(Passageway from the Tokyo Station to the Imperial Palace Plaza or the old Edo Castle of the Tokugawa Clan)



Toward Tokyo, I got on a train and took a seat. I watched down to find on the floor of the vehicle a torn ticket with a serial number such as 15XX...

While returning from Tokyo, I stepped down from a train and bought a bottle of vitamin drink from a vending machine. Then I moved to another platform for a different line, sitting down on a chair and waiting for other train. I watched down to find on the floor of the platform a torn ticket with a serial number such as 15XX...

I checked my ticket to find it had a serial number of 2677. This year 2010 of the Christian era is 2670 in the imperial calendar of Japan.
It is hard to explain but I may be allowed to live till 2017, at least.

Or, something that happened in the 16th century might happen again by 2017.

What do you think, since it is very rare to see a ticket having been torn and thrown by some passenger on the floor of a train or a platform in Japan?

And, today, around the Imperial Palace Plaza, I also saw a very rare object.

Incidentally, the biggest incident in the 16th-century Japan was the death of samurai-lord hero Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) at the Honno-ji temple near Kyoto in 1582.

Oda Nobunaga adopted revolutionary matchlock-gun based tactics and protected Vatican missionaries, since a matchlock gun was introduced to Japan in 1543 and Christianity in 1549, both by Europeans.

Leveraging merits of the two products of the European Civilization, materially and philosophically, Oda Nobunaga almost succeeded in putting all the samurai lords, including future samurai rulers of Japan Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, under his command and control.

But, Nobunaga was betrayed for still unknown reason by one of his generals who attacked and killed Nobunaga at the Honno-ji temple. At the night of the betrayal, the samurai general was supposed to be moving and marching his 13,000 troops to a certain Western region for war as Nobunaga had so ordered.

As Nobunaga, a genius at war, trusted the intellectual samurai general Akechi Mitsuhide so much, he had only a small number of samurais as guards in the temple, though Nobunaga then actually led tens of thousands of samurai lords, generals, and troops in his large territory around Kyoto covering one third of the main island of Japan.

It is believed by most of historians: If Oda Nubunaga had not been killed by Mitsuhide, a popular samurai among court nobles in Kyoto, in 1582, he should have conquered all the other samurai lords who had been at war against one another for decades and more, since the Imperial Court had no power and the central samurai government or shugunate had already collapsed.

In that case, Nobunaga must not have ventured into war with China through the Korean Peninsula like Hideyoshi did. Nobunaga must not have forbidden Christianity, which led to the later closure of Japan for 200 years and more, like Ieyasu did.

If Oda Nobunaga had survived and destroyed the insurgence by Mitsuhide who was tragically defeated soon after the Honno-ji temple incident by Hideyoshi, Japan might have joined Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands to expand to the world, while the Vatican could have their missionaries safely work in Japan.

Yet, with the death of Nobunaga, the most powerful samurai lord or daimyo at the time, Japan could preserve and further develop its unique culture and traditions as well as religions. Nobunaga was so revolutionary and acted like a king of destruction through his 48-year long bloody life. It is even believed that he intentionally neglected authority of the Imperial Court which was then almost simply nominal and spiritual.

So, the biggest incident in the 16th-century Japan was the death of samurai-lord hero Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) at the Honno-ji temple near Kyoto in 1582.

In Europe, it was of course the insurgence by Martin Luther against the Vatican.

Anyway, you do not have to sweat it: the miracle of 15XX and 2677.

(Take vitamin drink some time...)