Zhu Yuanzhang unfolded the memorial again and read it from beginning to end.
He had to admit that he had grown somewhat curious about the man named Minamoto Yoshimitsu.
Though he did not know the exact reason, this Minamoto Yoshimitsu was most likely the Ashikaga Yoshimitsu mentioned by later generations. Both the name and the title of shogun matched.
Since the seventh year of Hongwu, Yoshimitsu had sent tribute every single year.
And every year he had been rejected.
Yet despite that, the envoys never stopped coming. Their persistence could only be described as tireless.
Because later generations had pointed out the crux of the matter, Zhu Yuanzhang was now able to look at the situation from a different perspective. Once he stepped out of the old notion that Yoshimitsu was not the sovereign of Japan, his impression changed somewhat.
According to the accounts of later generations, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu could certainly be considered a heroic figure in Japan.
For such a man to persist so stubbornly, the profits of maritime trade must truly be enormous.
Moreover, now that Zhu Yuanzhang possessed intelligence about Japan gathered by later generations, when he looked back at the interactions between Ming and Japan since the founding of the dynasty, many suspicious details gradually returned to his mind.
In the second year of Hongwu, he had sent Yang Zai as envoy to Japan.
The mission was to inform Japan that the Yuan dynasty had fallen and that the lands of China had been restored. Japan was asked to acknowledge Ming as its suzerain just as it had done during the Tang and Song dynasties. It was also required to suppress the wokou pirates and guarantee the safety of Ming's maritime borders.
The result was disastrous.
Of the seven members of the envoy mission, five died at the hands of the Japanese. Yang Zai and Wu Wenhua were imprisoned. Meanwhile the wokou pirates continued their raids without interruption.
Zhu Yuanzhang had been furious.
Later he sent the Assistant Prefect of Laizhou Prefecture to Japan. This time things seemed to go smoothly. The talks were cordial, the imprisoned envoys were released, and afterward Prince Kanenaga also sent envoys to Ming and returned many Chinese people who had been captured by pirates.
Yet cordial talks were one thing.
The problem of wokou piracy remained unresolved.
At the time, the entire Ming empire had its attention fixed on the north. On the one hand the state needed to recuperate and restore the people of the Han lands. On the other hand it had to use its limited resources to deploy troops and ensure that the Mongol Yuan remnants could never again ride south across the Yellow River.
In the end, Zhu Yuanzhang found himself with no effective method to deal with the nuisance of the wokou pirates. For the moment he could only place his hopes in Prince Kanenaga and trust that he would observe some sense of propriety and fulfill the responsibilities of a tributary state.
As for what happened later, according to the reports from Laizhou, envoys claiming to represent Prince Kanenaga continued to enter Ming.
However, most of them never traveled all the way to Yingtian to pay court.
Some of the more decent ones returned a few Ming subjects and stammered about the dangers of the long sea voyage while requesting favors from the Celestial Empire.
But many others were shameless.
They would return five or six Chinese captives and then brazenly demand seven or eight shiploads of rewards.
It was under such circumstances that the envoys carrying the memorial of Minamoto Yoshimitsu began to appear every year from the seventh year of Hongwu onward.
At the time, Zhu Yuanzhang had been angered by the growing greed of Prince Kanenaga's envoys. Yet he also struggled with the fact that the Assistant Prefect of Laizhou had indeed brought back a memorial from Prince Kanenaga acknowledging Ming as suzerain.
Under those conditions, Zhu Yuanzhang naturally had no intention of showing any goodwill toward the memorial submitted by the shogun Minamoto Yoshimitsu.
The officials of the Ministry of Rites were well aware of the complicated background behind these events.
Therefore, seeing that the emperor did not immediately throw the memorial back with harsh rebuke as he had done in previous years, but instead seemed willing to talk, they could not help feeling surprised.
The officials of Ming were merely surprised.
The Japanese envoys, however, were overwhelmed with joy.
"Great Son of Heaven of China!"
Speaking in somewhat awkward Chinese, the envoy cautiously stepped forward and prostrated himself fully on the ground.
"The Shogun also detests the pirates. Should the Son of Heaven of China issue a command, the Great General will surely demonstrate his loyalty to the suzerain."
Zhu Yuanzhang stared at the envoy.
He adjusted his breathing slightly. His voice became calmer, yet his words were clear and deliberate.
"Kanenaga. No. By your Japanese naming it should be Yoshinaga. I already know of his retirement. Tell me the true situation in Japan."
Zhu Yuanzhang's voice echoed throughout the hall.
The sentence itself carried no direct threat, yet the Japanese envoy immediately began trembling. His face changed color and he almost collapsed.
The other tributary envoys watching the scene were filled with curiosity.
The officials of the Ministry of Rites exchanged glances with one another. Each of them seemed to be thinking the same thing. They had already guessed part of the truth.
The envoy whom Zhu Yuanzhang had deliberately questioned did not possess much resolve.
After only a few breaths, he began to explain everything he knew in a trembling voice.
From the moment Ashikaga Takauji turned against the Japanese king and forced him to abdicate, to the new king appointing him as shogun before retreating south, to the Ashikaga clan establishing a shogunate in Kyoto, and finally to the third shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu defeating the forces of the Southern Court and reunifying Japan.
The envoy spoke in a confused and disordered manner, but the emperor and ministers of Ming still managed to understand the general situation.
"What audacity!"
Li Shuzheng, the Minister of Rites, stepped forward and shouted angrily.
"This is an act of deceiving the emperor! You know that our Son of Heaven of Ming holds the sovereign Kanenaga in high regard, yet you concealed the change of rulers and ignored the imperial will while engaging in such deception. Do you know the crime you have committed?"
Li Shuzheng had only recently assumed the post of Minister of Rites.
His predecessor, Li Mian, had served as acting minister. After successfully organizing the emperor's birthday celebration, he submitted a memorial requesting reassignment to an external post.
As a result, the position of Minister of Rites had changed hands four times in a single year. No wonder the officials felt that this year had been especially difficult.
Hearing Li Shuzheng's words, Zhu Yuanzhang quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Then he glanced at Li Shuzheng with clear approval in his eyes.
What a talent.
Chinese history was vast. Even by drawing simple analogies, the officials of the Ministry of Rites had already understood what had happened in Japan.
Was this Minamoto Yoshimitsu not doing the same sort of thing once done by Cao Cao, Sima Yi, or Zhao Kuangyin?
Well, perhaps not Zhao Kuangyin. After all, Yoshimitsu had not actually seized the throne.
Thus, if the matter were pursued seriously, it would become a tangled mess.
If one followed the earlier memorial from Kanenaga that the emperor had already accepted, then Yoshimitsu could be considered a true rebellious minister. As the suzerain state, Ming should suppress the traitor and restore the rightful ruler.
But since Yoshimitsu had not usurped the throne, Li Shuzheng, the new Minister of Rites, had chosen his words carefully.
He blurred the issue of the change in Japan's sovereign and focused solely on the crime of deceiving the emperor.
"I… I…"
The Japanese envoy was stunned and could not understand what situation he had fallen into.
Before today he had assumed that the same thing would happen as in previous years. The memorial would be thrown back at his head by the Son of Heaven of China.
That would actually have been convenient. With the audience over quickly, he would have time to visit the markets of Yingtian and purchase goods for the nobles back home. When he left Japan he had been given a long shopping list, and so far he had completed less than twenty percent of it.
A moment earlier he had thought that he had finally repaired relations between Japan and Ming and would soon gain fame before the shogun.
But now the officials of the Celestial Empire looked furious and ready to punish him.
The envoy's heart could hardly bear it.
Fortunately, the great emperor of Ming finally spoke.
"I believe there are certain matters that Ashikaga Yoshimitsu may not have explained clearly."