was a commercial city, and while its customs revenue was considerable, those customs duties had to be handed over to the shogunate and did not belong to Tokugawa Taka's bath-grant fief. So Nagasaki plus the Goto Islands amounted in total to only about one hundred thousand koku of assessed yield, with actual income somewhere between forty and fifty thousand koku.

Such a small income could not possibly support 10,000 samurai.

Zhu Cilang smiled: "We have plenty of money. We are paying the equivalent of a New Army soldier's pay at samurai rank in Our dynasty to recruit one Japanese samurai in Nagasaki — about forty taels of silver a year."

"That is 400,000 taels!" Tokugawa Taka was deeply moved. "Your Majesty has spent a fortune for the sake of the Tokugawa house!"

Zhu Cilang waved his hand and laughed: "We are not recruiting ronin in Nagasaki solely to help the Tokugawa house. While helping the Tokugawa, We also intend to organize several samurai corps for operations in the Southern Ocean."

Recruiting Japanese samurai to fight on the Southern Ocean battlefields was certainly not a correct thing to do!

So Zhu Cilang had hesitated for a long while. Only recently, because of the land exchange with Siam and the fierce resistance of the Pattani Sultanate, had he finally been forced to make up his mind and carry it out on a large scale.

And the incorrectness of this matter lay not only in recruiting Japanese samurai to fight in the Southern Ocean, but also in the arrangements to be made after the fighting.

Zhu Cilang continued: "After the Pattani campaign is completed, 1,000 samurai will receive hereditary land grants in Pattani!"

Truly, how incorrect!

The Zhu Emperor was not only going to use Japanese samurai, but would also enfeoff part of the conquered land to meritorious samurai, letting them settle and multiply in the Southern Ocean region.

Doing this was of course wrong. The fighting could be overlooked, but the land should not be given away!

The land should be distributed to landless peasants of the homeland! That would of course be the correct thing to do — but in practice it would not work.

Because what was about to happen in the Southern Ocean was a clash between two civilizational spheres!

Clashes between civilizations are sometimes not only brutal but also protracted. Only the side that can sustain brutality over the long term can win such a clash.

And within the Celestial civilization's sphere, who are the most brutal?

China's landless old peasants? Everyone knows they are not up to it. If they were fierce enough, how could there have been a Yuan dynasty and a Qing dynasty in history? If they were the peasants of the Seven Warring States, or of the Han and Three Kingdoms periods, perhaps they could do it.

But the peasants of the Ming dynasty — most of them are not up to it. Some might point to the fighting strength of the Hakka peasants. True, the Hakka are formidable, but not the Hakka of the late Ming — rather the Hakka of the late Qing.

Moreover, the ferocity of the Hakka and the ferocity of the Japanese samurai are two entirely different types.

The former are a laboring class; farming is their main occupation, and fighting is merely a means of securing a piece of arable land. It would be more suitable to send them to develop the sparsely populated, land-rich Americas Bay, or to Siam, or to the territory of the Jin'ou Army.

The latter are a ruling class; cutting people down and suppressing them is their main occupation! Placing them on the outermost edge of the Celestial civilization's sphere should allow them to serve the same function as the Dzungar tribe.

As for sending retired veterans to the very front line of the Southern Ocean — what did they ever do wrong? Why should they be exiled to such a miasmic, pestilential place?

Besides, apart from the Nine Frontiers Youth Army soldiers, most of the Ming army's soldiers have little education, unlike those Japanese samurai who are versed in both literary and martial arts. And these retired Ming soldiers not only lack education, they also lack firm religious faith. Sent to the Southern Ocean, they might well end up following the enemy.

By comparison, the Japanese samurai of this era, if paired with the lecherous monks of Hongan-ji, are relatively steadfast.

The Zhu Emperor finally said to Tokugawa Taka: "Tall girl, you are the lord of Nagasaki. Those men are nominally your retainers. You must make a trip to Nagasaki to receive their written oaths, disburse their stipends, and appoint the council of elders that will command the domain's army."

(End of Chapter)