Fish Shoes: A Palace Drama

15 Divine Wind

The Shogun Tokimune was a boy of eighteen who excelled in the samurai military arts, particularly archery on horseback. It was said that his concentration was so perfect that he could hit a target without even looking at it while riding a galloping horse. This he did at an archery contest of the best samurai in the country when he was ten.

The most often-told about him was this: he was summoned to an archery contest held by the previous Shogun when he was ten years old.

No samurai who had participated in the most difficult event, the toya or "long-distance shoot" had ever won. (The contest was shooting at the smallest target at the greatest distance from the back of a galloping horse.)

The Shogun asked if anyone could compete successfully in the event. Tokimune's father replied that his son was a skilled archer and sent a messenger to the boy who was playing at home in the garden. 

Tokimune got his bow and quiver of arrows, mounted and rode to the athletic field. He rode into the view of the Shogun and all the assembled spectators at a full gallop. He reined in his horse, saluted the Shogun, then resumed galloping to the mark where he was to begin the shoot.

Urging the horse to a gallop, the boy dropped the reins and let an arrow fly at the target. He never broke his gallop and never looked back. The arrow stuck in the bull's eye.

The crowd was roaring but the boy had rode out of the athletic field, returned home and had went back to being a child playing in the garden. Now eight years later, that boy was the ruler of Japan. The Emperor in Kyoto was merely a figurehead. 

The most important things in the Shogun's life were discipline and cultivation--his training in bushido, the skills of a warrior, the zen cultivation of his mind with meditation, and his reverence for Shinto, the native Japanese religion, the essence of his Japaneseness, the expression of his understanding of nature.

This was Khubilai's adversary. The Mongol Army had always been lucky in its enemies. Most of them were unprepared and many times, their countries were in a state of weakness, internal conflict or disarray when the Mongol Army made its appearance.

This was one of the few times the Mongols went up against a military nation that was as strong in its mental attitude and defenses as itself. It is my belief that we would have won them, had we not had the water to contend with.

The arrival of the Mongols was no surprise to Tokimune. Only the timing of a Mongol invasion had been in question. After all, he had insulted Khubilai Khan.

Khubilai's envoys arrived. Tokimune  ordered that they be sent away with no answer.

He told his top samurai that the barbarians would be fools to attack him by sea. He had the safety of his island nation. As a precaution, he ordered all governors of Western prefectures to prepare to defend their coasts.

His word was law throughout Japan and the coastal towns were fortified.

Tokimune knew about the occupation of Koguryo by 10,000 Mongol troops. The northern barbarians were living off the Korean peasants.

Japanese spies living in the country kept the Shogun informed about the progress of the Yuan preparations for war. They had cut down every tree of size in Korea for shipbuilding. They had conscripted much of the year's production of rice. They had conscripted troops and trained them.

The Shogun waited for word of the invasion in his wooden palace in the Japanese capital of Kamakura. The palace was a villa that had tatami floors, brushwork paintings and works of pottery and lacquer with very little furnishing. An arrangement of summer flowers, dahlias, his favorite, with pine stood in the tokonoma, the alcove, beside a brush and ink painting done by a Zen master.