Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan (4 page)
Read Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan Online
Authors: Giles Milton
from Arnoldus Montanus’s Atlas Japannensis, 1670
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The natives of Kyushu wore elaborate costumes, spoke courteously, and had extremely refined manners. “[They] prize honour more than any other,” wrote Francis Xavier.
The weather began to turn soon after Xavier’s arrival in Kagoshima. The autumnal breezes brought squally showers and the days grew cooler. The chrysanthemums bloomed and died; the harvested rice fields turned into mud-gray swamps; and the oaks shed their leaves after a brief but spectacular burst of color. Only the camphor trees in the grounds of the Fukosho-ji monastery held their foliage in the chill north wind.
Xavier and his companions shivered in their cotton tunics. Their lodgings were freezing, for the paper window panels did little to cut the icy blast that whipped off the sea. Winter brought
the first snows, which Xavier had not seen since leaving Portugal. He stayed indoors and spent his time doggedly studying Japanese, with which he was having great difficulties. His attempt to produce a phonetic Japanese catechism, written in Latin characters, was a disaster. Twice a day, he would clamber up the steep stone steps of the Fukosho-ji monastery and, seated at the far side of the dragon-gate bridge, overlooking the tranquil lotus pool, he would try to read aloud from his book. But the translation was poor and the Christian doctrine was unintelligible to the monks. Worse still, its clumsy style offended the ears of these highly educated men, and they laughed and said he was crazy.
the first snows, which Xavier had not seen since leaving Portugal. He stayed indoors and spent his time doggedly studying Japanese, with which he was having great difficulties. His attempt to produce a phonetic Japanese catechism, written in Latin characters, was a disaster. Twice a day, he would clamber up the steep stone steps of the Fukosho-ji monastery and, seated at the far side of the dragon-gate bridge, overlooking the tranquil lotus pool, he would try to read aloud from his book. But the translation was poor and the Christian doctrine was unintelligible to the monks. Worse still, its clumsy style offended the ears of these highly educated men, and they laughed and said he was crazy.
His more private preaching—done with the help of his interpreter—had reaped a handful of converts. An impoverished samurai had been the first to be baptized; he took the name of Bernardo and devoted himself to studying the Bible. Anjiro’s mother, wife, and daughter had also converted—along with the owner of Xavier’s lodgings. But these were rare successes, and Xavier found that even sympathetic audiences were generally skeptical. He had tried to adopt and adapt Japanese words when he came to teach the local people about Christianity, but quickly mired himself in confusion. Japanese religious words were too laden with symbolism to convey the theology of the gospel.
So far, Xavier had not penetrated into inland Japan and his knowledge of the country was limited—like Pinto’s—to the coastline. From the moment he had first set foot in Japan, he had intended to travel to the fabled imperial city of Kyoto—then known as Miyako—to seek permission to preach from the emperor himself. He also hoped to be granted an entrance into the famous university of Heizan in order to debate with, and convert, the erudite monks.
Toward the end of August 1550, he and his companions finally set off on a journey of great hardship. The first leg involved a dangerous sea voyage, braving storms and pirates, while the second stage entailed a treacherous trek over snow-capped mountains.
The mortification of the voyage left Xavier unfazed; indeed, he made it even more arduous by shunning the offer of a pack animal and subsisting on tiny quantities of roasted rice. “He was so absorbed in God,” wrote one of his fellow travelers, “that he wandered off the way without noticing it, and tore his trousers and injured his feet without observing it.” He made few converts en route, for he struck most observers as an eccentric figure whose impoverished demeanor won little respect in Japan. By the time he approached Kyoto, his sleeveless black surplice was torn to shreds, while his tiny Siamese cap—tied to his head with string—gave him the appearance of a jester.
The mortification of the voyage left Xavier unfazed; indeed, he made it even more arduous by shunning the offer of a pack animal and subsisting on tiny quantities of roasted rice. “He was so absorbed in God,” wrote one of his fellow travelers, “that he wandered off the way without noticing it, and tore his trousers and injured his feet without observing it.” He made few converts en route, for he struck most observers as an eccentric figure whose impoverished demeanor won little respect in Japan. By the time he approached Kyoto, his sleeveless black surplice was torn to shreds, while his tiny Siamese cap—tied to his head with string—gave him the appearance of a jester.
Xavier had high expectations of the fabled imperial city. “We are told great things,” he wrote, “ … [and] are assured that it has more than ninety thousand homes, and that it has a great university.” He had been told of monumental temples and monasteries, of golden shrines and pleasure houses where the emperor and his court engaged in intellectual tussles. The truth was very different. Kyoto lay in ruins—an expanse of crumbling dwellings and temples—for warfare, pestilence, and floods had left the city in a parlous state. The once-magnificent Sunflower and Moonflower Gates had been wrecked by a typhoon, and the clipped fringe of bamboo that surrounded the palace apartments had been swept away by floodwater. Princesses and courtly mistresses no longer spent their waking hours composing poetry. Now, they lurked by the perimeter fence in order to beg food from passing merchants. The emperor himself had withdrawn into the sanctum of his palace.
Had Xavier been allowed a peek inside those forbidden corridors, he would have seen an extraordinary sight. The puppet emperor actually looked and behaved like a puppet. He wore an extraordinary cap with giant earflaps, tassels dangled from each hand, and his straw sandals had nine-inch heels. “This gentleman never toucheth the ground with his foote,” wrote one later visitor, “[and] his forehead is painted white and red.”
Xavier was dispirited by his stay in Kyoto and realized that he would have to seek permission to preach from the great feudal lords if he was to have any success in Japan. It also dawned on him that his tattered gown and unkempt hair—the visible signs of his poverty—did not impress the Japanese. When he reached the city of Yamaguchi and requested an audience with the lord, Ouchi Yoshitaka, he dressed in newly purchased silks and presented himself as ambassador of the governor of India. He also offered Ouchi the presents that had been intended for the emperor—a clock, some Portuguese wine, and two telescopes—and proceeded to dazzle the feudal court with his learning, giving lectures on astronomy and the geography of the world. Here, at last, was something that left an impression. “They do not know that the earth is round,” he wrote, “nor do they know the course of the sun, and they ask about these things and others, such as comets, lightening, rain and snow” Xavier could see that Ouchi and his men delighted in his lesson “and regarded us as learned men, which was no little help in their giving credence to our words.” By the time he left the city—on hearing that a ship was awaiting him at the port of Funai—he had converted some 500 souls. Ironically, many had been won over by his knowledge of astronomy, not of Christianity.
from Arnoldus Montanus’s Atlas Japannensis, 1670
.
.
Few Buddhist monks were impressed with Xavier’s preaching. His clumsy attempts at speaking Japanese offended the ears of these highly educated, if impoverished, men.
Xavier set sail from Japan in November 1551 after more than two years in the country. In that time, he had aged visibly and his hair had turned white. He put a brave face on the troubles he had experienced and wrote an upbeat letter to his fellow missionaries about his stay in the country. The Japanese, he said, “are the best who have as yet been discovered, and it seems to me that we shall never find among heathens another race to equal the Japanese.” Although his contact with them had been limited, he had seen enough to conclude that “they are a people of very good manners, good in general, and not malicious.”
While Xavier had been busy preaching, Portugal’s merchants had been reaping their own, more profitable, harvest. They had discovered that the Japanese had a voracious appetite for Chinese silks and were prepared to pay enormous sums of money to acquire them. They could not buy silk themselves, for the Ming emperors in China, tired of piratical raids on their coastline, had forbidden any Japanese from landing on their shores on pain of death. An imperial decree described them as “thieves, birds of prey and rebels against the sovereign emperor of China.” Such sentiments were music to the ears of the Portuguese. “The discord between China and Japan is a great help to the Portuguese,” wrote
one Jesuit monk, “[for] the Portuguese have a great means of negotiating their worldly business.”
one Jesuit monk, “[for] the Portuguese have a great means of negotiating their worldly business.”
In or around 1555, the Portuguese secured a toehold on the tiny island of Macao, on the south coast of China, which gave them access to the great silk markets of Canton. With characteristic energy, they began buying vast quantities of silks in preparation for their first great trading mission to Japan, along with other “Chinish wares”—porcelain, musk, rouge, and rhubarb.
In 1555, a huge carrack laden with silks sailed to Japan under the command of Captain Duarte da Gama. She did brisk business on arrival and returned to Macao with such a vast quantity of silver that even the monks were left wide-eyed. “Ten or twelve days ago, a great ship from Japan arrived here,” wrote the Jesuit padre Belchior. “She came so richly laden that now all other Portuguese and ships which are in China intend to go to Japan.” The success of the voyage sparked a frenetic trade as Portugal’s merchants entered this lucrative business. The profits were indeed staggering and commentators wrote excitedly about the enormous quantities of silver being exported from Japan. One quoted twenty million grams a year; another—Diogo de Couto—bragged that “the cargo … is all exchanged for silver bullion, which is worth more than a million of gold [cruzados].” A third said that the Portuguese were managing to cart off almost half of Japan’s annual production of silver bullion.
The merchants in Macao built huge vessels to bring back their silver—unwieldy monsters of almost 2,000 tons. These
nao do trato
, or “great ships,” were broad in the beam and had as many as four flush decks, with space for a staggering 120,000 cubic feet of silver bullion. They were veritable leviathans by the standards of the day, and they towered over the native junks. The way in which the trade was regulated was decidedly eccentric: the exclusive rights to the annual voyage to Japan were—quite literally—sold to the highest bidder in Macao. For the successful captains,
the wealth and authority this brought them often went to their heads and they would swagger around the Japanese ports accompanied by armed retinues, fife bands, and Negro slaves. The Japanese had never seen anything like it.
nao do trato
, or “great ships,” were broad in the beam and had as many as four flush decks, with space for a staggering 120,000 cubic feet of silver bullion. They were veritable leviathans by the standards of the day, and they towered over the native junks. The way in which the trade was regulated was decidedly eccentric: the exclusive rights to the annual voyage to Japan were—quite literally—sold to the highest bidder in Macao. For the successful captains,
the wealth and authority this brought them often went to their heads and they would swagger around the Japanese ports accompanied by armed retinues, fife bands, and Negro slaves. The Japanese had never seen anything like it.
Although they continued to label the Portuguese barbarians, the Japanese had the foresight to realize that these merchants had the wherewithal to bring them the silks they so fiercely craved. They also discovered that their best hope of attracting merchants to their fiefdoms was by currying favor with the Jesuit priests who arrived along with the bales of silk. The astute Otomo Yoshishige of Bungo was one of the first to grasp that trade and religion went hand in hand. He wrote to the Jesuit authorities in the most ingratiating terms, begging them to persuade merchants to harbor in his port. He assured them: “One of the reasons is that I will be able to install the fathers again … with greater favour than they obtained at first.” But it was not the only reason. The lord of Bungo was desperate to lay his hands on Portuguese weaponry and requested “espera” guns, which fired twelve-pound shot. He argued that “if I have my kingdom prosperous and defended, [then] the church of god will likewise be so.” In a decidedly saccharine afternote, he said that he had always enjoyed the company of the Portuguese and that his most treasured possession was a letter written by the queen of Portugal, “which I esteem so highly that I carry it in my breast as a relic.”
Poor Yoshishige’s request fell on deaf ears. Portugal’s merchants and priests had discovered a far more suitable harbor on the northwestern shores of Kyushu: Nagasaki. From 1571, they began to direct their great ships into its deep, safe waters. “This place is a natural stronghold,” wrote one, “and one which no Japanese lord could take by force.” It was soon to prove as beneficial to the merchants as it was providential to the priests. The feudal lord of Nagasaki, Omura Sumitada, had converted to Christianity in 1562 and had taken the name Dom Bartolemeu. When he saw the quantities of silks, damasks, and porcelains arriving at his shores,
he went one step further and declared his intention of making his fiefdom a purely Christian one, expelling all who would not conform to the new religion. This was swiftly achieved and a band of Jesuit monks, “accompanied by a strong guard … went around causing the churches of the gentiles”—the Buddhist and Shinto temples—“ … to be thrown to the ground.” Within seven months, 20,000 people had been baptized, along with the monks of some sixty monasteries. The Jesuits were overjoyed and rejoiced at seeing these monks, “the very men who formerly regarded us as viler than slaves, … now [come to us] with hands and forehead on the ground in token of submission.”
he went one step further and declared his intention of making his fiefdom a purely Christian one, expelling all who would not conform to the new religion. This was swiftly achieved and a band of Jesuit monks, “accompanied by a strong guard … went around causing the churches of the gentiles”—the Buddhist and Shinto temples—“ … to be thrown to the ground.” Within seven months, 20,000 people had been baptized, along with the monks of some sixty monasteries. The Jesuits were overjoyed and rejoiced at seeing these monks, “the very men who formerly regarded us as viler than slaves, … now [come to us] with hands and forehead on the ground in token of submission.”
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