1636: Seas of Fortune (52 page)
Read 1636: Seas of Fortune Online
Authors: Iver P. Cooper
Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #General, #Alternative History, #Action & Adventure
There were also arguments of a more theological nature. Some loudly and repeatedly insisted that it was a mistake to deviate in the slightest from the old Shinto rituals. Perhaps, they said, Deusu delegated rice growing to the kami. If Deusu minded the
kirishitan
following tradition during the decades of hiding, why wouldn’t he have blighted their crop, again and again, until they learned their lesson?
Others decried every one Yojiro’s ritual concessions. They thought that the villagers should have asked for the blessing of the saint and left it at that.
The only point on which everyone agreed was that they were unhappy not to have any New Nippon-grown rice.
Kawa Machi/Salinas
The morning sun had not yet dried out the blood when Date Masamune came over to inspect the body. Hosoya Jinbei still gripped, even in death, the
kozuka
, the disemboweling blade.
Seppuku
—ritual suicide—could be committed for many reasons.
Jun-shi
was following one’s lord into death; it was forbidden by law but still happened from time to time.
Gisei-shi
was self-sacrifice, perhaps a defeated lord killing himself as part of a peace settlement.
Sokotsu-shi
was to win forgiveness for a mistake.
Fun-shi
was a general expression of indignation with the vagaries of fate.
Kan-shi
was more specific; it was to reprove one’s lord.
Another samurai, young Watari Yoshitsune, sat quietly beside Hosoya’s corpse. After a moment of quietly studying the grim tableaux, Date Masamune spoke to him.
“You were his
kaikatsu
?” The
kaikatsu
was the “second,” who delivered the killing stroke that put the principal out of his misery. It was in theory an honor to be named as
kaikatsu
, but samurai were not eager for this honor. Not out of squeamishness, but because if they botched the beheading stroke, it was extremely embarrassing.
“Yes. I was privileged to be a student at Muso Shinden-ryu.” That was the school, founded by Hayashizaki Jinsuke Shigenobu, at which
iaijitsu
, the art of sword-drawing, was taught.
“Thank you for serving him so well,” said Masamune. The praise was honest; Yoshitsune had halted the beheading stroke just short of completion; the strip of skin tethered Jinbei’s head to his body, keeping it from flying off and rolling about in an unseemly manner.
Masamune picked up Jinbei’s
jisei
, his death poem, which lay beside his last cup of sake.
Old warriors dream
of battles of youth.
Grasses sway
over comrades’ graves.
The winds still.
Jinbei had also left behind a letter, which revealed Jinbei’s purpose in committing suicide. It was not
kan-shi
, because Jinbei acknowledged the logic of Masamune’s orders. It was
fun-shi
; Jinbei’s resolution of his unhappiness over what he saw as the unavoidable degradation of the samurai by common labor. The last straw was the failure of the rice harvests at both Niji Masu and Salinas; to him, it meant that the sacrifice they had made was purposeless.
Masamune folded the two papers into a fold of his hakama. “Kindly summon all of the samurai at this settlement. I wish to address them about Jinbei’s death.”
* * *
Date Masamune didn’t seem to be shouting, but his voice could be heard across the assembly ground. “Jinbei was like a forest giant, whose great canopy long sheltered the Date clan. But what happens to a forest giant when the typhoon blows? Its virtue becomes a vice, as its many leaves and branches catch and multiply the force of the wind. The tree tries to stand fast against the onslaught. It stands unbending, because the girth of its trunk gives it no other choice. When the sky clears, either the tree still stands, or it lies on the ground, dead.
“New Nippon is a new land, and in it we must emulate the saplings, not the ancients. We must bend with the wind when the alternative is ruin.”
* * *
Chiyo told First-to-Dance about the ritual suicide of Hosoya Jinbei, whom she had known since she was a little child.
“But why would he kill himself?” asked First-to-Dance.
“The way of the samurai is found in death,” Chiyo told her.
First-to-Dance would have questioned her further, but they were interrupted by a summons from Chiyo’s father.
As they walked to his receiving room, First-to-Dance thought about what Chiyo had said.
The way of the samurai is found in death
. First-to-Dance had told her people that the Japanese were the Guardians of the Land of the Dead to serve her own purposes, not because she had believed it herself. But perhaps the spirits had spoken through her, and revealed a truth. Perhaps the samurai, the bearers of the two swords, were indeed the Guardians.
* * *
A week later, Masamune addressed his samurai once again. “I have thought about the duties of retainers to their lord, and of the lord to his retainers. To prosper in this new land we must change some of our ways, but perhaps I tried to change too many ways too quickly.
“So, for the time being, my samurai are not required to help with the farming and fishing. However . . .” He let them wait for the completion of his thought.
“However, only those samurai who volunteer to help in that way will be permitted to join in the expeditions I will be sending out. Perhaps to enjoy the glory of finding a place where rice will flourish.
“Dismissed.”
* * *
The guardsman standing on the watchtower at the Kawa Machi castlelet saw smoke rising from Point Piños. It faded, then a second column rose into the sky. This was clearly a signal, from a lookout on the point, and not a forest fire.
The Kawa Machi soldier grabbed the conch shell that hung nearby, and blew. An officer clambered up the ladder to see for himself. He looked, and said, “Beat the Great Gong.”
By the third beat, samurai were already pouring out of the barracks, bows or arquebuses in hand, and swords in their scabbards.
By the time they had reached the battlements, Kawa Machi had sent up a smoke signal of its own. Soon, there were black clouds of warning above Andoryu/Monterey, and Niji Masu/Watsonville, and Kodachi Machi/Santa Cruz, too. Signal guns boomed repeatedly.
The alarm subsided when the ships came at last into view. While some were of barbarian design, others were clearly junks, and all were flying a flag with a red sun disk, the
hinomaru
, on a field of white.
The Second Fleet had arrived.
* * *
First-to-Dance had persuaded some of her kinfolk to come to Kawa Machi for a Japanese celebration. It began with the Lord’s Prayer, led by Imamiro Yojiro and David Date, and joined in by all of the
kirishitan
of Kawa Machi, both the old California hands who had arrived a year earlier, and those who had just arrived on the Second Fleet.
Flanking the Christian altar, there were two daises, the
kamiza
for the Shinto deities, and the
goza
for the emperor of Japan. Date Masamune, in his capacity as a court noble of the Upper First Rank, made obeisance to the kami on the emperor’s behalf, arranging an offering of sake, rice porridge and steamed rice on a reed mat. The rice, of course, had come from the stores of the Second Fleet. Some of the newcomers looked unhappy about the coupling of this pagan ritual with the Christian rite, but they didn’t object openly.
The fact that the spectators nearest the front were all pagan samurai, several hundred of them, and of course wearing their swords, probably had something to do with this reticence.
“Please translate what I say for your friends,” Chiyo told First-to-Dance. “This ceremony is
Niinamesai
,” she told them. “Back home, we would celebrate this on the Day of the Rabbit of the Eleventh Month, the Dutch December. But here we have decided to hold it in the month that we arrived in Monterey Bay and met your people.
“The name means, ‘new-taste-ritual.’ Today we offer a taste of the harvest to Heaven, to thank it for providing the rain and sun so that our crops will grow, and protecting the crops from vermin of all kinds.”
In California, only the Indians of the southeast grew crops. First-to-Dance told her tribesmen that the Japanese had made a powerful magic which caused plants to multiply.
“We are sad that our favorite plants, our rice, would not grow here. But our kinfolk on the ships that have just arrived have brought rice to share with us, and in turn we are giving them, and you, fresh vegetables and fruit.”
There was sweet potato and white potato, brought to Japan by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, and initially deprecated as
bareisho
—“horse fodder.” They were grown in the uplands. There were artichokes, cucumbers, and melons, sown in the summer. There were deer, brought down by samurai archers, and rabbits, caught in farmers’ snares. There were wild birds, too. And fish of course.
The
kirishitan
of the Second Fleet tore greedily into this repast, such a refreshing change from their shipboard diet. And the Indians were amazed by all the strange new foods—but this didn’t stop them from eating them.
And so the Ohlone Indians of California enjoyed their first Japanese thanksgiving.
Autumn Wind
September to October 1635
The autumn wind:
for me there are no gods;
there are no buddhas.
—Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902)
4
Late September 1635,
Andoryu (Monterey), California
“Red flag! Red flag!” Marina shouted. “Are you all blind, and deaf to boot?”
Her fellow
kirishitan
were neither, but those in her immediate vicinity were engrossed in a gambling game. She got the gamblers’ attention by kicking sand over the dice.
“Hey, what do you think—”
“Red flag, you fools!”
The gamblers stifled their protest, and looked up toward the lookout tower, perched precariously on the pine-covered point marking the southern end of Monterey Bay. There, two watchers were posted, and one of them was indeed was waving two red flags over his head.
Another was sending smoke signals into the air.
It was now the gamblers’ turn to yell. “Red flag!”
Hearing the commotion, and then seeing the red flags for himself, Sakai Kuroemon, the samurai in charge of the small battery that guarded Andoryu, ordered an
ozutsu
, a Japanese-made swivel gun, to be fired off.
* * *
On the beach to the east of Andoryu, First-to-Dance turned to her companion, the grand governor’s daughter, Chiyo-hime. “Are we under attack by the Southern Barbarians you told me about?”
Chiyo-hime stifled a laugh. She couldn’t help but wonder what the Spanish reaction would be if they knew that a scantily clothed and illiterate Ohlone Indian had characterized them as “barbarians.” She had never met a Spaniard herself—the Spanish had been banned from entering Japan in 1624, and she had not met any of the missionaries who sneaked in afterward—but Chinese traders had commented on the hauteur of the hidalgos in Manila.
“No, no. The signal gun would have been fired more than once if ships had been sighted. Even friendly ships. They must have sighted a school of sardines.”
* * *
It was true. A school of sardines could be as many as ten million fish. The sardines jerked and splashed about in a way that set up characteristic ripples, evident to a trained observer. In shallow water, the school disturbed the bottom, giving the water a pinkish tint. And the sky above the school held its own clues; seabirds and dolphins treated the horde of sardines as if it were a parade of Osaka street vendors at festival time, selling sushi from their carts.
Three boats had put out to sea. Two were net-boats,
amibune
, and the giant sardine net, over a hundred fathoms long, was suspended between them. It was heavy, and fifteen men were needed on each
amibune
to handle it and to maneuver the boat.
The two senior fishermen on the third boat, the
tebune
, were monitoring the movements of the school and giving orders to the
amibune
. Once the latter were together, behind the school, the fishermen grunted and heaved.
“There goes Uncle Long Sardine Net,” Marina said to no one in particular. “We’ll eat well tonight.”
With the net cast in the water, the
amibune
separated, drawing the net into an arc facing the beach.
On the beach, the local headman was leading a prayer to the Virgin Mary, and “the Angel Ebisu.” Herded by the
amibune
, the sardines continued to head toward the beach, so apparently the Shinto God of Fishermen did not object to his transfer to the Christian Heaven. The prayer thanked the heavenly powers that the waters of Monterey Bay, for most of the year, was well endowed with sardines, and that near their homes there was a beach, with a shallow, smooth sea floor beyond, on which they could operate their beach nets.
As soon as the
amibune
reached water shallow enough to stand in, the villagers waiting on the beach ran out to them, and the ropes were passed on to their willing hands. All of the residents of Andoryu helped pull the net to the shore, even children, and women with babies tied to their backs. Caught up in the excitement of the moment, First-to-Dance ran to help, leaving a bemused Chiyo-hime and her samurai guard behind.
With the net ropes safely handed over, some of the
amibune
crew jumped off to help with the hauling, while the rest maneuvered their boats back behind the seine, and beat the water with bamboo poles.
One of them, a young man named Yakichi, grabbed the same rope that First-to-Dance was holding. “Take a step back, now,” he cried. “Keep the tension steady, don’t jerk the line! Step back again, that’s good!”
The villagers whooped when, at last, the vast haul of sardines was safely deposited on the beach, above the high water line. First-to-Dance let go of the rope with a sigh of relief.
“I guess we’ll be having sardines for the evening meal,” Chiyo said to her guard.
“For the next few weeks at least.”
* * *
The Second Fleet had arrived a week earlier, and the tired and hungry passengers, at least, would appreciate the fresh catch.
However, the grand governor, Date Masamune, had no intention of permitting all of the new batch of colonists to settle at Monterey Bay. The fledgling settlements, at modern Monterey, Salinas, Watsonville and Santa Cruz, could absorb only so many new people at a time. The rest would have to move on.
He gave the necessary orders.
* * *
Yakichi bowed politely to Sakai Kuroemon. “You called for me, sir?”
“Yes. You are a younger son. Your brother will one day own your family’s fishing boat, you will at best be one of his crew.”
“I suppose . . .”
“But your headman speaks well of you, and there’s an opportunity. We have a new batch of colonists, who have no knowledge of California. If you would be willing to go with the ones we are sending around the Monterey peninsula, to the place the lord’s scholars call ‘Carmel,’ and teach them how to fish these waters, we can give you some special privileges . . .”
“Please explain, I am quite interested.”
The samurai did so.
“I’m your man,” Yakichi said.
Carmel Bay, California
The ship bearing Yakichi and a contingent of the Second Fleet’s colonists rounded the Point of Pines, and continued around the Monterey peninsula. Its destination was the mouth of the Carmel River, where it would be establishing a
han-no han-gyo
, a half-farming, half-fishing village.
If Monterey Bay was a fishhook, Carmel Bay was a trident, with the center tine broken off near its base. The center tine was Carmel Point, and was flanked by sandy beaches. But most of the coast, from Cypress Point in the north to Lobos Point in the south, was rocky.
Carmel Point hooked southward, giving some protection to Carmel Beach where the river mingled with the sea. Nonetheless, the skipper hurried the passengers off his ship; the anchorage had a rocky bottom that he didn’t like at all.
The passengers decided to lay out their village, which they named “Maruya” after the Virgin, on a low rise that overlooked the last bend in the Carmel River, a bit over half a mile from the shoreline. As a symbol of their thanks to God for their safe voyage, on the bank of the Carmel they erected a giant cross, twenty feet high, made of native pine.
Maruya/Carmel
The fishermen and samurai of Maruya milled about the Cross of Thanksgiving, erected when the colony was founded a week earlier. An early bird among them had been heading down to where his boat had been left the day before when he noticed something odd about the cross. He walked over for a closer look, then ran back to the village to report.
They had yet to see a single Indian. But there were arrows planted in a circle around the cross, and strings of shells hung on the arms. Were the arrows a challenge, a warning to stay where they were, or a sign of peace, being directed into the ground?
A messenger was sent over the hill country to Andoryu, and from there to the little castle at Kawa Machi/Salinas.
Date Masamune asked First-to-Dance, who had spent the previous winter with the Japanese, and was now the “speaker” for her tribelet, to go to Maruya and advise what the Japanese should do next.
October 1635,
Kodachi Machi/Santa Cruz
The overseer scowled at the new colonists. “You’ve gawked and lazed around long enough, it’s time for you to get to work.
“If you knew how to fish, you’d be down here.” He gestured south, toward the water. “And if you knew how to farm, you’d be out there.” He gestured east. “Jesu help me, you’re a bunch of peddlers and shopkeepers and artisans from Nagasaki and other towns, with no useful skills. Not useful here yet, at any rate.”
He spat. “So permit me to introduce you to your new friends, Father Axe and his brother, Uncle Shovel.”
* * *
Yamaguchi Takuma’s fingers flew, shifting the beads on his abacus, calculating the supplies they would be needing the next day. Occasionally, he glanced at the perspiring laborers. Preparing the ground for a
yamashiro
, a mountain fortress, in the hills above Santa Cruz, was hard work, and he was glad that he had a skill that freed him from the obligation of manual labor.
One of Date Masamune’s advisors, the old battle-horse Katakura Shigetsuna, had picked the site. It was a long ridge, partially protected by creek gorges. The laborers would clear off the trees and level the ridge; the timber and earth would be used to construct a palisade and rampart.
Takuma had sat in on one meeting in which Shigetsuna explained the project to his foremen and Kodachi Machi’s guard commander, Kanno Shigenari. The site included a small spring, and the water supply could be augmented by building cisterns or digging wells. It was more than a mile from the coast; that distance, plus the elevation, meant that it was safe from bombardment by Spanish warships. The Spanish could drag the guns into firing range, but it would take time, and the Japanese would express their disapproval with their own weapons: cannon, handguns, bows, and even ballistas and catapults. They, at least, didn’t require precious gunpowder.
Given time, the Japanese would strengthen the defenses: add lookout towers, top the walls with thatch or shingles to protect them from the weather; dig trenches for rolling stones down upon the enemy; and turn neighboring hilltops into additional baileys.
Takuma thought it sad to think that the Spanish, who had helped introduce the Christian faith to Japan, might attack the
kirishitan
of Kodachi Machi. He had, very politely, suggested to Shigetsuna that a large cross be erected on the watch tower, so that if the Spanish came by, they would know that the town was Christian and not shoot at them. Shigetsuna had thanked Takuma for his suggestion, and asked him whether Buddhists ever made war on fellow Buddhists. Takuma had to admit that they did.
But he still thought it might cause the Spanish to hesitate. So why not?
Date Masamune’s Yashiki (Fortified House),
Kawa Machi/Salinas
First-to-Dance was studying her appearance in the mirror that Chiyo had lent her. She wanted to look her best before she met the messenger from Maruya/Carmel. First impressions mattered.
“This is foolish,” said Swims-Like-Seal. He was one of First-to-Dance’s tribesmen, and had been one of the Indian guests at the feast welcoming the Second Fleet.
“Why do you say that?”
“You should be here, with the leader of these strangers—”
“The Guardians of the Dead,” First-to-Dance reminded him.
“If you say so.” Swims-Like-Seal was one of the tribal skeptics, which was probably one of the reasons he had been sent. There was a faction within the tribe that didn’t much like First-to-Dance. “But my point is that you should be with their big chief, the One Eye, bargaining for concessions for our people. Not gallivanting around looking for the people of the south.”
“You don’t understand. I help him, he helps me.”
“Well, don’t be away so long that he forgets that you’re out there helping him.”
* * *
First-to-Dance hadn’t yet learned how to ride a horse. The only horses in America were those brought by the Europeans, or now, by the Japanese. She would have been happy to walk to Maruya/Carmel but her escort insisted that this wasn’t dignified enough for one traveling in an official capacity, she must either ride a horse or be carried by bearers in a palanquin.
“Please . . . wait . . . a moment . . . First-to-Dance!” It was Shigetsuna, huffing and puffing.
She stopped what she was doing, and bowed. Both the Indians and the Japanese agreed on the importance of showing respect for one’s elders.
“How may I help you, Wise One?”
“One of the presents you gave to us upon your return was a red face pigment. Where does that come from?”
“It’s a soft red rock, it comes from a ridge that lies halfway between here and the Sea of Tule.” Tule was the bullrush that grew in the swampland of the southern end of San Francisco Bay. “We trade for it, or sometimes our people go there to collect it ourselves.”
“I see,” said Shigetsuna. “And which tribe controls it?”
“Controls? I don’t understand. . . .”
“In which tribe’s land does it lie?”
“It moves.”
“Moves? The land moves?”
She pursed her lips. “So sorry, I am not clear. The red-earth-place doesn’t move. Sometimes it is part of the land of the Awaswas, sometimes of the Mutsun, sometimes of the Tamyen.”
“Ah, I understand. It lies between their villages. And can you draw me a picture in the sand that shows the way?”
“I can’t, but Swims-Like-Seal has been there.” She spoke with him rapidly. “Yes, he can draw you a picture.”
“I would like that. In fact, it would be even better if he could lead some of our samurai there. He would be well rewarded.”
There was a quick negotiation, with First-to-Dance interpreting, and Swims-Like-Seal agreed to the terms.
First-to-Dance’s escort helped Shigetsuna mount his horse, and then Swims-Like-Seal got up behind him. This was possible only because the horse was one of the European horses that the Dutch-Japanese invasion force had captured from the Spanish in Manila. The Japanese captors preferred the smaller Japanese breed they were accustomed to, and so Date Masamune had acquired European horses at a bargain price.
