RONIN RAIDS
Owing to unsettled conditions the ensuing winter proved most opportune
for Daikomitsu to further his schemes and advance his prospects. Much
dissatisfaction had grown out of Ikamon's cold-blooded work, and even
his friends were shocked at his audacity. While he still maintained
control of the shogun's party, he held them together only with
considerable difficulty, and long before the final blow came found
himself in dire straits for sufficient support, even the protection of
Tetsutaisho.
Outside of Tokyo his doings were looked upon as the voice of the
shogunate and his acts charged thereto, while at home a feeling gained
ground that the power must be wrested from his hands and the party
restored to its former status. Many realised that they could not long
stand before the inroads of the foreigners on the one hand and the cry
of the populace on the other. Ikamon's friendly concession had ceased to
satisfy the one, and his daring blow failed to crush the other; his
enemies were eager for his downfall, and Daikomitsu offered the most
potent, if not reasonable solution. Therefore they welcomed him and
winked at his questionable doings.
After placing himself on friendly terms with the ronin, Daikomitsu began
urging them to greater activity, and as they had already become eager
for some chance again to make themselves felt they were only too easily
inflamed. Although these strange bands of marauders held many grievances
they advanced no definite policy, and allied themselves with no
particular party or faction; they had come into existence through an
infraction of the law and lived and thrived best on disorder. The
friendship of one so high in the councils of state as Daikomitsu they
considered a license as well as an honour; and, listening earnestly to
his counsel, advanced, before spring had come, afresh upon their
terrible raids.
Daikomitsu kept himself well informed as to their movements, and long
before they had concentrated upon Tokyo had gone there and begun the
rebuilding of his popularity. Managing to elude his acquaintances at
Kyoto and get away without arousing suspicion as to his intentions and
aspirations even Takara did not divine his real purposes, and Kido knew
nothing of them and cared less about him. Nor did his friends, professed
or otherwise, in Tokyo know anything about his connection with the
ronin, but (when they thought of him at all) considered him a statesman
and a patriot, without any direct connection with any party or faction
at either place. They knew he was of the literati and a kuge by birth,
but counted him equally a friend to the true shogunate.
All the major wrongs complained of by the ronin were directly
chargeable, as they thought, to the shogunate, and in consequence their
activities began in that direction. Assuming the disguise of various
occupations many of them gathered at Tokyo, marking their victims and
preparing to make good their own escape. Regular meetings were held and
all movements directed orderly and with despatch, so that as a whole
they made no mistakes, while each member bound himself by an inviolable
oath. They had been worked up to the belief that Ikamon was responsible
for everything, and lest he should escape, early marked him as their
first victim and awaited only the word of Daikomitsu, who in due time
said:
"Take the principal first. You can better right the wrong after the
instigator is gone."
Ikamon, with all his spies, remained ignorant of the plot against him,
probably because he considered Daikomitsu his friend and believed in the
crude contrivances advanced to throw him off his guard; possibly because
of his being beset with a multiplicity of dangers, for these were to him
hard and trying times. He could trust no one now except Yasuko, his
wife, who had remained loyal to him and proud of his achievements. She
knew not the reason, nor did she question his motives; she trusted him,
and that was to her enough.
"I shall be home early to-day, Yasuko," said Ikamon as he parted, bowing
politely to his wife, and started off on a blustering morning in March
to attend to some official duties which called him outside.
"Then Yasuko is happy, and will abide here and look until you come,"
said she in answer.
She did look, for he had never deceived her, as she knew; and she saw
the most frightful thing, and fell to the floor weeping bitterly. Her
husband did not return; but in passing the Sakurado gate had been set
upon by the ronin, and, without any chance of defence or escape,
beheaded; and his head placed upon a long pole, carried high in the air,
was planted at his door.
This gruesome sight greeted Yasuko when she looked out along the roadway
where she had so often watched her husband's coming and welcomed his
entrance. So swift had been the work of his assailants that none could
offer resistance or interfere until the deed had been accomplished and
the warning carried into the midst of his own household. There they
staked their trophy high in the air, and departing made so good their
escape that no one knew until a later day who had done the hideous work.
The removal of Ikamon proved an effective blow to his policy, and
brought about a speedy reorganisation of the party. Hitotsubashi's
regency was made certain, and Daikomitsu with little opposition chosen
prime minister; in fact, the latter had been decided upon by the former
incumbent's enemies before the butchery occurred.
The main opposition, however, came from Tetsutaisho, though Ikamon's
absence left him illy prepared to cope with the opposition in the
council chamber or at the lobby. Still he developed sufficient strength
to maintain his own position and wrest from them, finally, his promotion
to commander-in-chief of all the shogun's forces. In this he was
considered fortunate; and even he, himself, deemed his place more secure
under the new régime than under the old. He reasoned that it could not
have been long before Ikamon's downfall would have come from another
source, and in that event he would himself, perhaps, have been less able
to force recognition as a result of his own strength. He had grown wiser
with experience, and no longer desired particularly to fly at the tail
of another man's kite. Daikomitsu had early learned that Tetsutaisho was
a friend of the army and they his main supporters, and of late made
every endeavour to cultivate the popular general's friendship. He had
always taken pains not to give Tetsutaisho the impression that he
himself rivalled the latter's brother-in-law; but on the contrary had
assumed such a plausible friendship to both that the liberal-minded
commander never really knew the secret of the wise man's success.
Yet, with all his tolerance, he did not care to trust the new prime
minister too much. He lacked confidence in his ability and remained not
at all sanguine as to his motives; still he would not let any man's
preferment stand between him and his shogun's government. Loyalty was
his watchword, and honour, as measured by feudal standards, his virtue;
neither of which, from his way of thinking, could possibly be attained
outside of the shogunate.
Position he had; for wealth he cared not. His friends he worshipped; to
his enemies he gave no quarter. He lived for the love of living, and
believed the mode made right the result. So far as he knew his own
advancement had come more as a matter of consequence than as a reward
for effort. He considered himself amenable to established law, and such
a thing as a shogun's wrong-doing had no place in the mind of
Tetsutaisho.