Chapter 1117: Descendants of the Spirit Medium (Seeking Subscriptions)

There are no walls in this world that do not leak wind, and besides, Kyoto, the capital of Japan, had no walls at all, so there was nothing to stop the news that the Emperor was very likely not a god from spreading wildly through this ancient city.

The rumor that the first emperor, Emperor Jimmu, was actually Xu Fu, the alchemist who had been sent by the First Emperor to seek the immortals at sea, had in fact long existed within Japan. But it was only a joke told over tea after meals; no one took it seriously, and no one had ever wanted to investigate it closely. Still less had anyone considered how severe the consequences would be once this rumor was confirmed!

But in the spring of the third year of Manji, word suddenly spread through the streets and alleys of Kyoto that Emperor Jimmu really was Xu Fu, the Qin dynasty alchemist — that this legend, which had circulated in Japan for who knew how many years, was actually true! The subordinates of the great general Wu Sangui, who was fighting the roving bandits in Shaanxi Province of China, had dug up a burial pit accompanying the First Emperor's mausoleum while building a fortress on Mount Li, and among the finds were bamboo slips recording how Xu Fu had petitioned the First Emperor to be enfeoffed as King of the Divine Martial Wa.

This was catastrophic! Emperor Jimmu was actually not a descendant of the gods, but an alchemist who had deceived Qin Shi Huang!

Moreover, this alchemist who had swindled the First Emperor had had the shamelessness to petition the First Emperor to be enfeoffed as King of the Divine Martial Wa — if this matter were confirmed, then the Yamato court had been a subject of the Celestial Emperor from the very beginning! This was completely different in nature from the later "tribute of the Five Kings of Wa." The former was equivalent to a "franchisee," while the latter was equivalent to a "subsidiary."

If one placed "Xu Fu's request to be enfeoffed as King of the Divine Martial Wa" side by side with the "tribute of the Five Kings of Wa" from China's Northern and Southern Dynasties period, then the nature of the "tribute of the Five Kings of Wa" also became a continuation of Xu Fu's enfeeffment. And the event of Empress Suiko proclaiming herself Emperor in the early years of the Sui dynasty was nothing less than outright rebellion!

And what made the people of Kyoto even more terrified was that the Kyoto Shoshidai had already issued a proclamation that the Shogun Ietsuna would soon lead a hundred thousand troops up to the capital to investigate whether Emperor Jimmu was truly Xu Fu, the alchemist of the state of Qin!

What does "the Foolish Kubo" mean? Leading a hundred thousand troops up to the capital just to determine whether Emperor Jimmu was Xu Fu? Did this matter require a hundred thousand bakufu soldiers? The common people of Kyoto were clever enough — how could they possibly be fooled by the Foolish Kubo? If he was bringing a hundred thousand troops up to the capital, he was surely going to become a traitorous subject and rebel!

So as soon as the news spread, the streets and alleys of Kyoto erupted in an uproar.

"What does the Kubo want to do? Why bring a hundred thousand troops to investigate the true identity of Emperor Jimmu? Could it be that once it is confirmed that Emperor Jimmu was Xu Fu, he intends to overthrow His Majesty the Emperor?"

"That is the act of a traitorous subject and rebel! That is an evil deed that even the Shogun of the Rising Sun would not have dared to commit. Is the Tokugawa Shogun not afraid of becoming a man despised by all under heaven?"

"The Western Army has not yet been destroyed. If the Tokugawa Shogun dares to commit an act of disloyalty, then he is a traitor to the nation, and all under heaven will be his enemy. When that time comes, the Tokugawa house will be finished!"

"Exactly. If the Kubo dares to overstep and act disloyally, then righteousness lies with the Western Army."

"Right, righteousness lies with the Western Army!"

It must be said that the people of Kyoto still deeply revered the imperial house, even though the imperial house was very likely a family of frauds rather than descendants of the gods. But they had been deceiving people for so many years that the people of Kyoto had grown accustomed to being deceived and did not want to change to someone new to deceive them.

However, public opinion among the common people changed quickly. By early in the second month, after news reached Kyoto that the bakufu Tairō Hoshina Masayuki had won a great victory at the Battle of Katsuyama in Bitchū, routing a combined army of fifty thousand from the Mōri and Asano clans, the townspeople began to feel that it was, after all, not good for the imperial house to deceive people!

"It really is too outrageous. Deceiving us for over a thousand years — aren't they treating us like fools!"

"Truly worthy of being the descendants of a spirit medium — all they know is putting on mystical airs and deceiving everyone."

"Fine, deceive people if you must, but it would have been enough to be King of Japan. Why did they have to call themselves Emperor? That is usurpation!"

"Exactly. If Empress Suiko could betray the Celestial Court, why can't His Highness the Kubo betray the Emperor?"

By late in the second month, when word arrived that a hundred thousand bakufu troops (in reality only twenty thousand) had left Edo and were advancing grandly toward Kyoto, public opinion among the common people of Kyoto shifted once again.

"They've been deceiving us for over a thousand years. It's about time to change to someone new to do the deceiving!"

"Actually, it's not a complete change of person. The Shogun's house descends from the Seiwa Genji, and tracing back to the roots, they too are descendants of Xu Fu!"

"Right, right. They're all descendants of Xu Fu, so why can't the Kubo become King?"

"The realm of Japan has always belonged to the Kubo. The so-called Emperor is merely thirty thousand koku. Not to mention compared with the Shogun's house, which holds four million koku — he doesn't even compare with most of the domain lords!"

The imperial house's thirty thousand koku was in fact also nominal. What they possessed was not a piece of land capable of producing thirty thousand koku of brown rice, but merely the right to receive thirty thousand koku of brown rice from the bakufu. Moreover, the Emperor could not spend these thirty thousand koku of brown rice as he pleased; the accounts were managed by samurai whom the bakufu had assigned to the imperial house — when Tokugawa Ieyasu's granddaughter Kazuko entered the palace to marry Emperor Go-Mizunoo, she had brought some samurai with her as attendant vassals, and from then on the imperial house's thirty thousand koku of brown rice had been under their management.

Besides the imperial house's thirty thousand koku, Kyoto also contained a crowd of beggarly court nobles, whose stipends added together came to about another thirty thousand koku. A total of sixty thousand koku of brown rice was the entire kokudaka of the Emperor of Japan and his court nobles — to the Tokugawa bakufu, it was not worth mentioning at all.

Thus what had always sustained the imperial house was not actual power, but divine status — the Emperor was a descendant of the gods!

But now, the descendants of the gods had become the descendants of a spirit medium.

So when the "hundred thousand troops" led by the Foolish Kubo Ietsuna grandly marched into Kyoto, the people of Kyoto, like the people of Beijing in the jiashen year, had already mustered the enthusiasm for welcoming a new master, and had all put on their finest clothes to greet him respectfully along the broad streets of the city.

All of Kyoto was waiting for the arrival of Ietsuna, the new King of Japan!

Of course, there were also those unwilling to let Tokugawa Ietsuna become King — such as Emperor Go-Sai — but he too lacked the strength to block Ietsuna. So when Tokugawa Mitsukuni, bearing Tokugawa Ietsuna's authority, grandly entered and occupied Nijō Castle in Kyoto, the desperate Emperor Go-Sai had no choice but to seek out his father, the Retired Emperor Go-Mizunoo, his elder sister, the Retired Empress Meishō, and his legal mother, the Empress Dowager Tōfukumon'in Minamoto no Kazuko, to discuss countermeasures.

Both the Retired Empress Meishō and the Empress Dowager Tōfukumon'in Minamoto no Kazuko carried Tokugawa blood. Minamoto no Kazuko was Tokugawa Kazuko, the daughter of the second shogun Hidetada, and was fifty-three years old this year.

The Retired Empress Meishō was Kazuko's daughter. After Emperor Go-Mizunoo abdicated, she had become a female emperor at the age of only seven, and was now no more than thirty-six.

If there was anyone in the imperial house who could still stop Tokugawa Ietsuna and Tokugawa Mitsukuni, it could only be these two women.

"We absolutely must not acknowledge that the late Emperor Jimmu was Xu Fu. If we acknowledge it, then everything is finished!" Tokugawa Kazuko was, after all, Tokugawa Ieyasu's granddaughter, and in politics she was somewhat more astute than Emperor Go-Sai. She immediately pointed out the crux of the problem.

"B-but Ietsuna is leading a hundred thousand troops up to the capital." Emperor Go-Sai's voice was trembling slightly.

The Retired Empress Meishō snorted: "So what? As long as you do not acknowledge it, they will not dare usurp the throne. At most they will have you killed! It is no great matter!"

Killed?

"Th-that won't do at all!" Emperor Go-Sai's voice had taken on a tearful note. How could he be killed?

His stepmother and elder sister could not be relied upon, so he could only turn to his Imperial Father for help.

He turned his head to look at his monk father, who had long since renounced the world. "Imperial Father, please say something."

The Retired Emperor Go-Mizunoo merely sighed softly. In the past, by abdicating in favor of his daughter, he had excluded the Tokugawa bloodline from the imperial house, displaying a certain talent for political maneuvering — a female emperor could not marry, and therefore would have no descendants. If he had not abdicated at that time, he might have had a son with Kazuko, and then the Emperor would have become the Tokugawa family's grandson. But now he too was somewhat at his wits' end!

The crisis now facing the imperial house was even greater than the one back then. The Tokugawa house did not want to become the Emperor's maternal grandfather; it wanted to become the true King of Japan!

Once it was acknowledged that Emperor Jimmu was Xu Fu, then truly everything would be finished!

"Imperial Father," the thirty-six-year-old Retired Empress Meishō, seeing her father at a loss, spoke up again, "why not let my younger brother abdicate, and let me become Emperor once more, to shield the imperial house from wind and rain!"

(End of Chapter)