Three Japanese Short Stories by Akutagawa

Author:Akutagawa
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241339756
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2017-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

General Kim

by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke

Their faces concealed by deep straw hats, two saffron-robed monks were walking down a country road one summer day in the village of Dong-u in the county of Ryonggang, in Korea’s South P’yŏng’an Province. The pair were no ordinary mendicants, however. Indeed, they were none other than Katō Kiyomasa, lord of Higo, and Konishi Yukinaga, lord of Settsu, two powerful Japanese generals, who had crossed the sea to assess military conditions in the neighbouring kingdom of Korea.

The two trod the paths among the green paddy fields, observing their surroundings. Suddenly they came upon the sleeping figure of what appeared to be a farm boy, his head pillowed on a round stone. Kiyomasa studied the youth from beneath the low-hanging brim of his hat.

‘I don’t like the looks of this young knave.’

Without another word, the Demon General kicked the stone away. Instead of falling to earth, however, the young boy’s head remained pillowed on the space the stone had occupied, its owner still sound asleep.

‘Now I know for certain this is no ordinary boy,’ Kiyomasa said. He grasped the hilt of the dagger hidden beneath his robe, thinking to nip this threat to his country in the bud. But Yukinaga, laughing derisively, held his hand in check.

‘What can this mere stripling do to us? It is wrong to take life for no purpose.’

The two monks continued on down the path among the rice paddies, but the tiger-whiskered Demon General continued to look back at the boy from time to time …

Thirty years later, the men who had been disguised as monks back then, Kiyomasa and Yukinaga, invaded the eight provinces of Korea with a gigantic army. The people of the eight provinces, their houses set afire by the warriors from Wa (the ‘Dwarf Kingdom’, as they called Japan), fled in all directions, parents losing children, wives snatched from husbands. Hanseong had already fallen. Pyongyang was no longer a royal city. King Seonjo had barely managed to flee across the border to Ŭiju and now was anxiously waiting for the Chinese Ming Empire to send him reinforcements. If the people had merely stood by and let the forces of Wa run roughshod over them, they would have witnessed their eight beautiful provinces being transformed into one vast stretch of scorched earth. Fortunately, however, Heaven had not yet abandoned Korea. Which is to say that it entrusted the task of saving the country to Kim Eung-seo – the boy who had demonstrated his miraculous power on that path among the green paddy fields so long ago.

Kim Eung-seo hastened to the Tonggun Pavilion in Ŭiju, where he was allowed into the presence of His Majesty, King Seonjo, whose worn royal countenance revealed his utter exhaustion.

‘Now that I am here,’ Kim Eung-seo said, ‘His Majesty may set his mind at ease.’

King Seonjo smiled sadly. ‘They say that the Wa are stronger than demons. Bring me the head of a Wa general if you can.’

One of those Wa generals, Konishi Yukinaga, kept his longtime favourite kisaeng, Kye Wol-Hyang, in Pyongyang’s Daedong Hall.

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