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This squadron consisted of the Tsukushi, a light cruiser, armed with two 10-inch and four 47-inch guns, and the old ironclad Hei-yen, once belonging to the Chinese navy, but captured by the Japanese at the first battle of the Yalu. She mounted one 10-inch Krupp which had formed part of her original armament, and two 6-inch modern guns.
An army of twenty thousand men, commanded by a majority of the omi and muraji, was sent to Tsukushi, and all potential opponents of the Soga chief having been thus removed, he proceeded to carry out his design against the Emperor's life. The very indignity done to Sushun's remains testifies the thoroughness of the Soga plot.
After calling for about a minute, I dropped the flags and placed my glasses to my eyes. It was all right, they were keeping a bright lookout afloat, and the Tsukushi was waiting to receive my message.
Still, she must be said to have been the victim of special ill-fortune when an army of twenty-five thousand men, assembled in Tsukushi for the invasion of Shiragi, was twice prevented from sailing by unforseeable causes, one being the death of Prince Kume, its commander-in-chief; the other, the death of the consort of his successor, Prince Taema.*
"That being the case," he continued, "it is my intention to dispatch thither the Akagi, Chokai, Hei-yen, and Tsukushi to afford the assistance required by General Oku; and those ships will be accompanied by a torpedo flotilla, the duty of which will be to take soundings, lay down a line of buoys inside which the ships must not pass, and search for and clear the bay of mines, as well as to render such further assistance as may be possible to the land forces.
Fabulous accounts are given of monster trees. Thus, in the Tsukushi Fudoki we read of an oak in Chikugo which towered to a height of 9700 feet, its branches shading the peaks of Hizen in the morning and the mountains of Higo in the evening. The Konjaku Monogatari tells of another oak with a stem measuring 3000 feet in circumference and casting its shadow over Tamba at dawn and on Ise at sunset.
But Saimei died before the necessary preparations were completed, and the task of carrying out a design which had already received his endorsement devolved upon Prince Naka, the great reformer. A fleet of 170 ships carrying an army of thirty-seven thousand men escorted Phung-chang from Tsukushi, and the kingdom of Kudara was restored. But the conclusive battle had still to be fought.
In the tenth month of the same year the priest again set sail, trusting to the power of his patron saint, and reached the harbour of Tsukushi without mishap. For three years he prayed that the image which he had cast away might be restored to him, until at last one night he was warned in a dream that on the sea-shore at Matsura Yakushi Niurai would appear to him.
The same may be said of eleven among fourteen Kami thereafter born from the pollution which Izanagi washes off in a river. *At Himuka in Kyushu, then called Tsukushi. But the last three of these newly created beings act a prominent part in the sequel of the story.
Three distinct lines of tradition point to the near peninsula or the west coast of Japan as the "Heaven" whence descended the tribe which finally grew to be dominant. The islands of Tsushima and Iki were the stepping-stones of the migration out of which rose what may be called the southern or Tsukushi cycle of legend, Tsukushi being the ancient name of Kiushiu.
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