William Adams: English Advisor to the Shogun
historytoday.com
historytoday.com
Civil registration started in England only in 1837. Modern koseki system in Japan started in 1872, but different systems of civil registration existed way before that, including one created under the shogunate (though many years after Adams's passing).
And indeed, they couldn't possibly careless about his married status regarding him marrying a Japanese woman. His declaration of death was so that he would be free to serve the shogunate freely, without the obligation of return to his family in England.
Neither bureaucracy nor family honour.
I mean, bear in mind that about 30 years before Adams was born, Henry VIII had broken with Rome so that he could get a divorce. Religious views on the sanctity of marriage in England were, ah, evolving rapidly at this point.
As far as I know, Henry VIII never divorced any of his wives, they all ended because of annulment or death.
(Not that this was exactly unprecedented; the whole thing kind of came to a head because the Pope wouldn't grant a spurious annulment to cover a divorce to Henry, but various Popes had certainly granted dodgy annulments to various monarchs _before_.)
Also ninjas are depicted as super-powerful badasses. Which fits the legend, certainly, but isn't particularly realistic.
This collection doesn't address those criticisms -- it's more of a literary analysis than a set of fact checks. But I'd still like to know.
It's a work of fiction. I suspect it is as accurate as a japanese book about america or hollywood's depiction of the wild west.
Early on, the book describes blackthorne as being a head and shoulders taller than the locals. That may be true in 1900s england, but in 1600s ( really 1500s ) england, an englishman was generally closer to 5 feet than 6 feet. And as you noted the comical suicides and extreme behavior of the characters doesn't seem realistic at all.
Shogun probably reflects 1600s japan as well as Fargo reflects 1990s Dakotas/Minnesota ( and that was based on a true story! ).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Helle_Crafts
This woman's murder was the inspiration for Fargo.
It's very likely ninja (or "shinobi", if you're meticulous) didn't exist at all. There must have been spies and assassins, which are already present in Chinese culture which was a big influence in Japanese culture, but the ninja as a stealthy infiltrator, wearing black clothes and special weaponry is a later day invention.
I actually like that in the remade "Shogun" TV show, the "ninja" attack is replaced by a maid who turns out to be an assassin in the payroll of Toranaga's enemies. Not clad in black or with super powers, just a woman who can handle a sword and attacks by surprise.
Ninjas will appear later in an even more stupid way and I hope they heavily diverge from the book there.
But... this being a work of fiction, I'd forgive them a bit of thrilling ninja action. As long as everybody understands they are like dragons in Game of Thrones: made up.
many things likely can't be fact checked, e.g. what kind of warriors/spies ninjas really were.
I think most mainstream historians believe ninjas (as depicted in pop culture: assassins clad in black, with almost supernatural infiltration abilities, armed with shuriken, "opposed" to the samurai, etc) are completely fictional. There were spies and some jizamurai engaged in guerrilla tactics and wrote some books about it, and that's about it.
It doesn't look like bushido is nonsense. There are some works from late Sengoku/early Edo period which describe concepts, so likely they carry some knowledge from period of civil wars.
"Bushido", the word itself, is relatively "new" in Japanese history. As a concept, it was written about mostly during the Edo period (and later), after the samurai were effectively de-militarized and formalized into a fixed caste and basically became bureaucrats, and no longer had major wars to be involved in. This period spawned works such as the Hagakure, which was written by a bureaucrat who longed for the olden days of samurai "virtue", and exaggerated and romanticized a way of life he didn't experience himself. Apparently later Japan bought into this idea of a glorious and honor-bound "samurai" past, but this was mostly made up.
So while there's a core of truth to it -- different samurai clans may or may not have followed different codes of behavior, who weren't called "bushido" back then -- it was heavily romanticized, exaggerated and turned into a mythical virtue of the samurai by later writers who weren't alive when the samurai were actual warriors.
Which, as a shortcut, I called "nonsense".
"vassal/lord relationships" could be very different in very different cultures. If it was common for Sengoku samurais to commit sepuku on order of lord, then this is concept/code of bushido which was not present in say majority of Western feudal cultures.
Putting enemies to the sword, one way or the other, was also common in Europe. The difference is that Christianity frowned upon suicide (either voluntary or forced).
Samurai defeated in battle ran away to fight another day, like most humans.
"Bushido" is supposed to be more than seppuku anyway. This notion of the samurai as someone extremely loyal and honor-bound to follow his lord or commit suicide otherwise is a fiction.
Like I said, Japan did some nation-building on top of this myth, but it was mostly a development of writers who lived past the Sengoku, when samurai were no longer warriors.
Think of bushido as Arthurian lore: it's fiction, and people of several times updated it and added to it, and built a mythos around it. Even the katana as the "soul of the samurai" is a later day fiction; samurai during the Sengoku prized katanas (or their predecesors, actually) but they didn't particularly use them except as sidearms; it was the spear and the bow that were the "true" samurai weapons; the daisho was only codified as the "samurai symbol" once the warring period had mostly ended. It's also an invention...
Meanwhile, the real samurai were warriors and did what warriors of every culture did: war among each other, kill things, and amass fortune when they could.
I am wondering how did you arrive to this conclusion? I guess one would need to do some comprehensive review of all available materials from that time?..
> Even the katana as the "soul of the samurai" is a later day fiction; samurai during the Sengoku prized katanas (or their predecesors, actually) but they didn't particularly use them except as sidearms; it was the spear and the bow
I am not sure where katana as the soul idea came from, but I speculate that while spear, bow and arquebuse were battlefield weapons, samurais used it only in rare events of going to campaigns, while they carried katana rest of the time, so I guess it could be appropriate to call it soul.
Read what mainstream historians wrote, as opposed to more pop culture oriented divulgators like Turnbull (who in later works retracted his earlier opinions).
Historical records don't show many people voluntarily committing seppuku, but there's lots of instances of people forced to commit suicide (or whole families executed).
There are also lots of instances of samurai, high ranking and low ranking, running from the battlefield to fight another day. The notion that a samurai must commit seppuku on defeat is untenable.
Seriously, if you google the literature a bit you'll see the same opinions.
> I am not sure where katana as the soul idea came from
The writings of the Edo period, after the Tokugawa shogunate made the daisho (the pair of short and long swords) a symbol of the samurai. Before this, during the warring period, anyone could use a sword and there was nothing special to it.
> samurais used it only in rare events of going to campaigns, while they carried katana rest of the time, so I guess it could be appropriate to call it soul.
Nope. The weapons the samurai valued and trained with during peacetime were the bow primarily -- the bow was THE samurai weapon -- and the naginata (earlier) and spear.
The katana proper didn't even exist, it was the tachi or uchigatana, its antecessors. And while quality works were prized (and some had religious significance, especially pre-katana swords!) they were merely sidearms.
The "soul of the samurai" is a later day romanticization.
If you read modern literature , there is a lot of noise and hyperbole. Like 20% females being raped while studying at college. It comes from well accepted study, was quoted in several journals, but obviously has to be open to some interpretation.
My guess young samurais would prefer seppuku over chores and punishment. Perhaps look into Kyōgen to get some perspective.
https://koei.fandom.com/wiki/William_Adams#Nioh
Don't expect a historically correct storyline though ;)
I had the same issue with Wo Long.
In the early 1600s a number of Dutchmen ended up in Joseon Dynasty Korea, which was still recovering from a series of devastating invasions from Japan which ended in 1598 (which are also talked about in the show Shogun). Desperate for military advancement, these foreigners, while entering an officially closed kingdom, where integrated into society as military advisors. The geopolitical realities that are in the show very much affected the region, and the introduction of Christianity, first by the Catholics, and then by other denominations has had profound impacts in East Asia through today.
- in 1627 the Dutchman Jan Jansz Weltevree and some of this crewmates ended up marooned in Korea where they were asked to produce artillery for the Joseon dynasty. Weltevree took a Korean name, got married, has some children and even passed the Korean civil service exam becoming a proper Korean official. [1]
- in 1653 his countryman Hendrik Hamel shipwrecked in Korea with almost 40 other crewmates and eventually met Weltevree who helped translate for them. Like his compatriots, they were tasked with being military advisors.
Hamel eventually escaped Korea and made it back to Amsterdam by way of Nagasaki in 1668 where he published his journals, marking the first Western contact with Korea that was reported back to Europe. [2][3]
- Predating Adams by just a few years, in 1579, an African arrived in Japan with a Jesuit mission. He became a retainer to Oda Nabunaga, one of the three unifiers of Japan. He had a brief but interesting career as a Samurai and was given the name Yasuke, then when Nabunaga fell went back to the Jesuits.
- The Catholic missionary work in Korea started by the Jesuits in 1593, and like Japan became a powerful political and economic force. The Joseon dynasty had enough of it after a while and attempted a series of major purges, killing thousands of converted Catholics until the 19th century. The Church has continued to be a source of revolutionary support in South Korea up until the modern 21st century. But most Korean Christians are not-Catholic today as later missionary groups from other denominations were less politically threatening and seen as potential balances of power against the Catholic influence in Korean. Very notably, Pyongyang was the seat of Presbyterian Christianity before the civil war, and it's well understood that the founders of North Korea, the Kim family, were once a notable Presbyterian family with a few ministers in the line.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Jansz_Weltevree
2 - https://archive.org/details/journaelvandeongeluckigevoyagiev...
For anyone not familiar with the "Mizu's list" reference, we're talking about the Netflix animated series Blue Eye Samurai. It's got more graphic violence than I usually enjoy but is a really good story.
One of the best Netflix shows of late, I really recommend it.