November 28th, 1577
Pacific Ocean
A ship called the Sagami-maru was sailing in the direction towards the lands of the Spanish New World. In one the cabins Cathan and Richard where sitting
"I cannot believe we're finally leaving that land. I hope my Lord understands."
"You do not share his taste for adventure?"
"No, I don't care for the sea or ships and have seen enough of them in my lifetime even if I were to live to be one hundred summers, but I am only here to protect my lord. You managed to see those ships you were looking to see?"
"If you can even call floating forts proper ships, although I suppose seeing one of those ships from the Chosenji made up for it." Richard heard that aside from Giaponese other peoples and great lands existed to the their very East, one the Chosenji being one such people.
"Pardon me, but it could always be worse. At least you two were not here when we had to face down the Turk, completely done on a whim."
I heard that it was divine providence to at least some papist fellows on the ship?.” Luis shot Richard a quick glance of annoyance relgion was a topic they seldom talked about, and Luis had learned some English from him while he traveled with them.
“No, it was foolish curiosity and then we were in the thick of battle against the Turk. Even facing the admiral of the fleet. Compared to that chaos at least we only need to worry about the seas.”
“You talk as if the seas aren’t chaotic themselves?” The Irish warrior looked at the Portuguese poet as if he was insane.
“They are, and I ended up shipwrecked once, but the seas do not shoot cannon-fire at you. That said, I hope our journey home goes well. This is the last voyage I hope to undertake, after that I could spend the rest of my days on dry land.”
“Where is home for you?”
“Me? Portugal? Luis quickly pointed at a map. “What about you?’
“The Kingdom of Ulaid. I have no idea where it would be.” Richard still found it odd, the Irishman seemed to view Elizabeth as not his Queen.
“If I am to understand some of these maps, then far to the west of here?” Richard stated.
“Yes. We will have quite the way to go, once we get to Acapulco. Then we go by land to Veracruz. I hope it as easy as it sounds”
“We can’t get to dry land soon enough.” Cathan grumbled
"Are you sure you don't miss anything from Giapan?" Richard asked giving one last though to wonder if the dour warrior would change his tune.
"Hm, the mountains were quite the sight, and not all the food was terrible, but I hated being gawked at."
"You didn't even like that wrestling competition you and your lord participated in?" The Englishman asked.
"That was a good time, but what I am going to do with that bow or that fabric? Other than give it to my lord?"
"It would at least make for a fine story back home." Cathan did not feel reassured by the poet's words.
"Would being dragged around the world by someone who is like a friend, but a foolish one really be an interesting story?"
"Anything can be interesting, it just depends on how you tell it. Diogo would feel the same way as you. Even if we are fools, I hope the rest of the crew are not."
"God willing."
The ship had sailed off into the west, hoping to make its way back home as their journeys in Japan had come to an end..
February 19th, 1578
Bianratogan, Pagashinan Province
Hashiba Harushita stood overlooking the small but growing castle town of Bianratogan.
It felt funny to call this place home, yet it was home all the same.
'I wonder what my parents would think. I started as a lowly foot soldier, now I am the lord of faraway land?' A reminiscing smile came across Harushita's face. 'Probably that I still serve Lord Yoshimoto and rule over strange people.'
Strange was one word for the mix of Chuugokujin and Pagashinanjin and others that lived in his lands. ‘His lands’, those words felt odd to think about. He went out from home to go engage in adventure, fought for the Imagawa, then the Oda. Then advised a down on their luck Rokkaku under the Imagawa becoming a minor noble, convinced a member of the naval ministry to approve of him and his brother as agents. Became a pirate and then helped overthrow them.
There was always much to do. Defenses to go plan down south since It seemed the other lords of this land might cause trouble, and the borders weren’t defined. Then he had to keep his men in line as an actual force.
“Brother.” Harushita was stirred from his thoughts by Harunaga. “Are you okay?”
“As okay as one can be governing others. Did you meet with Hayashi?” Speaking of said pirate lord, Harushita hoped he wasn’t too angry.
“Yes, he was receptive and Agoo has thrived under his rule.”
“Receptive? That’s an interesting choice of words.”
“He’s still angry with you, and says you have sagging eyebrows.” Harushita couldn’t help but laugh.
“He thinks I’m a fool? He’s not wrong. Nothing about our mother this time?”
“No.” Harushita gave a small smile. “Although I had to threaten him over that.”
“He will forgive me one day.” Harunaga didn’t seem convinced.
“And next you will tell me this will be a nice place to live.”
“Exactly.” Harushita saw his brother roll his eyes and he could only smile. “One of us has to be optimistic here.”
“Are you sure you do not mean stupid, Harushita?”
"I don't know you are the reasonable one."
"If there's one thing you take seriously from me, at least don't work yourself too hard."
"I will. Trust me, I'll never heard the end of it, from some of 'dear' courtiers. like Pei or San Bin.
Harunaga turned to leave, but Harushita could help but give the castle town one last look. It's people called him lord, and as strange as it was, but it was home. Not just for him and his brother, but for many others. Could he at least provide for them? It was a question perhaps he couldn't answer tonight, but there was always as long he didn't give up.
June 12th, 1578
Sunpu Castle Town, Suruga Province
A group of three merchants were talking among themselves.
"Did you hear what the Kofu-maru brought back, Saburo?" The fist speaker didn't look too young or too old, but who he was speaking too looked grizzled and had a scar over his eye.
"What, Goro? I heard it went to Pagashinan, do you really expect anything valuable form these distant lands?” Saburo did not share the same sense of optimism.
“Yes, sure we’re getting these animal furs, some of their local food. This is just the start of things.” The speaker was a younger man the others knew as Tanaka
“Why should we care about these distant lands when the Imagawa have brought peace to our land? Shouldn’t that be enough?” Irritation started to creep across Saburo's face.
“Why should we be content with just goods from the rest of the land? When there is an entire world out there?" Tanaka gestured to some of the nanban goods in his stall
“Because we should be thankful for what we have, and not reach out in greed. All this talk of sending ships and men out to fight for others is just nonsense, the place for young fools to go make a name.”
“What will you talk about the Yinka princesses and bringing evil foreign ways?” Goro's remark drew no laughter.
“We are merchants, not gossips. Besides, my wife likes their fabric designs, and there might be a nice venture. Besides, you misunderstand my hesitation, the outside world isn’t evil but surely we don’t have to recklessly engage in adventures and see more young idiots dead.”
“Do you really look down on us? We are smart enough to make our choices.” The younger merchant was trying to understand his older competitor's point of view.
“And fighting when we don’t need to is a choice. I almost died against the Takeda, lost a brother fighting against the Honganji, and saw a son wounded against the Ouchi. So I apologize if I don’t see much opportunity in people choosing to go fight when we live in a time of peace.” Tanaka was too young have fought in any of the wars Saburo talked about, even if he did hear of some of them.
“Well what would you rather have them do? Become merchants like us?” Thankfully for both men this time, Goro spoke before them.
“We have enough competition just among ourselves.” Tanaka's joke got everyone laughing if only for a little while.
“I have my shop to get back to, will we still be meeting tonight?” Goro asked, being the first one to try and leave before things started to pick up.
“Sure.” Tanaka replied.
"I might, but don't think me not being there means you'll win at Karuta." Saburo warned Tanaka with a wink. "I picked it up during my soldiering days, damned Ouchi were playing it when we capture a small camp of them." [1]
The merchants turned away and walked back toward their stalls, as more and more people had come to visit what was the beating heart of a new Japan.
[1] Portuguese playing cards, were introduced to Japan via traders first being know as Karuta and too off from there.
Okay I apologize for the lack of consistency here. But to make something of an important announcement I want to make my next update the last one for this timeline, and that’s it's going to have something of a timeskip and epiloge. I honestly feel like I’ve just meandered with some of these idea’s I've had, and I really wanted to do so much. However I also think I should have kept a narrower scope, maybe even ended it after unfication, but I really wanted to much more with an 'open' Japan but also radically play around with the world as much as possible.
It doesn’t mean I hate everything I’ve written for this story, I just think maybe I should have put some of this into other works. Hell I've actually written and published some stuff that works off this timeline in the future, even the distant future. Maybe I should kept the Tensho expedition as it's own I certainly wouldn't say I've abandoned this timeline. I think I'll elaborate more for the last update. Maybe I'll leave room for a continuation, but I don't know if I can do it justice or what to really focus on.
