Chapter 42: The Treasures of Genji

  On August 22nd, the first rickshaw was made by Shiroya Chubei. Kira Yoshinaka specially took a ride and felt pretty good about it, praising him and rewarding him with one kan of money. He ordered him to make more like this before August 28th, at least twenty rickshaws. When Shiroya Chubei heard the number, he was so shocked that he almost fell over.

  "Your Excellency! I really don't have the ability to make so many carriages! Two days for one carriage is already working day and night without rest! Even if my craftsmen are familiar with the production process, they can only compress it to one day per carriage. Twenty carriages are simply impossible!" Shiya Shūbei knelt on the ground with a sorrowful face, begging, his apprentices all stopped work and followed him in kneeling down. In the crowd, he also saw white-haired old men, middle-aged women, and children, roughly forty people in total.

  Kirishima Manzaburou waved his hand to disperse the crowd, forbidding the nearby townspeople from approaching. He sat on a cushion prepared by Yamagata Zenzaburou and looked at the kneeling Hida craftsmen, suddenly saying: "You people took two days to build just one carriage? This speed is absolutely unacceptable!"

  "But the little people are really powerless......" Shioya Chubei knelt down and curled up into a ball, looking very pitiful. His flying workers from Hida had despair written all over their faces. A young woman clutched her child and covered her mouth, as if afraid she would cry out in anguish. Kiryu Mansaburou opened his signature bat-shaped fan, its beautiful surface fluttering gently like a butterfly, leaving everyone stunned.

  "You're wrong! Everything is wrong!"

  "What's wrong?" Shioya Chubei was somewhat stunned and didn't understand what this noble meant.

  "Yes! Wrong! And wrong to the extreme!" Kiryū Mantsumaru stood up and walked to the newly made carriage, pointing at it with his fan bone. "Why can't you separate the axle, wheels, carriage, shaft, reins, and horse harness and make them individually? Each person has their own job, those who make axles don't interfere with the wheels, those who make carriages don't worry about how the shafts are made. Make twenty sets of carriage parts at once, and then assemble them together. How much faster can you be?"

  "If the materials are sufficient, six days, no! Five days is enough for a small person like me to make twenty horse-drawn carriages!" Shioya Chubei counted on his fingers for half a day, gritted his teeth and reported his own limit number.

  Kiriyama Manzaburou's mind flashed with a new demand: "If the Honke pays for helpers to be hired, divided into two groups taking turns, each group working six hours, day and night without stopping, how many horse-drawn carriages can you make in these six days?"

  "This... the technique of the helper cannot be guaranteed, and the speed may not increase much." Shiya Shūbei cried with a sad face, tired of dealing with this nobleman's strange ideas.

  "What if we let them do some simple work? Like reins, carriage, cart shafts, and horse harnesses. If they put their minds to it, they can learn quickly!" Kiryu Mansaburou quickly came up with a compromise, and this time Shiroya Chubei had no choice but to agree.

  "Recruit the craftsmen yourself, they learned their skills from you and can't let you lose out. From now on, just hire them all!" In the end, he didn't care that Shioya Chubei's face was turning sour, and directly made a decision, also helping him recruit a team of over 30 carpenters.

  "But..."

  "Oh! And after the job is done, our household will pay double wages! Also, you all prepare yourselves, on August 28th follow me to Luoyang." After Kiryū Manzōmaru threw down these words, he didn't even look at the stunned expressions of this group of Hida craftsmen and led his large entourage back to Nishijō Castle.

  On the evening of August 27, thirty-five carts were delivered on schedule. After deducting material costs of forty monme, each cart's labor cost was five hundred monme. In addition to paying double the standard wage, Kira Yoshinaka also gave an extra five ryō as a bonus, making the Hida craftsmen so happy that they celebrated like it was a holiday, praising Lord Kira's kindness.

  On the evening of the 27th, Kira Yoshinaka visited the shrine of Honjō Hachiman in the company of Yamamoto Kansuke. The shrine was not large, consisting of three halls: a left hall, a right hall and a main hall. In front of the main hall there was a separate chamber used as a place for worship.

  The building's style is Nagare-zukuri, characterized by a curved gable that extends outward with a curve. The internal structure consists of five bays and three intervals between the beams, making it a single-bay nagare-zukuri with hinoki cypress bark roofing. The hinoki cypress bark roofing is a unique technique where tree bark is layered to create the roof. In short, this shrine from top to bottom is a quintessential example of Japanese culture.

  It doesn't matter whether Kira Yoshinaka agreed or not, but the branch family of the Kira clan, the shrine administrator of the Hachiman Shrine, Nagai Hisamichi said so. Finally, Kira Yoshinaka got tired of listening and drove him away.

  "Good grief! Every time I come here, Nagi no Mikoto always repeats the same thing, as if he's afraid I'll forget or something!" Kiryu Manzamaru was thoroughly fed up with this guy and walked past the worship hall dedicated to Hachiman Daibosatsu, arriving at today's destination, the main shrine of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu.

  "Master, come quick and look! This is the treasured heirloom of my Minamoto clan! It's also the treasured heirloom of my Kira clan! The Honjō Masamune! And the Imperial White Flag!" Kira Yoshinaka stood in front of the Honden shrine where the famous sword Honjō Masamune, passed down through the Minamoto clan, was enshrined, along with the Imperial White Flag used by Minamoto no Yoshiie during the Gosannen War.

  Kogarasu Maru, also known as Onikiri, Shishi no Ko, Kotori, Tomokiri, etc., was forged by order of Minamoto no Mitsunaka, the first ancestor of the Settsu Genji clan. It was passed down to his legitimate son Minamoto no Yorimitsu and later became a family heirloom of the Kawachi Genji clan, being held successively by Minamoto no Yoshinari (2nd generation), Minamoto no Yoshiie (3rd generation), Minamoto no Tameyoshi (5th generation), Minamoto no Yoshitomo (6th generation) and Minamoto no Yoritomo (7th generation).

  It has been passed down among the people that when Minamoto no Yoshitsune raised an army, he used white cloth from a decree issued by Emperor En'yū more than 20 years ago to attack the Taira clan to make military flags, and this became the origin of the Minamoto white flag. However, this is not true. As early as the time of the Battle of Ishibashiyama nine years ago, Minamoto no Yoshitsune and his father Minamoto no Yoshiie had already set up a white flag in front of the gate of Ishibashiyama Hachiman Shrine and entered the shrine to pray for eternal military luck.

  Three years later, Minamoto no Yoshie led the white flag to conquer the floating prisoners of ōshū and the Clear Source clan. When Minamoto no Yoshie crossed the Sumida River with his brothers and nephews, the white flags on both banks stood like a forest, and the Eastern warriors followed in large numbers. After entering ōshū, he also gave the white flag to Taira no Koremochi, the great-grandson of Taira no Shigemori, and ordered him to lead the vanguard to destroy Kiyohara no Takehira.

  During the period of Ashikaga Yoshinori, who served as the Shugo of Mikawa Province for three generations, he built the Mito Hachiman Shrine in Nishi-jo Village and enshrined the sacred sword and the white flag used by Minamoto no Yoshie during the Gosannen War.

  Kirishima Manzaburou first knelt on the ground and clapped his hands three times, silently reciting: "Namu Hachiman Daibosatsu!"

  He stood up, picked up the scabbard and gently stroked the hilt, then pulled it outwards with a "whoosh!" sound. The 2-foot-7-inch long sword was drawn by him, and although it had experienced over 600 years of wind and rain, it still shone brightly and emitted a sharp aura that intimidated people.

  "What a fine sword! It's truly worthy of being the treasured heirloom of the Minamoto clan! With this sword and the sacred white flag used by Hachiman Shrine, I have no worries about the prosperity of my family!" Kira Yoshinaka couldn't help but praise the famous sword.

  "Is it just a revival of the family business?" Yamamoto Kan no Suke smiled meaningfully, pretending not to see the frenzied expression on Kiryū Man no Maru's face. He turned around and walked to the front of the shrine to worship at Hachiman Daibosatsu, which was the tutelary deity of the Minamoto clan, where Nakamikado had enshrined ōjin-tennō, Himetataraisuzu-hime-no-mikoto, and Jingū-kōgō. These three great deities were all very famous; ōjin-tennō didn't need to be mentioned, while Himetataraisuzu-hime-no-mikoto and Jingū-kōgō were both female deities, with the latter also known as Hime-okami. These two were closest to the Himiko recorded in "The Records of Three Kingdoms".

  Kirishima Mantsumaru stayed in the main temple for a short while, then came out holding the white flag and accompanied by Higekiri, calling out to Yamamoto Kanetsugu: "Sensei! It's time to go!"

  The two of them quietly descended the mountain, and Yamamoto Kanetsugu turned around to look at the familiar shrine, smiling as he said: "To steal the famous sword from within the Hachiman Shrine like this, Nagayoshi Mitsuteru will definitely be extremely troubled!"

  "Ah! That's why I came tonight, to make him worry for a while!" Kirishima Mantarōmaru grasped the Higonokami and the white flag in his arms, smiling happily.