Chapter 208
The Tongsinsa, the envoys Joseon sends to Wa, must follow only the prescribed routes.
First, they must go to Tsushima, then Hakata, and after that, Shimonoseki....
If one makes the round trip by mixing sea and land routes in this fashion, travel alone takes more than six months.
So, to make the round trip as quickly as possible, we chose a route through Echizen Tsuruga, Lake Biwa, and Kyoto...
That was the route we decided to take to Wa.
We had already notified the bakufu through the merchants in Jeongui, so there should be no problem.
“Yanagawa, how long do you think it will take us to reach Tsuruga from here?”
“We passed Okinoshima yesterday, so we should arrive in another day or two.”
“We should arrive sooner than expected.”
If we had followed the regular route all the way to Wa, we would only just now have passed through Tsushima and arrived at Hakata.
From Hakata, traveling overland through the territories of the Shōni and Ōuchi clans to Kyoto would have taken three months one way.
Ugh, it’s horrifying just thinking about it.
As the chief envoy, I—and my father-in-law, one of the mission’s key officials—would have ridden palanquins rather than horses on the overland legs...
A palanquin is a fairly comfortable means of transportation for a short while, but over a long period it becomes so painfully uncomfortable that it might as well be called a ‘device for torturing passengers’...
If we had spent three months traveling in palanquins, I might genuinely have died along the way.
Ships, on the other hand, toss you about on the waves, so seasickness is impossible to avoid altogether, but you can move your body relatively freely, and they are faster too...
‘Ships are far better in every respect.’
“I have been too busy with my duties as chief envoy to ask until now, but how is it? Is Ulleungdo, where you recently moved, a livable place?”
The people who know Wa best are the Japanese bastards themselves.
That is why I brought several Tsushima samurai into this mission and had them join us.
Of course, being discovered would make things troublesome, so I selected only men who could speak Korean fluently and even had them wear topknots...
Under ordinary circumstances, there is little chance they will be found out.
On the other hand, the information they possess will be extremely useful to me.
I should squeeze as much information out of them as possible and put it to every worthwhile use.
“Tsushima’s climate is colder, so several of the commoners and samurai froze to death while spending the winter on Ulleungdo. Despite those twists and turns, however, they all say in unison that, if possible, they would like to live on Ulleungdo for the rest of their lives.”
“Even though cultivating the whole of Ulleungdo cannot be easy?”
The Tsushima people currently on Ulleungdo must be cultivating not only the plains, but also some gentle hills and even the mountains.
We supplied them with proper farming tools made in Joseon and lent them more than enough oxen, but even so, clearing wasteland must be incredibly arduous.
“The work is grueling, but Joseon provides plenty of food and does not drive them unbearably hard. Most of them say this is still better than Tsushima.”
“Even oxen need plenty of fodder if you want them to work hard; people are no different.”
Even in twenty-first-century Korea, where the notion of starving to death is difficult to truly comprehend, there are people who say their quality of life depends on how the company cafeteria feeds them.
All the more so for the people of Tsushima in this era, who lived in such poverty that it would hardly have been surprising for them to starve to death at any moment.
Since we are providing people like that with plentiful meals, there is no way discontent will arise among them.
“And please read this as well. The lord of Tsushima entrusted me with this secret letter to deliver privately to the chief envoy.”
“I understand. Let me read it.”
I immediately unfolded the secret letter.
The contents of the letter were roughly as follows.
Until now, we of Tsushima have called ourselves Joseon’s subjects with our lips, but we have failed to offer the true loyalty that comes from the heart.
Looking back now, I am deeply ashamed that I have failed to fulfill my duty as a subject of Joseon.
Therefore, from this moment on, I will sincerely repent our wrongs. Please tell us how we may become loyal and steadfast subjects of Joseon once more.
What would you say to sending my eldest legitimate son, Shigemoto, to the palace immediately to stage a public demonstration of our repentance for our past wrongs?
If you grant permission, I will send my son to Hanyang at once.
To be honest, the lord of Tsushima’s claims that he wants to become Joseon’s loyal subject have always been nothing but words, and whenever the slightest thing went wrong, those bastards would viciously stab Joseon in the back...
But saying he will send his eldest son to the palace for a public demonstration means he is offering to send his heir as a hostage and swear loyalty even at that price. This, at least, seems worth believing.
“On the way back, I will write down a few stratagems for winning His Majesty’s trust.”
“Thank you, Chief Envoy.”
“But there is one thing you should know.”
It is certainly admirable that the lord of Tsushima has resolved to devote himself to Joseon...
But Joseon has no intention of accepting the lord of Tsushima, his samurai, and his people as Joseon subjects.
Nor will Tsushima ever become Joseon territory.
“Joseon will never make Tsushima part of its territory. So even if you win His Majesty’s confidence and receive his gracious favor, you Tsushima people will still have to continue living as senior retainers of the Shōni clan.”
“Why on earth is that?”
“Because only then will Ming not become suspicious of Joseon. And if you become Joseon subjects, you will no longer be able to engage in the rather aggressive form of trade you conduct in Ming.”
If it were said that Joseon had sent Joseon pirates (called Wokou when sent from Wa and Joseon pirates when sent from Joseon) to invade Ming, the Ming emperor might immediately mobilize a great army and attack Joseon.
Therefore, Tsushima must continue to be an island belonging to Wa.
“I see.”
“Instead, if the lord of Tsushima truly wishes to devote himself to Joseon... Joseon may not be able to give every person in Tsushima white rice to eat and silk clothes to wear, but we can at least ensure that none of you need fear starvation. Just as we are doing now.”
Joseon accepts and protects anyone who enters its embrace.
Even if he was a former Wokou.
**
The Joseon embassy under my command arrived safely in Kyoto.
Yet, absurdly enough, the newly installed shogun took one look at us and immediately began shouting.
“Why did Ming punish Tsushima, Iki, and Hirado without informing me? And why did Joseon, despite knowing about it beforehand, fail to inform us?”
Because you Japanese bastards and Joseon are complete strangers.
We may have opened a port at Jeongui on Jeju Island and be trading with Wa, but, honestly, how could we trust you Japanese bastards?
If we had warned you beforehand that you were going to be punished, you would have pulled the ‘Wokou’ back from the pirates’ main bases, including Tsushima, Iki, and Hirado...
Then, if Zheng He had arrived at Iki, Tsushima, and Hirado and discovered that not a single person lived on any of the three islands, who do you think he would have suspected first?
Joseon, of course.
“Does Joseon not claim it wishes to establish friendly relations with our Japan (the official name used by Joseon and Ming is Wa, though from this era onward it was called Japan, or Hinomoto), and did it not even send an embassy two years ago to congratulate me on becoming shogun? You congratulated us to our faces, saying we should be friends, then pretended not to notice when Japan faced a crisis. How is that supposed to make any sense?”
The shogun’s name at present is Ashikaga Yoshinori.
And if I had to sum up this bastard’s personality and style of rule in a single phrase, it would be this:
‘A terminal case of power obsession.’
In reality, whenever any of the daimyo, samurai, or kugyō under him do anything even slightly displeasing to him, this truly insane bastard punishes them with absurd severity. The kugyō are civil officials who serve the Japanese imperial court, somewhat like Joseon’s dangsang officials, but without any real power.
Because he even harshly punished the biological mother who gave birth to the emperor, he earned the nickname ‘Terror of All.’
It sounds grand to call him the Terror of All, but it really means he is a dictator who torments people indiscriminately.
That is the sort of bastard he is, and now he is trying to pressure even me, Joseon’s chief envoy, by shouting at me without restraint.
Let me see. The reason he is angry with me now is...
“And I dislike even more that this fellow claiming to be Joseon’s chief envoy is only twenty-six years old. Does His Majesty the King of Joseon hold our Japan in such contempt that he would send a boy so young as his chief envoy?”
There is only one reason he is angry.
He wants to put on a show of bullying Joseon’s envoy so that he can flaunt his authority before the kanrei and daimyo who serve him.
But doing something like that does not give a man dignity or authority.
“In any case, you have worked hard to come such a long way. Return to your lodgings and rest comfortably today. I will receive the royal letter tomorrow.”
This was a man so unreasonable that he would seize a kugyō’s domain over the absurd pretext that one of his subordinates had shown a ‘professional smile’ in front of him.
That was why, the moment he saw the Joseon embassy, he could shout at us in a manner that showed he had thrown manners and protocol out the window.
He was exactly the sort of man capable of that.
However, if Joseon were looked down upon because of the shogun’s arbitrary behavior, that would be a serious problem.
His abuse of power was damaging Joseon’s national dignity.
“The daimyo of Iki, the lord of Tsushima, and the Wokou of Hirado are all, when you get right down to it, vassals of Your Highness the shogun. Does that not mean the fault lies with Your Highness for failing to govern your vassals properly?”