Chapter 1118: The Queen Will Not Abdicate; the Queen Wants to Marry (Seeking Subscriptions)

The Imperial Palace in Kyoto, Japan, covers only a small area — a little over four hundred paces from east to west and eight or nine hundred paces from north to south, roughly one-tenth the size of the Forbidden City in Nanjing. The buildings within the palace are all steeped in a strong Tang-dynasty style, though they lack the grandeur of the High Tang; at the very least they cannot compare with the Tang imperial palace, and at best they amount to a princely residence. Even within Japan, the Imperial Palace hardly counts as luxurious — it simply cannot be compared with Edo Castle. The difference is far too great! Even the castles of many powerful domain lords are more beautiful than the Kyoto Imperial Palace.

Moreover, the materials used to build the Kyoto Imperial Palace are of very poor quality. To put it kindly, it is frugality; to put it bluntly, it is shoddy workmanship, and a shabby, impoverished air shows everywhere. There are also quite a few places that have fallen into disrepair, with no money to fix them, so they just make do as best they can. If something actually collapses someday, the shogunate will still hand over a bit of money to rebuild it.

But however dilapidated the Kyoto Imperial Palace may be, the person living inside it is, after all, still the nominal master of Japan — the descendant of a charlatan.

So the dim-witted shogun and Tokugawa Mitsukuni, having come up to Kyoto, still had to go and pay their respects.

The place where the Emperor received Tokugawa Ietsuna and Tokugawa Mitsukuni was the Shishinden, which is also the main hall of the Kyoto Imperial Palace. When the shogun and the Great Elder arrived, it was raining outside, so the inside of the Shishinden was dripping wet as well. Several wooden basins had been set on the floor to catch the rainwater leaking through the roof.

Still, the spot where Ietsuna and Mitsukuni knelt was dry, and seven or eight court nobles seated on either side had likewise chosen places where no water dripped. Only the Kampaku, Nijō Mitsuhira, was rather unlucky — he sat right beside a wooden basin catching water, sighing and lamenting!

He was not sighing because the Shishinden leaked. Whose house didn't leak? These Kyoto court nobles had long grown accustomed to a life of drafty, leaking houses and being dunned by usurious merchants until they had to hide out in some rundown temple for a few days. Court nobles — isn't that just how their lives go? When the rice stipend comes, they pay their debts; once the debts are paid, they go on borrowing; once they've borrowed, they sing waka, write Chinese poems, and play at being artistic youths, artistic middle-aged men, artistic old men — and before they know it, a whole lifetime has passed.

Glory, splendor, wealth, and rank — those are all stories from The Tale of Genji, and cannot possibly be real.

But Nijō Mitsuhira, who had a hereditary stipend of over one thousand koku yet owed more than five thousand koku in usurious debt (not all incurred in his own generation), could never have imagined that this court-noble life of barely having enough to eat, with debts that could never be fully repaid, would one day come to an end!

It is about to end now. If the imperial house itself is to be done away with, can the court-noble houses still exist? In the future, without the stipend of over one thousand koku, and still saddled with a mountain of usurious debt, how is one to live? Will one starve to death? Will one be hacked to death by debt-collecting samurai?

Thinking of all this, Nijō Mitsuhira was on the verge of tears!

Just as he was about to cry but had not yet done so, a clatter of footsteps sounded on the wooden floor of the corridor outside the Shishinden. Then two attendants drew back the blinds, and the Inner Minister Ichijō Fuyutsura appeared before the assembly and announced in a loud voice: "His Majesty the Emperor arrives! Her Majesty the Retired Emperor Meishō-in arrives! All officials, make your obeisance!"

What? Why has the Retired Emperor Meishō-in come? She hasn't suddenly gotten worked up and come to denounce traitors and rebels, has she? Please, anything but that, Nijō Mitsuhira thought to himself. I still want to starve to death in peace and quiet — don't go provoking the shogun and getting me hacked to death!

The Kampaku even forgot to cry, and hastily shot a meaningful glance at the Minister of the Left, Takatsukasa Fusasuke, seated across from him.

The Minister of the Left was equally baffled. Meishō-in had been in retirement for over a decade, living quietly and peacefully all along. What was going on today? What did she want?

The blinds were lowered again, which meant the Emperor and the Retired Emperor were about to come out — descendants of the gods, after all, could not be casually seen by people, so they had to be screened off with blinds.

All the ministers prostrated themselves together in greeting, intoning: "Long live the Emperor! Long live the Retired Emperor!"

From behind the blinds, the Emperor spoke in a lilting tone: "All ministers, rise."

Everyone straightened up and turned their gaze toward the gauze blinds, through which they could faintly make out two people seated side by side.

Then the Emperor spoke again: "We recently fell suddenly gravely ill and have been confined to bed, unable to govern. After consulting with the Retired Emperor Go-Mizunoo-in, We have resolved to abdicate and yield the throne to the Retired Emperor Meishō. From this day forward, the Retired Emperor Meishō shall once again assume the throne as Emperor!"

What? The Emperor has just been changed, just like that!

The assembly was stunned, when suddenly Tokugawa Mitsukuni cried out: "Your subject Minamoto Mitsukuni congratulates Her Majesty Meishō-in on her restoration and re-accession as Emperor!"

That settled the matter once and for all!

The dim-witted shogun held no real power. At present, Japan was jointly ruled by the two Great Elders of the shogunate! The Great Elder Hoshina Masayuki was at the front supervising the army, so the one actually wielding shogunal authority was this Tokugawa Mitsukuni.

Once Mitsukuni had made his position known, a chorus of congratulations followed.

The abdicated Emperor Go-Sai sighed, rose, and departed. Behind the gauze blinds, only the female Emperor Meishō remained.

"Roll up the gauze blinds!" From behind the blinds, the female Emperor Meishō issued an order that took most of those present by surprise.

Nijō Mitsuhira was just about to speak up and object when he suddenly noticed Tokugawa Mitsukuni glaring at him fiercely, and he hastily shut his mouth.

When the gauze blinds were rolled up, all the ministers lowered their heads, not daring to look the Emperor in the face. The female Emperor Meishō spoke again: "All of you, raise your heads and look at me."

No one but Tokugawa Mitsukuni and Tokugawa Ietsuna dared raise their heads.

Mitsukuni looked at his older female cousin — a woman of thirty-six, but very well preserved, with a rosy complexion, fine skin, a full bosom, and regular features. Though she could not be called a first-rate beauty, she was still a woman of considerable charm.

"Mito Dainagon," the female Emperor asked, "for what purpose have you and the shogun come to Kyoto?"

"Your Majesty," Tokugawa Mitsukuni said, "last year the Great General of the Ming, Wu Sangui, while building a city wall, dug into the tomb of the First Emperor and obtained a batch of bamboo slips. On them is recorded that the Qin-dynasty alchemist Xu Fu sailed east and sought to be enfeoffed as the King of Yamato, the Divine Warrior. The Ming Emperor has already dispatched envoys to Japan, wishing to investigate whether this matter is true or false.

Your Majesty, was the Divine Warrior, the founding emperor, truly the Qin alchemist Xu Fu?"

Everyone's heart leaped into their throat.

"The Divine Warrior, the founding emperor, was indeed Xu Fu!" the female Emperor replied. "Our great Yamato dynasty is the enterprise founded by Xu Fu's eastward voyage. Within the palace, there has always been preserved the imperial edict by which the First Emperor enfeoffed our ancestor as the King of Yamato, the Divine Warrior!"

She admitted it?

It's over.

The court nobles, one after another, seemed to deflate like punctured bladders, all collapsing limply to the floor in prostration.

If the Emperor is not a god, what is to become of them?

"Then... does the palace possess the elixir of immortality?" Tokugawa Mitsukuni asked gravely. "If there is an elixir of immortality, the Celestial Court will certainly not hold this against us."

"There is no such immortal medicine... how could there possibly be such a thing?" the female Emperor said. "Therefore I have already decided to abolish the presumptuous title of Emperor. Henceforth, the ruler of Japan shall be called the Great King of Japan, or Queen. From today on, I am Queen Meishō!"

Is that all?

The court nobles could scarcely believe their ears!

Now that things have come to this, can it really be settled so easily? Change the Empress to a Queen, and the Ming will simply let the matter drop? Will the Tokugawa house spare the court?

Will the Tokugawa army of a hundred thousand that has marched on Kyoto simply withdraw obediently?

Tokugawa Mitsukuni said in a loud voice: "Your Highness the Queen, the Celestial Court has not only sent envoys — it has also dispatched an army by land and sea. Without the elixir of immortality, the matter of presumptuously claiming the imperial title will probably not be so easily concluded!"

Queen Meishō smiled and said: "So long as the court and the shogunate can unite as one, there is no difficulty that cannot be overcome. Mito Dainagon, what do you think?"

"Your Highness the Queen speaks wisely," Mitsukuni said with a smile. "But how, precisely, should the court and the shogunate unite?"

The Queen said: "We are a Queen, and We have no consort. If a man of outstanding talent and wisdom could be chosen from the Tokugawa house to be the Queen's husband, then would not the court and the shogunate become one? Once the court and the shogunate are one, and we then negotiate with the Celestial Court, how could we possibly fail?"

"That..." Tokugawa Mitsukuni seemed to sink into deep thought. After a moment, he merely murmured, "I only wonder who in the Tokugawa house is the cleverest?"

The Queen smiled and looked at the foolish-looking Tokugawa Ietsuna. "Shogun, you tell us. Who in the Tokugawa house is the cleverest? Who is most suited to be Our husband?"

Tokugawa Ietsuna gave a silly grin: "The cleverest man in the Tokugawa house is, of course, the Mito Dainagon. And the most suited to be the Queen's husband should also be him, no?"

The court nobles were utterly dumbfounded by what was unfolding before their eyes!

Had the two cousins (Queen Meishō was Tokugawa Mitsukuni's older female cousin) colluded long ago to usurp the throne together? And the shogun was such a fool — how could he let this pair of scheming lovers get away with it?

(End of Chapter)