Page:Tales from old Japanese dramas (1915).djvu/459

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have seen that Tei Shiryō, the loyal minister of the Ming dynasty, had been banished by the Emperor Shisō. Afterwards he went over to Japan, and settled in a fishing village at Hirado, Kyūshū. Whilst there, he married a Japanese woman who bore him a son called Seikō, which name was afterwards changed to Kokusenya.

Kokusenya was brought up among ignorant fishermen, and his occupation was also fishing. He was distinguished alike for sagacity and energy. From childhood he was always a voracious reader of biographies of heroes; and when he became a young man he devoted his leisure time to a careful study of Chinese and Japanese classics, and of tactics and military arts, in which he attained wonderful proficiency. He afterwards wedded a Japanese woman named Komutsu, with whom he lived a happy married life.

One day, the young couple were wandering on the sea-shore collecting shell-fish. Suddenly they saw an enormous clam, which opened its shells 371