Chapter 138: To Tsushima Island [1] It was only near the very end of the banquet that So Yoshitoshi approached Seonjo.
At the time, in Joseon, it was common to look down on or dismiss the Japanese. Even Dolseok, a born commoner through and through, cursed the Japanese as ignorant because they had no learning. Of course, thanks to Sayaga, the party's prejudice had softened somewhat.
Hmm... even so, Seonjo really does have the bearing of a king.
Jeong Cheol and Yi San-hae, by contrast, had their chins raised high as they quite literally looked down on Yoshitoshi. Or rather, they tried to. Yoshitoshi was so large that it did not quite work.
Seonjo, on the other hand, observed proper courtesy toward the envoy.
"Lord Yoshitoshi. So you are returning to Tsushima now."
And he did not even forget to use an honorific. Naturally, So Yoshitoshi's own manner became all the more careful. Following the Joseon etiquette he had learned over the long period he had spent at the Dongpyeonggwan, in other words the lodging place for envoys, he paid proper respects.
"It is thanks to Your Majesty's consideration."
"Haha. Your merit in capturing rebels including Saeulbaedong was great. And there is also the fact that you personally offered to guide the sea route."
"I am only doing what ought to be done."
"Good. Travel safely."
Just as Seonjo was about to dismiss the guests, Yoshitoshi hurriedly cut in.
"Before I leave..."
"Hmm? What is it?"
"I have prepared a gift. It is inadequate, but I hope you will accept it."
"Is that so?"
There were few people in the world who would be displeased at being offered a gift. And that was especially true if the gift had been prepared by an envoy from a foreign country. Seonjo readily nodded.
"Thank you. Tell them to bring it in."
Yoshitoshi gave Sayaga a quiet order, and Sayaga ran like the wind to one corner of Gyeonghoeru. It was a place no one had paid any particular attention to for the past several hours they had been in Gyeonghoeru.
Damn.
But once one saw it, it was hard not to look twice, because there was an animal there that was truly difficult to see in Joseon.
Isn't that a peacock...?
Even Kanghyeok himself had only seen one or two at a zoo and had little memory of seeing one otherwise. Those who had spent their whole lives in Joseon had probably never seen one even once.
Sure enough, the surroundings began to stir. Yeoju was especially shaken.
"It's really... really beautiful."
As she spoke, her hands kept twitching, as if she wanted to start drawing it immediately.
"We can't touch it, can we?"
Yeoni, a little more proactive, rubbed her hands together.
Even the desolate Dolseok could not hide his excited expression.
"Hey... is that really a bird? What kind of bird is that pretty?"
Even while saying that, his hands were miming drawing a bow. Makbong hurriedly grabbed Dolseok's hands.
"Are you crazy? If someone sees you, you'll get dragged off."
"I didn't really shoot it."
"Do you only get dragged off if it's real? Didn't you see what happened before?"
What Makbong meant to bring up was surely the Gichuk Purge. That too was dangerous talk, but Kanghyeok did not bother stopping him. No one was listening to the two of them anyway. Everyone was too busy staring at the peacock.
"Oh. This is truly a very rare bird."
Seonjo, however, maintained his dignity. His hand twitched slightly, as if he were holding himself back from petting it at once. Still, outwardly he looked every bit the composed king.
For Kanghyeok, it was a moment that somewhat broke his previous prejudice.
So up to this point, he really was a normal king?
Come to think of it, it seemed Seonjo had actually been rather well regarded before the Imjin War. Beyond that, Kanghyeok's shallow historical knowledge made judgment difficult.
Apparently pleased with the reaction around him, Yoshitoshi approached Seonjo with a satisfied smile.
"Yes. It is a bird called a peacock. As you can see, its feathers are extremely beautiful. If kept in the palace, it will provide a fine sight."
"Haha. Thank you."
Seonjo nodded with a satisfied smile as well. It was quite a pleasant scene to behold. So the officials once again began their cry of "ten thousand years."
"Ten thousand years to His Majesty the King! Ten thousand years to His Royal Majesty!"
In Kanghyeok's view, it was a rather random moment to do that, so he helplessly missed the timing again.
On top of that, his gaze had long since been stolen by another gift placed behind the peacock. The peacock was, at the end of the day, only a somewhat pretty bird. There was no knowing whether he would even get to keep living in Joseon. But the gift behind the peacock was a different matter.
They're giving that... to an enemy country?
The pair of rods set on the antique wooden stand were unmistakably matchlocks. By Kanghyeok's common sense, it was almost impossible to understand. This was like gifting a newly developed secret weapon to an enemy nation.
Could he be planning to pull that out and shoot Seonjo?
It was a completely absurd thought.
As expected, Yoshitoshi merely picked up the matchlock and presented it to Seonjo in an orderly manner. This was undoubtedly also the first time Seonjo had seen such an object, but it was hard to expect the same response as before. Most of the ministers still could not take their eyes off the peacock. It was hardly an exaggeration to say that Kanghyeok was the only one staring fixedly at the matchlock.
"What sort of thing is this used for?"
At Seonjo's question, Yoshitoshi showed him a small iron ball.
"It is called a matchlock, and it can fire an iron piece of this size in a straight line."
"Oh."
Unfortunately, no one in the Joseon court grasped what it truly meant for a chunk of iron to fly in a straight line. If Yoshitoshi had gone so far as to demonstrate firing it, things might have been different. But he did not go that far. So the matchlock was merely sent off to the Military Supply Agency, the office that handled the manufacture and management of weapons, and then forgotten.
"Since I have received a precious gift, I ought to bestow something in return. Bring it here."
At Seonjo's order, one eunuch ran so frantically it seemed even the testicles he no longer had were jangling. Soon he reappeared, panting, leading a large horse. It was a palace warhorse, and the gloss of its coat truly shimmered so beautifully that it fully deserved to be called a fine steed.
"Huh..."
Yoshitoshi's mouth fell open, and he could not even continue speaking. That was because it was difficult to see a horse of this caliber in Japan. In fact, horses themselves were rare there, so it was only natural. It was possible that even the horse Toyotomi Hideyoshi rode was not as fine as this one.
Perhaps because of that, Yoshitoshi dropped to one knee and expressed his gratitude.
"T-thank you!"
"Haha. Is it that pleasing? If I had known, I would have given you one sooner."
"No. This... this precious thing... thank you!"
"Good. Then travel safely now."
"Yes! I will make sure the diplomatic mission travels in safety."
With that, the mission to Japan under Chief Envoy Hwang Yungil, Cheomji of the Jungchubu, began.
The journey was not nearly as harsh as Kanghyeok had feared. If anything, it was so comfortable that it left him bewildered. They spent far more time staying at official stations and enjoying banquets than they did actually moving.
"Did I gain weight, or did my clothes get smaller?"
"You too? Me too."
Makbong and Dolseok had each put on several kilos at least. Since their days consisted of nothing but eating and drinking without doing any work, it was only natural. Yeoju and Yeoni at least were not living like complete idlers, because they went around following Kanghyeok. They had just come back from seeing So Yoshitoshi, after all.
"What exactly is the illness he's suffering from?"
Yeoni asked as she wiped the sweat from the back of her neck. She had come to feel rather warmly toward both Yoshitoshi and Sayaga, for one reason only. The two of them never refused her requests for sparring. Or rather, at first they had done nothing but refuse, but after getting thoroughly beaten by Yeoni, they now came looking for her almost every day instead.
"I'm not certain, but... you said Yoshitoshi is one step above Sayaga in swordsmanship, didn't you?"
"Yes. Judging by his ordinary movements... but when they actually fight, he makes absurd mistakes."
"Mm. Right."
Yoshitoshi's swordsmanship certainly did have something extraordinary about it. According to Yeoni, if he really fought properly, even she could not guarantee victory. But once the duel truly began, he was no match for her at all. After only a few exchanges, Yoshitoshi would start stumbling or losing balance all on his own. That made his duels with Sayaga far more worth watching.
From what I can tell... Yoshitoshi suffers from dizziness... and there's a strong chance it's vestibular vertigo.
Vestibular vertigo meant dizziness caused by an abnormality in the balance system. It most often appeared as the sensation that the world was spinning, and in severe cases it could make even daily life difficult. But in Yoshitoshi's case, daily life posed no problem at all.
That's possible if it's a very slowly progressing loss of balance function.
Most organs in the human body came in pairs, did they not? Thanks to that, even if one side failed, the other side could compensate.
And the hearing in his left ear has dropped badly too.
That was something Kanghyeok had just confirmed through a proper examination. He looked down at the tuning fork he had made on the way down with the help of a local blacksmith.
The left side can barely hear at all.
He had never dreamed that knowledge learned in his student days would become useful like this.
There was nothing difficult about it. The first test simply involved striking the tuning fork, holding it in front of the ear, and then, once the sound was no longer heard, placing it on the bone behind the ear. Yoshitoshi said that in both ears, when it was placed on the bone behind the ear, the sound he had stopped hearing became audible again.
So that means it isn't conductive hearing loss. It's either sensorineural hearing loss or a normal finding.
The second test was even simpler. Strike the tuning fork, then place it on the top of the head. If normal, the sound should be heard equally in both ears. But Yoshitoshi said he heard it much louder on the right.
Putting those two findings together led to a single conclusion.
Yoshitoshi's left ear is damaged... and at the same time, his balance function is damaged too. Hmm.
A disease that could damage both hearing and balance at once. Possible diagnoses ran rapidly through his mind.
Still, it's probably Ménière's... no, it isn't. That can cause vertigo even without overexertion. And fluctuating hearing is one of its hallmarks.
Moreover, if Yoshitoshi really had Ménière's disease, there would be no way to treat it. Kanghyeok immediately moved on to the next possibility.
It could be a complication of vestibular neuritis. But that doesn't explain the hearing loss.
Vestibular neuritis was a condition that could reduce balance function. But it should not be considered something that also caused hearing loss. Several other possibilities also rose to mind, such as a very narrowly localized stroke or an unusual form of positional vertigo, but he ruled them out one by one. That was because, during the examinations carried out over the roughly two months it had taken to come down to Dongnae, there had been no evidence of such diseases.
So the last remaining diagnosis was vestibular schwannoma.
Which means the highest possibility is a brain tumor.
Just imagining opening Yoshitoshi's skull already made his head throb.
They did say we'd be staying on Tsushima for about a month...
If that was the case, then there was enough time. Even if he opened the skull, a month would be enough to reach a conclusion. Either Yoshitoshi would die, or he would recover completely.
If I kill the lord of Tsushima on Tsushima, I'll die too, won't I?
There was no need to think twice. His loyal guard Sayaga would obviously throw himself at Kanghyeok without caring about anything else.
No. I'm a genius, so... I think I can do it.
As always, Kanghyeok's thoughts ended in praising himself.
"Anyway, I do have a few treatment methods in mind, so once we reach Tsushima, I'll have to try them."
"Really? As expected of you, young master... you truly are a great physician."
"A great physician, yes. Haha."
He was never the sort to refuse praise from others.
As they laughed and talked, Yeoju suddenly asked with a deliberately dark expression, "But... will we really get there safely?"
"Mm?"
"They say it takes a full day by sea to reach Tsushima..."
"Ah."
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