勝海舟との出会いを通じて、自分の行き方が定まる坂本竜馬ですが、どうやらその道が時勢の流れに差し掛かるのはまだまだ先のようです。
Sakamoto Ryoma finally decides how to live his own life through the encounter with Katsu Kaishu but it seems to take some time until his way crosses the current of the times.
第4巻の裏表紙に書かれているあらすじは、次の通りです。
The summary written on the back cover of the fourth volume is as follows.
「志士たちで船体を操り、大いに交易をやり、時いたらば倒幕のための海軍にする――竜馬の志士活動の発想は奇異であり、ホラ吹きといわれた。世の中はそんな竜馬の迂遠さを嘲笑うように騒然としている。反動の時代――長州の没落、薩摩の保守化、土佐の勤王政権も瓦解した。が、竜馬はついに一隻の軍艦を手に入れたのであった。」
“’I’ll get a ship and have royalists steer it to trade with other countries, then use it as a battleship when the time comes’……Ryoma’s way of thinking as a royalist was so different from the others’ so some people called him a boaster. Turmoil reigned while he did things in a roundabout way. The time of backlash had come; the fall of Choshu, the conservatism of Satusma, and the the collapse of royalists’ government in Tosa. However, Ryoma finally obtained a battleship.”
志士たちに厳しい時代が到来します。幕末の騒乱の火付け役とも言える清川八郎は幕府の刺客により命を落とします。尊王攘夷の旗手として、京都で意のままに振る舞っていた長州藩ですが、薩摩藩の陰謀で一挙に追い落とされます。土佐藩内の勤王化に半ば成功したかに見えた武市半平太は、藩主山内容堂により牢に入れられます。
The time had come when royalists underwent severe hardships. Kiyokawa Hachiro, who caused the turmoil at the end of the Edo era, ended up being slain by an assassin sent by Shogunate. Choshu had been the standard-bearer for the campaign to restore the emperor and expel the barbarians but they abruptly ended up being expelled from Kyoto due to the conspiracy by Satsuma. Takechi Hanpeita almost succeeded in making a royalists’ government in Tosa domain but he was imprisoned by his lord called Yamauchi Yodo in the end.
そんな中、竜馬はというと船に夢中でした。勝が構想する神戸軍艦操練所の設立のために奔走します。そして、一介の脱藩浪人でしかない竜馬がその塾長になってしまいます。時勢とはかけ離れているとはいえ、このあたりの竜馬の活躍には胸が躍ります。この第4巻の終わりでは、竜馬は勝について長崎へと向かいます。長崎の港を眺める竜馬の心に、ここを根拠地に私設艦隊をもつという構想が浮かぶのはこの時なのでした。
Disregarding those commotions, Ryoma was mad about ships. He ran around trying to help Katsu establish the Battleship Training School in Kobe. In the end, he became the director of the school even though he was just a ronin who left his domain. He was quite separate from the mainstream of the time, even so it’s exhilarating to see him working energetically. Ryoma goes to Nagasaki with Katsu at the end of the fourth volume. It was not until then that Ryoma came up with the idea of establishing his own fleet there overlooking the harbor in Nagasaki.
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