Chapter 965: My Lord, Even If You Jumped into Kagoshima Bay, You Could Not Wash Yourself Clean!

Satsuma Province, Kagoshima Castle.

Shimazu Mitsuhisa, grandfather of Satsuma domain lord Shimazu Tsunataka, now claimed to be living in retirement, but in reality he still held full power in his hands — even more than when he had served as domain lord.

Because being domain lord meant attending the alternate attendance system, going to Edo at regular intervals to serve the Tokugawa shogun. And Edo was simply too far from Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, so the time Mitsuhisa spent on the road and residing in Edo far exceeded the time he spent handling government affairs at Kagoshima Castle.

And Japan's domestic communications at that time were very poor, with no postal relay system; sending word from Satsuma Province to Edo routinely took months. So in the era when Shimazu Mitsuhisa governed as domain lord, his control over the domain was not even as strong as it was now!

Yet however strong his control over Satsuma domain was, he could not change one fundamental "domain reality" of Satsuma — too many samurai!

In Japan at that time, "samurai" had a double definition: first, a status; second, a profession.

Any man born into a samurai family, so long as he did not shave his head and enter the priesthood, was a samurai by status — even if utterly destitute, he was still a samurai a cut above commoners, with the right to bear swords and to bear a surname. If a commoner offended a samurai, the samurai even had the right to cut him down!

Of course, having the right to cut people down did not mean one could cut people down at will. Because commoners also had masters — even beating a dog required looking at its owner, let alone cutting a man down? Broadly speaking, unless the victim was one's own retainer, cutting someone down brought a heap of trouble afterward. The master of the slain commoner would certainly come looking for trouble, and if that commoner's master happened to be His Excellency the Shogun, then the samurai who did the cutting would be bound and hauled off to the magistrate's office to await judgment. A dignified samurai, trussed up like a criminal and taken away to await his fate, perhaps even put on public display — would he have any face left?

If the slain commoner belonged to some powerful domain with a prickly disposition, then the samurai who did the cutting very likely would be cut down by warriors sent from that domain — commoners paid taxes to their domain lord; if they were all cut down by outsiders, how was the domain lord supposed to collect taxes?

Moreover, the domain lord had his own face to consider. If commoners under him were casually cut down by outsiders, what became of his face? If he didn't cut back, wouldn't he become a laughingstock?

In short, the right to cut people down existed, but before cutting, one had better weigh the matter carefully — don't let it end with having to slice open your own belly in apology. That really hurts!

And the other definition of samurai was as a profession. Japanese samurai were originally just a profession — household retainers and enforcers for the court nobles. Only later did they rise up and seize power, toppling the court nobles and taking over the government, which was when they became so high and mighty. After becoming high and mighty, in order to solidify their class, they set up the threshold of being born into samurai status. But people who could be born into the right family were always far more numerous than people who could actually become samurai!

Because the number of samurai posts was limited, and samurai families did not practice family planning — they bred freely!

Besides, samurai still had certain privileges, looked rather imposing, and had more opportunities to rise in the world, so very few people were willing to quit the group.

Therefore every domain in Japan had a trend of ever more samurai (in the status sense). But the stipends each domain could pay out, and the territories it could distribute, were limited. Broadly speaking, the number of samurai employed by each Japanese domain was tied to its kokudaka. Usually ten thousand koku could support at most 250 samurai — and this was only the theoretical maximum! Because a domain's finances had many expenses; it could not spend everything on samurai, and the domain lord himself also had to spend money!

Even if the domain lord could live on pickles and rice every day, the domain lord's pomp and the expenses of alternate attendance could not be avoided.

Moreover, samurai stipends varied in size; they were not equal. Samurai receiving little money got only twenty or thirty koku of brown rice a year, while those receiving much could get several thousand koku!

So ten thousand koku of kokudaka usually supported only a few dozen samurai. For Satsuma domain's 725,000 koku, supporting three or four thousand samurai was already the absolute limit.

But in Satsuma domain, the number of people holding samurai status was simply far, far too great!

Because the Shimazu house of Satsuma had once prospered during the Warring States period. During the rule of the sixteenth head of the Shimazu house, Shimazu Yoshihisa, the Shimazu had nearly unified all of Kyushu. Later, because of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Kyushu campaign, they had been forced to submit, and as the price of submission, the Shimazu territory was reduced to 605,000 koku. Later, because of the expedition against Ryukyu, the Tokugawa shogunate converted Satsuma domain's rights in Ryukyu into 120,000 koku, making a total of 725,000 koku.

Compared with the Shimazu house's heyday, when it held nearly all of Kyushu, Satsuma domain's present holdings were a miserable decline.

But that was not the worst of it. The worst thing for the Shimazu house was that Toyotomi Hideyoshi could reduce the Shimazu territory, but the Shimazu house could not casually reduce its retainers, still less strip anyone of samurai status!

The Shimazu house's retainer corps at its height had been very large — it could not have been small and still occupied most of Kyushu!

These retainers were all meritorious vassals who had followed Shimazu Yoshihisa and Shimazu Yoshihiro in conquering the realm; they could not simply be laid off! Even if some could be dismissed, their samurai status could not be stripped!

So from the day Satsuma domain was founded, it had the problem of too many samurai — many stipended domain samurai, and even more unstipended country samurai (samurai with no stipend, but with the right to wear swords and samurai status, permitted to engage in farming and exempt from the annual land tax).

And among Satsuma domain's five or six hundred thousand people, those holding samurai status numbered over a hundred thousand! Among them, those who were strong and able-bodied, eligible for service, and capable of cutting people down numbered at least several tens of thousands!

Of those several tens of thousands of samurai, at most three or four thousand could gain employment and become domain samurai. The so-called powerful domain of Satsuma was in fact strong in samurai (so many men!) but weak as a domain (running at a loss), with finances in deficit year after year, able only to borrow to get by.

And those samurai who had no chance of employment were mostly in difficult straits, and they longed for the day when they could enter service!

And the dreams of these samurai could be realized in only one circumstance: that Satsuma domain launched a war to overthrow the shogunate and challenge the authority of the Tokugawa shogunate.

If Satsuma domain could succeed in its counterattack, then everyone would receive generous stipends and become hatamoto lords with no worries about food or clothing!

If it failed — heh heh.

And after Shimazu Mitsuhisa returned to the domain and went into retirement, Satsuma domain's finances not only did not improve, but instead showed an even greater deficit because of the shrinking of the Ryukyu trade — the 120,000 koku Satsuma domain received from Ryukyu was not land output, but was converted from trade income. Now that the Great Ming had been founded and Japan had also increased its openness, the Ryukyu controlled by Satsuma domain was inevitably in decline, and Satsuma's foreign trade income was approaching exhaustion.

Under these circumstances, Satsuma domain had no choice but to find ways to cut expenditures, and the cuts in turn caused the incomes of lower-ranking domain samurai to fall. So the Satsuma domain samurai, who had originally been fairly content, now began to stir restlessly. Not only did they not help Shimazu Mitsuhisa suppress the lower ranks, but quite a few of them, influenced by the so-called Toyotomi loyalists, began indulging in the delusion of overthrowing the shogunate.

Every few days some fellow with an unclear head would submit a memorial of remonstrance to Shimazu Hisamitsu, advising him to contact Choshu domain, which hated the shogunate, and to summon the domain's men of purpose and raise the great banner of overthrowing the shogunate and honoring the emperor.

Just when the financial problems plus a crowd of muddle-headed domain samurai and country samurai were giving Shimazu Hisamitsu no end of trouble, his nephew Nejime Kiyoo suddenly arrived aboard a Spanish sailing ship in the bay outside Kagoshima Castle — and he brought Shimazu Hisamitsu a bolt from the blue!

The Spanish had just expelled the Great Ming's commercial supervisor from the Kingdom of Ryukyu, and now the Kingdom of Ryukyu was jointly held by Satsuma domain and Spain!

"My lord, there is no way out!" Nejime Kiyoo, a member of the Shimazu house and a clan elder, knelt before the dumbfounded Shimazu Hisamitsu and said through tears, "Now even if you jumped into Kagoshima Bay outside the castle, you could not wash yourself clean!"

"Wash myself clean?" Shimazu Hisamitsu said, feigning composure. "What do I need to wash clean?"

"The suspicion of colluding with the Spanish to overthrow the shogunate, of course."

"I — I am innocent! I have never colluded with the Spanish, and I do not believe in the Catholic faith!"

Nejime Kiyoo sighed. "But while the Spanish expelled the Ming forces, they protected Satsuma domain's interests in the Kingdom of Ryukyu."

(End of chapter)