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 Post subject: The Tortoise Clan
PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 3:24 pm 
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When Agasha Kasuga reported to the Empress Yugozohime with his revelations on why he had defied her divine will about the gaijin, he was not pardoned. The result of his secret audience was such that all his records and notes on the gaijin affairs were to be requisitioned and restricted in the deepest recesses of the Imperial Libraries, while he would commit seppuku.

Yugozohime apparently thought she could handle the remaining Merenaese in her lands without any extraordinary solutions, and so made a principled dictum. But as the ink on Kasuga's death poem ran dry, her uncle Muhaki, whose advices she valued, must have already sown second thoughts in her mind. During conversations that followed he ultimately convinced her that the gaijin influence needs to be cloistered while their knowledge and connections to the faraway lands sought and exploited. There were few people she could entrust such a delicate task with, however.

Except for Muhaki himself.

Even though Agasha Kasuga was never formally rehabilitated, he gave his name to the new Minor Clan the ageing Otomo agreed to form for the sake of continued reign of his beloved niece. He was granted the domain on the coasts of the Golden Sun Bay and some other holdings around the capital, with freedom to recruit anyone into his fledgeling Clan who he saw fit. Muhaki, the first daimyo of the Tortoise, accepted Kasuga's close family into the Clan alongside the Yasuki captains that had helped in Kasuga's voyage. While Kasuga's only male heir Buntaro had vanished after his father's death, it was his daughter Genjiko who childless Muhaki adopted to his name and prepared to become his heiress.

For the purpose of appearances, all the Merenaese remaining in the Empire were from now on considered Tortoise heimin, no exceptions. However, what one could get curious about was the rise to prominence of a samurai named Muhaki Todoro who was named the captain of the emergent Tortoise fleets. None beyond the Tortoise themselves and perhaps some among the Imperial Families have any recollection of appearances of this mysterious man. Even when Todoro was not at sea, he could not be seen in public in the capitol area, though there were whispers that he was indeed accompanying Muhaki in many consultations with the Empresses. It's also not clear when and how he passed away, though with Genjiko's rise to power he was no longer mentioned in the Clan.

And as if it was not enough, another mysterious personality rose to become a power figure among the Tortoise, as one of the closest advisers to both Muhaki and later Genjiko. Muhaki Sadahako, a beauty in her youth, now a respectable if not ungraceful obaasan, was the one who challenged the dominance of the Crane and the Scorpion in the Willow World, weakened prior by Yugozohime's purges of Gozoku influences. The network of her establishments, which have already spread beyond the capitol area, is reputed to offer exotic pleasures inaccessible to the houses sponsored by the Shosuro or the Iwasaki vassals of the Kakita. Nobody knows where she's come from, nor how she got to deserve the trust of Tortoise leadership, nor how she secures the exotic wonders available in her pleasure empire, but for almost half-century she's been a permanent facet of the Tortoise outreach.

Inside the Clan, she's been known to be the caretaker of the old tortoise who the local legends claim to be Someisa, a nun who had learnt one of Shinsei's last mysteries that granted her great longevity. She somehow promoted calling her Someisa Sadahako, and her subordinates followed suit, leading to an organic development of a vassal family within the Tortoise.

Muhaki died in 472 at a very respectable age, leaving the Tortoise prosperous and relatively powerful. During his rule the small clan has developed a solid share in shipping routes as well as in shipbuilding and processing of exotic commodities. There are rumours Tortoise reach goes beyond Rokugan, into the strange lands of the gaijin, though the Tortoise dismiss it. Nevertheless, under Muhaki the Clan somehow secured monopoly on many rare resources and goods entering the markets of the Empire, and its technological innovations have been nothing short of astounding, providing the Clan with an edge in dealing with larger and more populous Clans.

Over that time, Tortoise relations with the Crab through Yasuki have largely been cordial, both families leveraging the Gusai and the Daidoji with their close commercial cooperation in the littoral zones. Yasuki fortes in the entertainment business have been strengthening Sadahako's position.

The newly emergent Boar Clan, thanks to Muhaki's farsightedness who commanded forging close ties with the Heichi the moment Yugozohime created the new Clan, has become a natural economic and political ally of the Tortoise. Tortoise coastal production benefited greatly from steady supplies of raw materials, mostly mineral ores, from the Boar.

Throughout, the Tortoise were enjoying the benevolence of two Empresses, shielding uncle Muhaki's clan from many external pressures. That, of course, bred envy, or thinly veiled rivalry and hostility. While the Tortoise are enjoying a healthy position among the Minor Clans except for the Mantis, among the Great Clans practically only the Crab and the Dragon hold no grudge, nor claim divergence in interests. Even among the Imperial Families the oddity that is the Tortoise is not particularly appreciated for the disproportionate amount of confidence awarded to it by the Hantei in the past. They claim that after Muhaki's passing there is no longer any reason for sustaining this abnormal state of affairs. For traditionalists, The Tortoise Clan is something to undo. For pragmatists, it's something to take over.

That means a lot of work for the Tortoise leadership, which now consists of two matrons: Muhaki Genjiko, the nominal Champion, and Someisa Sadahako, as well as Genjiko's heir, Muhaki Saionji, a daring and dashing leader of men who commands the Tortoise fleets. One could tentatively count Genjiko's husband, Zazu, into the group, though it's unclear how much power this former Yasuki really has. What is known is that he's much younger than his elderly wife and rarely spends time with her, instead pursuing a carefree life in the Hubs on Tortoise tab, what shows in his constitution growing sideways. Some dare say that his conduct is an embarrassment to Genjiko and their son, though that marriage of convenience has never been blissful. It is said Muhaki had agreed with the Yasuki daimyo for a better match for his chosen heiress, but after his death the agreement was reneged on because of some political machinations, and Genjiko eventually married the youngest and the least promising of high-profile Yasuki bachelors.



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