The year was 1332. The entire country was in chaos. Despite the foiled civil war not long ago, there was a pervading unease among the daimyo and the samurai they ruled.
Even the jito of distant provinces could sense the Hōjō Clan on the brink of collapse. The Genko Incident seemed to have rocked the Kamakura Shogunate to its core.
The uprising wasn't over, and the mandokoro knew it. It was only a matter of time before Emperor Go-Daigo's vanquished army regrouped and launched another attack.
Forcing the emperor into exile did not eradicate all the threats. If anything, it exposed the inadequacies in the shogun's military might, and the crown prince was still on the loose.
With several warlords on the emperor's side and the shogun surrounded by power-hungry shikken ready to betray him, crushing the feudal military government had become more attainable.
Over a century ago, the Imperial Court of Kyoto had been brought under the control of the Hōjō Clan when it lost in the Jōkyū War.
The retired emperor Go-Toba, who had sparked this war by circumventing the shogun's authority in choosing lines of succession, ended up being exiled to a remote island.
A century later, history seemed to have repeated itself, except his exiled descendant, Emperor Go-Daigo and his vassals were the ones who launched an offensive.
Unlike the current emperor's ancestors, however, his resolve to overthrow the Kamakura Shogunate was as unwavering as a torii.
Even in the face of defeat, he endured and vowed to persist until he brought the Hōjō Clan to its knees.
Amid the threat of another uprising, life continued for commoners across the country. Even the towns around the newly sieged imperial palace in Kyoto continued normal operations.
Only villages harboring high-ranking officials who had led the civil war experienced occasional uproar whenever Kamakura samurai raided and searched houses.
In a small town east of Harima Province in the San'indo circuit, nine travelers were looking for a place to stay for the night. Matsunaga Ryo, the oldest in the group, twice the age of most of them, was the leader.
They were traveling tradesmen, and the eight young lads, no older than seventeen years old, were Ryo's apprentices.
Ryo ran a small subcontracting firm that specialized in blacksmithing, irrigation construction, and farming. He used to work alone, traveling from place to place to look for work.
Then, he realized he could earn more by accepting bulk work, but he needed to have his own workers. That was when he started hiring apprentices.
At first, he hiredadults, but they complained a lot and wanted to return home after everyproject, which cost time and money. So, Ryo replaced them with teens who eitherdidn't have a family or didn't mind traveling for months at a time.
He started withthree from his hometown in Izumo and kept recruiting as they journeyed. By thetime they finished an irrigation project in Tajima, they were nine in the team.
They spent the next couple of weeks traveling to Harima. This was the story Ryotold everyone. He flexed it to his family, friends, and clients.
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Saving Touma
Mystery / ThrillerWhen the past and the future collide, chaos follows. Lives from different worlds intertwine and dance in a perpetual loop. The victim? An innocent child whose future would remain uncertain and cost many lives to retrieve. The key to all of this is a...
