Kill the Shogun Read Online Free PDF Page B

giving the fudai small estates, while the tozama became wealthy. Despite Honda’s famous temper, his wife had berated him about this injustice. Honda had simply told her
yakamashii
, shut up, and refused to respond. He didn’t trust himself to respond. He secretly agreed with her. The Tokugawas had a newfound position as the ruling clan of Japan, but he felt his own position was precarious, and that peace was as great a threat to him as the most desperate battle.
    Honda knew he was a rough country samurai. He had a certain blunt cunning honed by a lifetime of warfare, but also he knew that the winds of a shifting nation demanded new skills, skills he neither had nor valued. Honda’s skill was killing. This was an invaluable skill when there was a country to be won, and this skill kept him at Ieyasu’s side through countless battles. Now that the last great battle was over, the battle at Sekigahara, he could see Ieyasu’s mind turning to strategies for establishing a lasting dynasty. Undoubtedly there would be some killing involved in maintaining this dynasty, but other skills, more subtle skills, would be necessary if the Tokugawas and their descendents were to rule without having a state of constant warfare.
    These were skills that other, more clever, men, like Yoshida, Okubo and Toyama, had. Nakamura, despite his pompous lecturing, also had a talent for creating stable administrations. Yoshida and Okubo were warriors, but the fact that Ieyasu had allowed men like Toyama and Nakamura into his inner circle showed that the balance was already shifting from the bushi to the bureaucrats.
    Honda, as did most samurai, had a fatalistic view of life anddeath. He attributed Ieyasu’s escape from death to simple luck. If the musket ball had been just a few inches to the right, the assassination would have been successful and it would be Ieyasu lying dead, not Nakamura.
    Still, Ieyasu had been lucky. He had always been lucky. His primary stroke of luck was simply outliving most of his rivals. The other contenders for the rulership of Japan had died violent deaths or, like Hideyoshi, passed away from old age. Ieyasu simply waited for his time. Ieyasu had also been lucky that, although he had been defeated in battle, none of these defeats turned out to be devastating. Through good fortune and the stupidity of his enemies, he had always survived to fight another day. Looking at Ieyasu’s entire life, where he spent his childhood as a hostage to ensure the good behavior of his clan, it was amazing that he had risen so far. He had no special skills, but the ordinary skills of a military leader and daimyo were honed in him to an unusually high degree, and these ordinary skills had proven triumphant in the end.
    Still, the luck to conquer the country was not a guarantee that his house would rule the country beyond his lifetime. Hideyoshi had thought his young son would rule the country after him, but after the defeat of the forces loyal to him at Sekigahara, all the child and his mother ruled was Osaka Castle. Ieyasu ruled the country.
    Transforming this rule into a dynasty was another matter altogether. Years before, Ieyasu had his first wife killed for plotting against him with another daimyo, and he forced his firstborn son and heir to commit suicide for suspected involvement in the same plot. Recently, he had almost executed his second son and current heir, Hidetada, for arriving late at the battle of Sekigahara.
    Honda and others had intervened to protect this tardy son from his father’s wrath, saving his life. With such a turbulent and unstable house surrounding his Lord, how could Honda rest assured that his own house would prosper in the future?
    Now, because of these unsettling times, Honda was doing something he was embarrassed about. The blunt warrior was uncertain if he was doing the right thing, and even used the back gate of his villa so that his comings and goings would attract the least attention possible.
    Y oshida