Chapter 1688: The Sound of Cannon Fire Over Edo

The tremendous boom made everything tremble; nearly every face in the room changed color at the same instant.

What was happening? An earthquake? Everyone exchanged bewildered glances, and even Tokugawa Iemitsu looked alarmed and uncertain.

Yet while they were still reeling in shock, another thunderous boom rolled in, as if some deity in the heavens were pounding a war drum with all its might.

Tokugawa Iemitsu was dazed at first, but then, as though a thought had suddenly struck him, his eyes flew wide open and he walked straight to the window.

Because the towering walls at the edge of the main citadel blocked his view, he could not see the outer wards of the city, but the intermittent booms and the faint glow of firelight flickering in the direction of the sea at last confirmed his most terrible suspicion.

He had never imagined they would strike directly, and so soon… these Han pirates…

A wave of dizziness suddenly swept over him; he could barely keep his footing, and only by clutching the window lattice did he manage to steady himself.

No—Edo was too heavily defended. The Han pirates could not possibly have landed directly. Besides, they were currently locked in a standoff with Ii Naotaka's great army. How could they suddenly appear at Edo? This had to be a harassing raid by the Great Han navy's warships.

He collected himself, forcibly burying the fury and unease in his heart, then walked back to where he had been sitting and knelt down once more.

To make himself appear calmer, he picked up the wine cup that had fallen to the floor, poured himself another cup, and drained it in one gulp. But although his movements were steady, everyone could see that his complexion was ghastly pale.

None of the attendants beside him dared utter a word. Only one young servant, the one who normally enjoyed the most favor, mustered the courage to step forward. He carefully bent down and wiped the spilled wine from the tatami matting, his movements so gentle he seemed terrified of making the slightest sound. The entire main hall sank into an eerie, deathly silence.

Only the unceasing roar outside the window made the place feel inhabited by the living.

Not long after, a group of samurai who served in the shogun's personal retinue arrived outside the main hall and were promptly summoned inside.

"Shogun! Han pirates are attacking off the coast of Edo!" The lead samurai knelt and reported, his face full of panic.

Though Tokugawa Iemitsu had long been mentally prepared, hearing the confirmed news still sent a stab of pain through his heart. But he said nothing, merely waiting for the man to continue his report.

"The enemy warships broke into the waters off Edo at dusk. Although our ships did their utmost to intercept them… we… we were still unable to drive off the Han pirate vessels." The samurai kept his head lowered as he reported the news he had just received to the shogun, his voice thick with terror. "The shore batteries outside Edo could not blast open the Han pirate warships either, so now… now the Han pirates are bombarding the Edo coastline…"

Although he knew full well that the Great Han warships were far too formidable and that the shogunate's ships could pose little real threat to them, hearing such helpless words from his subordinate still made Tokugawa Iemitsu want to explode with rage. Yet he also knew that losing his temper would accomplish nothing, so he could only gently set his wine cup back onto the low table.

"That the Han pirate warships would raid here and there was always within our expectations. The main citadel is far from the sea. No matter how formidable their warships are, they cannot bombard us here. They can only fire a few random shots—what use is that?" Tokugawa Iemitsu forced himself to remain composed and spoke with feigned disdain. "Go down now and evacuate the coastal residents to the interior. Then let them waste their cannonballs out at sea. All this proves is that the Han pirates have run out of options…"

Just at that moment, another samurai requested an audience outside the hall.

Because urgent military dispatches had been arriving in a constant stream recently, gaining an audience with Tokugawa Iemitsu was now far easier than before. This samurai was quickly summoned before him.

When he entered, everyone realized that his expression was even worse than that of the man who had just reported the attack off the coast of Edo. He walked to the center of the hall, knelt, and raised the official dispatch in his hands to his brow with both hands. An attendant took the dispatch from him and carefully presented it to Tokugawa Iemitsu.

More bad news? Seeing the man's grave demeanor, Tokugawa Iemitsu felt his heart sink. Had another daimyo rebelled, or had some great disaster befallen Ii Naotaka?

With a deeply ominous premonition, he snatched the dispatch and began to read.

The moment he made out the words written upon it, his eyes suddenly flew wide open. His hands began to tremble violently beyond his control, and then his body swayed gently, his breathing growing ragged.

The wine he had just drunk suddenly churned and roiled in his stomach, bringing a sensation as if the whole world were spinning. Then he suddenly tasted sweetness in his throat, and the wine in his stomach came spewing straight out—streaked with traces of blood.

"Shogun!" Seeing that something was terribly wrong, the others rushed over and caught the swaying Tokugawa Iemitsu. By then, his vision had already gone black and he had lost consciousness.

The shogun's sudden collapse threw the main hall into chaos, giving everyone the feeling that the sky was falling and the earth splitting apart. They hurriedly laid the shogun onto a soft couch and immediately dispatched men to find a physician, while others ran out to notify every senior shogunate minister.

By the time the Head of the Council of Elders, Doi Toshikatsu, arrived at the main hall, it was already deep into the night.

From the moment he had heard the sound of cannon fire off the coast of Edo, he had been prepared to be summoned by the shogun. But when he learned that the shogun had actually fainted and collapsed, he was still deeply shaken and rushed over at once.

By now, the Great Han army's bombardment had ceased. Though he did not yet know exactly how much actual damage they had inflicted on Edo, Doi Toshikatsu understood that from this day forward, the residents of Edo were destined to live in terror of the Han pirates' cannon fire.

More critically, was this an isolated action by the Han pirates, or was it accompanied by other blows, perhaps equally or even more devastating? Doi Toshikatsu had no way of knowing; he only felt an immense weight pressing on his heart.

Beset by anxiety and second-guessing, he entered the main hall and saw Tokugawa Iemitsu lying on the soft couch.

By this time, Tokugawa Iemitsu had already regained consciousness, but because of the blood he had vomited earlier, his body was still somewhat weak, his complexion utterly pallid, and he looked terribly listless. The person tending him with devoted care was, strikingly, a woman dressed in a kimono. This woman was Kasuga no Tsubone, Tokugawa Iemitsu's wet nurse. Because Iemitsu's birth mother, Sūgen'in, had never liked him and treated him with cold indifference, Kasuga no Tsubone was in truth like a mother to him, and their bond was extraordinarily deep. After Tokugawa Iemitsu became shogun, he treated this wet nurse with great courtesy and even appointed her the head administrator of the Ōoku, the shogun's inner palace. It was precisely under her management that the various regulations of the Ōoku were first established and perfected.

However, although Kasuga no Tsubone was greatly favored and trusted, she was an extremely prudent and proper person. Ordinarily, she would absolutely never intrude when Tokugawa Iemitsu was handling government affairs. But because Iemitsu had suddenly fainted today, she cast such concerns aside and, upon receiving the report, had rushed straight over to care for the shogun.

Under her attentive care, Tokugawa Iemitsu had finally drifted back to consciousness and recovered just enough basic strength to summon his most trusted senior shogunate minister.

After paying his respectful obeisances to Iemitsu, Doi Toshikatsu knelt before the shogun and awaited his instructions. Tokugawa Iemitsu waved his hand, and the attendants all tactfully withdrew.

Kasuga no Tsubone had originally intended to leave as well, but just as she finished her bow and was about to go, Tokugawa Iemitsu suddenly gripped her hand tightly. He held on so hard that it actually hurt her, as though he were trying to draw some warmth and comfort from the contact.

Kasuga no Tsubone felt a sting in her nose. She glanced at Doi Toshikatsu with a troubled expression, but he gave no indication either way. So she stayed, carefully holding Tokugawa Iemitsu's hand.

"Just now, I received a message from Miura," Tokugawa Iemitsu said in a low voice.

He was still lying down, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, as though speaking to himself.

"The Han pirate army has landed at Yokosuka, and judging by its scale, it is a very large force."

"This…" Even a man as composed as Doi Toshikatsu could not help but be utterly shocked. "This… my lord… this…"

Only after stammering incoherently for a long while did he fall silent and accept the news.

Although he had mentally prepared himself for a major event when he heard that Tokugawa Iemitsu had fainted, Doi Toshikatsu was still deeply shaken to learn that the Han pirates had actually landed in force in the Kantō region.

No wonder the shogun had suffered such a violent shock.

"You guessed correctly." Tokugawa Iemitsu gave a bitter smile, but it looked utterly wretched. "The Han pirates have indeed landed in the Kantō."

Doi Toshikatsu was momentarily speechless. He wanted to say something, but in the end, the words would not come. He could only heave a long sigh.

At the previous high-level shogunate council, convened to deal with the Han pirates' advance on Kyoto, the senior ministers had engaged in a debate. At that time, Doi Toshikatsu had proposed abandoning the entire western provinces and the Kinai region, holding fast to the Kantō and waiting for the situation to change. However, the Great Elder of the Shogunate, Ii Naotaka, had directly refuted his proposal and demanded to lead a great army to a decisive battle against the Han pirates, striving to retake Kyoto and at the very least hold them at bay beyond Mikawa.

Doi Toshikatsu had been quite critical of this at the time and had asked Ii Naotaka what should be done if the Han pirates landed in the Kantō while he took the main army away, given that Great Han now held absolute naval superiority. But Ii Naotaka had completely dismissed the possibility, believing that the Han pirates' main force was currently locked in fierce combat in the Kinai region and that as long as he marched there with the great army, they would have no forces to spare.

In the end, events proved that Doi Toshikatsu's concerns had been correct. After the Great Elder Ii Naotaka had departed the Kantō with the main army, the Han pirates had indeed landed in the Kantō.

Yet Doi Toshikatsu now wished with all his heart that he had been wrong, because a Han pirate landing in the Kantō was nothing less than yet another devastating blow to the already tottering shogunate—and this blow might prove even more fatal than the ones before. Yokosuka lay right on the edge of Edo Bay, just over a hundred li from Edo. Once the Han pirates had landed there, they could directly threaten the shogunate's very throat, a bone stuck in the gullet.

"Now, do you have any solution?" With a mixture of helplessness and a faint glimmer of hope, Tokugawa Iemitsu asked his Chief Elder once more. "How do you think we should deal with the Han pirates?"

Doi Toshikatsu lowered his gaze and sank into deep thought. But after racking his brains, he could not think of any particularly good solution.

"By the time we received the news, the Han pirates had already been ashore for half a day. Now that they have firmly established their foothold, I fear it will be difficult for us to dislodge them directly and push them back into the sea." Only after a long while did he speak, his words somewhat labored. "The Miura Peninsula is long and narrow; we have no way to send a large army there for a decisive battle. Moreover, with the Han pirates' morale at its peak, they are surely hoping that our army will come…"

"So you mean we should not send the entire army to attack the Han pirates?" Although Doi Toshikatsu was speaking evasively, Tokugawa Iemitsu still grasped his meaning.

"Yes, Shogun." Doi Toshikatsu now spoke bluntly. "After all, defending is somewhat easier than attacking."

Ever since Ii Naotaka had left Edo with the main army, although the Kantō still contained a massive concentration of shogunate forces—a number that looked staggering on paper—no more than one-fifth of them, perhaps even fewer, were fit for battle. And even those fit for battle were far inferior to the Han pirates' elite troops. Thus, from the very beginning, Doi Toshikatsu had been loath to even consider sending a large army to Yokosuka for a decisive battle to push the Han pirates back into the sea. Instead, he adhered to the strategy of contraction and defense that he had advocated from the start.

What was more, the terrain was extremely unfavorable for a large-scale offensive. If a great army encountered the Han pirates' devastatingly lethal naval and land-based firepower in that narrow isthmus, the consequences would be too dreadful to contemplate.

"So your intention is to hold fast and defend Edo?" Tokugawa Iemitsu asked in return.

"Yes. The only viable strategy now is to hold Edo, concentrate the entire army here, and fight the Han pirates to the death." Doi Toshikatsu nodded at once, but his tone had already grown extremely heavy. "Since the enemy has landed at Yokosuka, they naturally won't just sit there waiting. They will certainly advance on Edo, and at that point we'll fight the decisive battle against the Han pirates... And right now, we must spare no expense to fortify the city's defenses and contract our defensive lines."

Tokugawa Iemitsu chewed over the other man's words, and then his head began to ache. His thoughts slowly grew hazy, and a wave of dizziness washed over him. He forcibly bit his lip and recovered a sliver of clarity.

"Then do as you say. Gather everyone, hold Edo, and drag this out against the Han pirates."

"My lord, do not let worry consume you." Seeing Tokugawa Iemitsu in such agony, Doi Toshikatsu could not help but speak up to console him. "Though the Han pirates have sturdy ships and powerful cannons, their transport vessels are limited after all. They cannot possibly ferry too many men into the Kanto region. Moreover, a portion of their forces will inevitably be tied up contending with Lord Naotaka. So... so in this servant's view, the number of Han pirates who have landed in Kanto cannot be that great! So long as... so long as we hold firm in Edo and wear down the enemy's strength, in the end... in the end there is still hope..."

His earlier words had been spoken with fervent conviction, but toward the end his voice grew softer and softer. Clearly, he himself was not particularly confident in this assessment and was merely trying to bolster the shogun's spirits.

Yet even so, Tokugawa Iemitsu did finally draw some comfort from it. A faint trace of color at last returned to his face.

"It should be so... It should be so..."

"As for Lord Naotaka's army over there, we should still recall them with all haste!" Doi Toshikatsu immediately advised. "Since the Han pirates have landed in force in Kanto, continuing to fight them in the Kinai region has become largely meaningless. It will only tie down and disperse our own forces... If Lord Naotaka returns to reinforce us, that will at least strengthen our defensive power. We could even launch a pincer attack on the Han pirates and tie them down further."

"Right, we must call them back!" Tokugawa Iemitsu immediately agreed with his suggestion. "Go draft the order. Tell them to return and reinforce Edo at once."

The situation was so dire now that it was crushing him, making it truly hard to breathe. He no longer cared about grand ambitions like the shogunate's prestige or retaking Kyoto. All he wanted was to tear out this thorn in his heart immediately so the shogunate could survive the crisis before its eyes.

After Doi Toshikatsu's words, Tokugawa Iemitsu's heart, which had been hanging in midair, was finally set down. Though crises still abounded, he could at least see a sliver of a path now and knew what needed to be done, rather than being mired in the utter despair of moments before.

However, Doi Toshikatsu did not intend to say only this much.

After hesitating for a moment, he finally screwed up his courage.

"My lord, why don't we send another envoy directly to Yokosuka to negotiate with the Han pirates? If... if their terms can be relaxed even slightly, we might as well agree to them outright!"

Tokugawa Iemitsu's eyes suddenly flew wide open, and he glared at Doi Toshikatsu.

"Are you telling me to suffer the humiliation of a treaty signed under the city walls?!"

"My lord, a momentary humiliation is nothing to fear! Did the Divine Lord himself not once submit and swear fealty to Lord Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi? So long as the final outcome is good, what does a little disgrace endured along the way matter?" Doi Toshikatsu did not back down. He still insisted on his own view. "So long as we can preserve the shogunate and the Tokugawa family, even a treaty signed under the city walls can be accepted, if only just..."

Tokugawa Iemitsu froze. After a moment of silence, he finally closed his eyes.

"Go and try again. But I doubt the Han pirates will agree so easily."

"Even if hope is slim, we must still try." Doi Toshikatsu let out a long sigh, and finally prostrated his body once more, touching his head to the floor. "This servant will certainly press forward with all matters at full speed to share Your Excellency the Shogun's burdens!"

"Enough. Withdraw for now. I need to rest." Tokugawa Iemitsu waved his hand weakly, gesturing for him to leave for the time being.

After Doi Toshikatsu left, the strength Tokugawa Iemitsu had just barely mustered abruptly vanished again. He collapsed limp onto the soft couch, his entire body breaking out in heavy sweat.

His wet nurse, Kasuga no Tsubone, who was beside him, felt such heartache and sorrow that she could not hold back her tears. Only for fear of making Iemitsu grieve further did she keep herself from weeping aloud.

"My lord, with the war so urgent now, you should leave Edo for the time being..."

"No... I cannot. I am the shogun. I cannot flee in the face of battle." Tokugawa Iemitsu, his eyes still closed, answered with a bitter smile. "Even if I die, I can only die in Edo."