Chapter 93: Taking His Father to Muromachi!

The solemn atmosphere instantly turned a little strange.

Emperor Go-Komatsu looked utterly bewildered. Rising into a kneeling sit, he asked earnestly, “May I ask, Prince Kaneyoshi, why do you want to put Emperor Go-Kameyama on the wall? The wall is very high. If he falls, it will hurt.”

In a flash, everyone gave him a bizarre look.

Everyone else was speeding ahead, and he was still mumbling nursery rhymes. The sort of fool who would still drool even after being cured.

Fortunately, Emperor Go-Kameyama, though a bit slower than men his age, was still one of the sharper fools.

He only mulled over Prince Kaneyoshi’s words for a moment before he understood.

Emperor Go-Kameyama was instantly enraged and snapped back, “What nonsense are you talking about, you bastard!”

Cough!

Prince Kaneyoshi realized he had misspoken at once and hurriedly declared with righteous indignation, “Please do not misunderstand, everyone. I spoke recklessly and uttered nonsense. I truly have nothing to do with my sister-in-law!”

“Oh.”

The crowd’s expressions grew meaningful.

Hongwu got a headache listening to all this. Such a tangled web of moral absurdity was furiously battering the worldview of this feudal family patriarch, and he shook his head before issuing his decree:

“Drag all three out and behead them. Just looking at them makes me feel ill all over!”

“Yes!”

Two guards dragged Prince Kaneyoshi, Emperor Go-Kameyama, and Emperor Go-Komatsu out the tent.

“Bastards! You cannot violate the family of the gods! The provincial guardians will tear you apart!”

Prince Kaneyoshi roared, still struggling desperately.

Zhu Gaoxu stepped forward and punched him. Only then did Prince Kaneyoshi finally shut his mouth in satisfaction.

Suddenly, a group of emperors and imperial heirs appeared out of thin air inside the tent.

Zhu Youjian and the others had returned from the Yongle court.

The resentment and hatred on Prince Kaneyoshi’s face came to an abrupt halt.

Emperor Go-Kameyama muttered, “If I were given one more chance, I would want this father!”

Emperor Go-Komatsu’s eyes went wide as he cried out, “Amazing!”

Ashikaga Yoshimitsu’s head was buzzing, because the chubby Yongle Emperor had just stepped on his head.

The chubby Yongle Emperor cried out in surprise and quickly helped him up. “Oh? You’re just a child...”

“A Japanese man?”

“Well, then it’s fine.”

The chubby Yongle Emperor’s suffering expression cleared at once, and he stood there with his hands tucked into his sleeves behind the old Yongle Emperor, entirely at ease.

He had seen in a small world how Japanese raiders had slaughtered the common people of the Great Ming. Naturally, he felt no guilt at all; he only regretted not having crushed this little Japanese worm to death.

“You’re back.”

The Hongwu Emperor beamed with delight, smiling as he looked at his large family group, then cast a disdainful glance at Prince Kaneyoshi.

The family of the gods?

In front of our Zhu family, in front of my great-grandson, you creatures who trample on human decency and moral order still dare call yourselves gods?

What rubbish!

Zhu Youjian was startled and bowed. “Grand Ancestor, what is this?”

“This young fellow with the good life is called Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. He came to surrender to us. Those three heaps of refuse are Prince Kaneyoshi, Emperor Go-Kameyama, and Emperor Go-Komatsu.”

Since Ashikaga Yoshimitsu had flattered him so well, Hongwu changed his tone and did not make things too difficult for him.

As expected, and not unexpectedly.

As long as one was not an idiot, by this point he ought to have come running to surrender already.

This man, who had unified the Northern and Southern Courts and styled himself the Japanese version of Emperor Cao Cao of Wei, was clearly far more clever than those products of inbreeding.

“Perfect!”

Zhu Youjian explained, “Over in the Yongle court, there are two men named Ashikaga Yoshimochi and Ashikaga Yoshinori. Both are sons of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu.”

“The eldest, Ashikaga Yoshimochi, has been leading several thousand Japanese men to harass our forces all over the place by relying on the terrain, while the third son, Ashikaga Yoshinori, is holed up in the city fighting a war of attrition. I went wandering through Kyoto and hacked down quite a few people, but I still could not find that Ashikaga Yoshinori. For the moment, he has been hard to deal with.”

Zhu Youjian smiled and said expectantly, “Now that their father has come forward, they should be scared senseless. Just thinking about it is thrilling.”

In a flash, the sidelong gazes of the old Yongle Emperor, Zhu the Fourth, and the chubby Yongle Emperor turned toward him. Their deep love for the grandson was all unspoken.

Hongwu nodded and gave Zhu Gaoxu a look.

“Hey, do you know Ashikaga Yoshimochi and Ashikaga Yoshinori?” Zhu Gaoxu shook him awake.

“Your Excellency, my name is not Hey.”

Ashikaga Yoshimitsu woke groggily, and since he was not proficient in Chinese, he immediately corrected him politely. Then he thought carefully about Ashikaga Takauji’s family tree, shook his head, and said, “Not really.”

“Your Excellency, I am sorry! I have not been able to answer your question properly.” Ashikaga Yoshimitsu lowered his head in shame.

Zhu Youjian instructed him, “Whether you know them or not does not matter. Your two sons know you is enough. Remember: your eldest is Ashikaga Yoshimochi, and your third son is Ashikaga Yoshinori.”

“All right, I will remember!” Ashikaga Yoshimitsu said earnestly.

“And one more thing.”

Zhu Youjian paused, then said, “Your eldest son may not be very filial. He once threw his fifty-plus-year-old father out of the house at three in the morning.”

“In other words, he kicked you out.”

“...Thank you for the warning, Your Excellency!” Ashikaga Yoshimitsu said solemnly.

Hongwu asked, “Grandson, are these three heaps of refuse useful at all? Looking at them is making us deeply uncomfortable.”

“Reporting to Grand Ancestor, Emperor Go-Komatsu still has some use.” Zhu Youjian replied respectfully.

Ashikaga Yoshimochi did not listen to his father, nor to Emperor Go-Komatsu, but his warriors all regarded Emperor Go-Komatsu as their spiritual pillar. Some of them will surely surrender.

The rest are nothing to fear.

“Fine. Take those two with you. Drag Prince Kaneyoshi and Emperor Go-Kameyama out and behead them,” Hongwu said with a smile.

“As you command!”

The guards respectfully accepted the order, setting down Emperor Go-Komatsu, who was still wearing that amazed expression.

Then they dragged Prince Kaneyoshi and Emperor Go-Kameyama outside the tent, where the blade fell in a single flash. The executioner’s knife struck their backs, and he said apologetically:

“Take a deep breath. Feeling dizzy is normal.”

It was not until the eighth blow that their heads were finally severed, and the two anguished skulls rolled a few times.

Then two stray dogs by the roadside carried them off.

Well!

The executioner took a symbolic two steps in pursuit, but when he failed to catch up, he let it go.

Inside the Hongwu command tent, through the curtain, the sight of those two Japanese heads being carried away by dogs made the old Yongle Emperor, Zhu the Fourth, the chubby Yongle Emperor, and the others who had witnessed the war against Japan feel much better.

Hongwu let out a long breath of pent-up fury and rose to his feet. “Come, grandson.”

“Yes!”

Zhu Youjian answered with a nod.

The entire party of Ming emperors and imperial heirs, including the dazed Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and Emperor Go-Komatsu, vanished from where they stood.

...

The Yongle reign.

Japan, the Five Islands.

After Ashikaga Yoshimitsu unified the Northern and Southern Courts, Japan entered the age of the Muromachi shogunate.

Kyoto, Muromachi.

Inside the Yongle central command tent.

“I did not expect you to show this much respect to our Great Ming. So you were not pretending,” the Hongwu Emperor said after reading the brief account of relations between Ming and Japan during the Yongle reign, nodding with some surprise.

If something seemed out of the ordinary, there was surely a trick behind it.

Just moments ago, this fellow had been all deference and humility. He must have been hiding something.

At first, Hongwu had planned to kill him after using him.

Unexpectedly, during his rule in Japan, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu’s attitude toward the Ming court had been genuinely, astonishingly reverent.

One of the hallmarks of the prosperous Yongle era was that Japanese piracy became very rare. It was certainly true that Zhu Di calling him the King of Japan had made him blossom with delight and work hard for the Great Ming.

But it could not be denied that Ashikaga Yoshimitsu himself had actively and wholeheartedly promoted it.

Hongwu glanced at him and said with a smile, “So there is no more bad water in your belly now, is there?”

Bad water?

Even if my brain were filled with water right now, I would not dare have the slightest improper thought!

“I, Ashikaga of the humble subject clan, will serve the Great Ming Sacred Dynasty until the end of my life. Should I harbor two minds, then may the Ashikaga line be wiped out root and branch!”

Ashikaga Yoshimitsu trembled, pressing his head hard against the ground. The eyes that had once been full of schemes and conspiracies were now extraordinarily clear.

His posture was humble to the extreme.

At this point, this was no longer something that could be solved by simply practicing more.

...