Yodogima: In Feudalistic Japan

Long lines of coerced, machine-made, and let-live mortals wended the broadening valleys leading from the seat of empire, Kyoto's mouldering gate, Fushima, toward the walled-in a...

Momentarily, at the mention of Ieyasu's love, Yodogima brightened; something moved her to a kindlier remembrance of the man who had so often defeated his own intended purpose, s...

Marching down the valley, set with peaceful homes, disturbed only by the retreating fragments of a broken and routed army, twice the size of his but then endangered advance, Iey...

The resolving in her own mind of a determination so vital to herself, to her lover, and to others with whom she had to do, had driven Yodogima well nigh unto the brink of distra...

"Yes; it is he--and you need not start at my presence. I hear that I am, by some, called vulgar; by many, said to be cruel; I know only that I am human: that the touch of your g...

The day dawned bright, and all Kitanoshi livened with anticipation. Great masses of foliage bended or thirsted under the golden dew drops that trickled and glistened in the cree...

The castle at Ozaka now stood in the main finished, and with Yodogima's occupancy and the kwambaku's favor at once sprang into prominence; not only as a strategic point of first...

With her eyes thus opened, Yodogima had resolved, perhaps too quickly, most likely altogether out of proportion to existing capacities, for Japan withal Hideyoshi's democratic t...

Yodogima apparently faltered in the face of positive victory. Was it soul that stirred her to larger comprehension, or had God himself intervened to stay an absolute, a total, t...

In the meantime Ieyasu had concluded it wise to listen to the proposals of Nobukatsu, his nearest neighbor at the west and the eldest living son of Nobunaga: pretender to the fa...

With due promulgation, Hideyori's advent occasioned upon the surface great rejoicing everywhere throughout the land. Especially were the tidings well received at Ozaka and there...

In the meantime there had developed within the ranks, and outside as well, no inconsiderable speculation as to what further to expect. Hitherto Hideyoshi had found ample employm...

And with bated breath those captains, now scattered and broken, looked on, powerless to see and helpless to act. Yodogima threw open her doors to the patriots: Ieyasu closed his...

With the passing of Hideyoshi, Yodogima faced a maze possibly less promising than had the taiko lived longer--to suffer violence or subversion at the hands of those eager and pr...

Sakuma had served his master and met the foe as became his better judgment; but an older belief on the one hand and newer tactics on the other defeated him.

They had gone back into the open, turning again toward a course to the southward; bearing a little to the west, along the well-travelled roadway that led directly into the main...

The homegoing over, both Yodogima and Oyea settled down to a kind of preconceived expectancy. Their place continued as before, under the domination of a single master, the husba...

They had gathered in sumptuous splendor, round the laden trays, with Ieyasu in place and Hideyori at his left, as became an honored guest. Kitagira was there, too; he had been d...

Long into the night Yodogima struggled hard with the problem which now crowded closer round, hemming her in and forcing her down till there seemed no other means of escape. Thei...

Japan lay sweltering with uncertainty. Four centuries of unbridled warfare had reduced her once sturdy, centralized government to little more than a revered impotency; the count...

The taiko bounded up. That voice had filled him as a chorus resounding tidings all but heard in vain. No footstep had broken his reverie; the sight of her seemed as impossible a...

The great sacrifice that Yodogima made only strengthened Hideyoshi's respect for her, whetted the appetite to a keener appreciation of the virtues underlying righteous generatio...

Presently the hillsides, far out over the noised-up city, rang with the bustle and cry of "To arms". No patriot there, not a samurai's mother, but thrilled with the joy and stre...

Though of no particular consequence, this young prince was generally conceded to be the clandestine son of Yoshiaki, the then de jure shogun, who had been, a number of years the...

All the powers of earth could not have tried the princess more; she realized now that she had, out of zeal, overtaxed Ieyasu, and in that opened the way for Hideyoshi perhaps su...

War had been declared, the decisive battle faced them, and neither side underestimated the other's strength nor neglected his own best possible recourse. Yodogima and Ieyasu, tw...

The horrors of war crowded in and around: also its exigencies. Self-preservation enforced some kind of participation: the same elemental voice bade her keep hands off. A fight t...

Ishida and Masuda lingered longer than usual at the cups, on a dark night soon after, while their conversation, heated and close, kept rhythm to the customary "whack, whack," th...

A consummation covertly auguring the final purpose of Ishida; who had so ingratiated himself into the grace of their master that an intrigue against him had been in fact resolve...

Ieyasu groaned under the weight of their defeat; no one knew better than he the futility of matching defiance against gun-powder, and Jokoin had forewarned him, inadvertently le...

Neither Hideyoshi, nor Yodogima, for the moment, took any pains to discover or to suspect the identity of that last message-bearer; though had either one observed at all only th...

With her eyes thus opened, mysticism disappeared: the elements crackled, and out of consciousness there arose a determination to survive any test that might be imposed. All her...

For the other, there seemed but a single course. He had exhausted, as it would appear, all the avenues open to him but one. No such thing as being born again had entered into Ie...