<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >1, he is William Adams of England and the Samurai Miura of Japan</h1>
When I was very young, I really liked to watch the cartoon "Smart One Break", in which the loyal and funny image of the samurai Nishi Right Aemon left a very deep understanding of me.
Slightly older, the Japanese TV series "Zi Sanshiro" swept the country, which was the first time to understand the japanese martial arts spirit, and it was also the first time to know the samurai plot in Kurosawa's heart.
Later, with the development of the media, there were more and more contacts with various cultures, such as the movie "Seven Samurai", the anime "Ranger Kenshin", and the game "Nobunaga Nobunaga", which all involved a lot of Japanese samurai spirit.
In the general impression, Japanese samurai are dressed in feather weaving, with sharp blades hanging from their waists, and they are haunted and kill people in an invisible image. But in the history of Japan, there is a blonde Englishman who was also awarded the title of samurai and enjoyed a permanent fief, which is a legend.
He was William Adams, known in Japanese as Miura Press. Today, more than 300 years later, there is still his monument in Tokyo, Japan; in Britain, he is known as a bridge between Japan and Britain, and is the person who opened the mysterious window of Japan to Britain. In Nobunaga's Wild Hope, a character was also designed specifically for William Adams.
So how did William Adams, a relatively closed island nation in Japan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, come to Japan, gain the trust of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and then get the title of samurai? Based on the legendary life of William Adams, William the Samurai describes the collision between the magnificent Age of Discovery and the Edo Period of Japan, and tells the whole process of Japan's exchanges, trade, and retreats from Japan to European countries.
"Good literature doesn't need fiction at all, because reality itself is the best work." As a non-fiction literary work, "Samurai William" makes readers enjoy it because of the legendary color of the protagonist himself.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >2, the Age of Discovery created the legend of William Adams</h1>
Elizabethan British explorers knew almost nothing about Japan, and on their maps, Japan was just a few oddly shaped ink spots.
Not only britain, but also other European countries are ignorant of Japan's location and social conditions, and all their knowledge of Japan comes from Marco Polo's "Oriental Observations". But in fact, Marco Polo had never been to Japan, and what he knew was all about the Chinese at that time.
It wasn't until 1544, when the tropical monsoon blew the Portuguese sailboats off course and three Portuguese explorers landed on the land of Toyota, Japan, that Europeans truly saw Japan for the first time.
The rich and mysterious land of the East soon aroused great interest among European explorers, who began to plan a journey to Japan to seize wealth. In this context, William Adams also began his legendary life.
William Adams was born in England in 1564 to a family of sailors, and in this age of great navigation, learning navigation, shipbuilding, and astronomy became Adams's first choice, and at the age of 24 joined the British Royal Navy and participated in battle.
After retiring from the army, the status of a naval soldier did not bring much change to Adams's life, and life was still difficult. In 1598, the Dutch Rotterdam Company organized a spice trade team to the Far East, and there was a lack of navigators, so Adams and his brother Thomas joined the fleet, hoping to change their fate through long voyages.
And this voyage really changed the fate of all of them. Various disasters were encountered during the voyage, the fleet was lost, the younger brother Thomas was killed in the conflict with the natives, a large number of crew members even including the captain lost their lives during the voyage, and the entire fleet was in a state of collapse.
In 1600, after 19 months of hardship, Adams's ship drifted to Japan, and the crew was reduced from 110 to only 24 people, no food, no water, and only 6 people could stand.
Nevertheless, they are alive and meet the fabled Japan.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >3, Tokugawa Ieyasu: William Adams' Bole</h1>
When it comes to William Adams' origins in Japan, we have to mention Tokugawa Ieyasu.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Japan was in the last years of the Sengoku period, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi had passed away, and his heir Hideyoshi was still young, and the actual power was in the hands of the five daimyōs who assisted Hideyoshi, the most powerful of which was Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Tokugawa Ieyasu is one of the most legendary figures in Japanese history, known as the soul of the Japanese national spirit, along with Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, as Sengoku Mio. Tokugawa Ieyasu has a calm and stoic personality, and when the time is ripe, he will win with one blow. At the same time, Tokugawa Ieyasu's courage and strategy, which was different from ordinary people's courage, also laid a solid foundation for his success.
At the same time, Tokugawa Ieyasu was also a very controversial figure, he betrayed the Imakawa clan, changed his name from Matsudaira Motoyasu to Tokugawa Ieyasu, and teamed up with Takeda Shingen to divide the lands of the Imagawa clan; he married Oda Nobunaga, after Oda Nobunaga committed suicide, but did not avenge Oda Nobunaga's defeat, but took the opportunity to seize a large amount of territory; he attached himself to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, but violated Hideyoshi's instructions, forced Toyotomi Hideyoshi to death, subverted the Toyotomi regime, created the Tokugawa shogunate, and Japan entered the Edo period.
In the Samurai William, Tokugawa Ieyasu is described as follows: "He was fearless, wise and sophisticated, and those who had seen him admired him. ...... He wore a blue satin coat embroidered with many silver stars and a half-moon motif, and a saber around his waist. He was dignified and awe-inspiring. "
Ieyasu, a man of great talent, was very interested in the world outside of Japan, and he was very eager to meet talents from various countries. He believed that the best way to govern the country was to be convinced of the wise men and scholars.
With his knowledge and wisdom, William Adams was elected as the representative of the "Fraternity" to meet Tokugawa Ieyasu.
The meeting was extremely successful, and Ieyasu was very interested in astronomy, astrology, navigation, European politics, religion, sea routes, and william Adams' profound knowledge also won Ieyasu's trust.
In the following years, Adams could visit Tokugawa Ieyasu at any time, gained unusual privileges, and helped Tokugawa Ieyasu build advanced Western-style sailing ships, forming the ability to sail far, which made Tokugawa Ieyasu extremely satisfied, and rewarded William Adams as a samurai, and rewarded the territory, servants and mansions, and gave the name "Miura Pressing Needle", which became a legend in the history of Japanese samurai.
If it weren't for Tokugawa Ieyasu, Adams might have been sentenced to death at the instigation of the Jesuits; if it weren't for Ieyasu, Adams wouldn't have become a think tank for daimyo; if it weren't for Ieyasu, Adams wouldn't have been a link between Japan and the outside world.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Tokugawa Ieyasu was Adams' Bole.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >4 The spread of Christianity and Protestantism in Japan directly affected William Adams</h1>
William Adams' life experience in Japan is actually a microcosm of the spread of Christianity and Protestantism in Japan.
Since the Portuguese landed on Japanese soil in 1544, in addition to the interest of European explorers in this treasure of wealth, European priests have also taken a fancy to this uncultivated land of Western religions.
In the middle of the 16th century, Christianity began to enter Japan, and in the process, the Spaniard Xavier played a crucial role.
Xavier was a fanatical believer with a deep-seated idea of "missionary" and "apologetic", and he traveled to Japan with his assistants Paul, Yajiro and others, and arrived in Kagoshima in 1549 to obtain permission from the island owner. After that, Xavier went to Yamaguchi, Kyoto and other places to preach, and integrated Christianity with Japanese folk customs, winning the support of a group of believers and becoming a pioneer in the exchange of civilizations between Japan and Europe.
Later, more famous was the Italian nobleman Fan Li'an, who was also an avid Christian, and by the time William Adams arrived in Japan in 1600, 150,000 people had converted to Christianity
William Adams' ship belonged to the Protestant state of holland, much to Van Rean's dismay, and he tried his best to get the Japanese government to put the crew to death. However, Lord Terasawa of Japan sent someone to Osaka for advice out of caution, and soon "the king ordered the crew to meet him." Adams and the other two dozen crew members were spared.
These were only the beginning of the open struggle between Christianity and Protestantism in Japan, and in the years that followed, although the two sects were constantly in conflict, in general, Western religions showed a good growth trend in Japan, and by the beginning of the 17th century, Japanese believers accounted for about 1% of the country's population, and even some daimyo also believed in Christianity, such as Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Konishi, who was a staunch Christian.
From the beginning of the 17th century to the early 17th century, Christianity in Japan rapidly experienced the whole process of turning from prosperity to decline.
The Tokugawa shogunate began to be extremely tolerant of Christianity, but due to the rapid expansion of Christianity, foreign religions and local regimes had serious conflicts, and the aggressive activities of Western colonists also posed a threat to Japanese rule, and in 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu officially issued a ban on religion, concentrating priests in Nagasaki, and those who insisted on not converting were punished.
When Tokugawa Ieyasu died in 1616, Christians thought that the ban on the church could be brought to an end, but they did not expect that Ieyasu's son Tokugawa Hidetada would continue to ban religion throughout the country, and all those who harbored missionaries would be burned at the stake, and civilians who hid religious supplies would also be executed, which was extremely cruel.
William the Samurai describes the tragic scene that President Cox saw: "Among them, there are some five- or six-year-old children... When you are tortured, think of the crucifixion of Jesus, think of the Virgin Mary, the angels and the saints watching your battle from heaven... The fire grew louder and louder, and the mothers caressed the heads of their children while the children groaned as the pain became more and more unbearable... So much so that their carbonized bodies were completely together when they were finally removed from the wooden pillar. "
William Adams and the members of the British Chamber of Commerce were fortunate enough to have retired because they had previously been persecuted by the Church and had repeatedly stated that they were anti-Catholic.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >5, blind dates, points and combinations: the story that the British Chamber of Commerce and the Dutch Chamber of Commerce have to tell</h1>
After the British explorers set foot on Japanese soil, in order to maximize their wealth, they formed the Chamber of Commerce, employing their compatriot William Adams as a core member of the Chamber of Commerce.
But in the process, they were disappointed to find that Adams was no longer so enthusiastic about his Fellow British, and that adams were more like a Japanese man in terms of dress, habits, and attitude.
Despite all the misconceptions, Adams helped the British Chamber of Commerce start doing business in Japan. However, due to the incompetence and misleading of Sarris and others, the goods shipped to Japan by the British are basically worthless, or goods that the Japanese do not need, and the survival of the British Chamber of Commerce in Japan is difficult.
Even more frightening was the struggle between England and the Netherlands.
Once known as the "coachman of the sea", the Netherlands was an old maritime power, and the rise of the Netherlands benefited from the oil on Portugal, and from the 17th century onwards, the Dutch trade network developed globally.
Correspondingly, the British were greatly threatened by the rise of the Dutch, and the Dutch and The British continued to skirmish in the course of trade until a large-scale firefight in 1616.
Despite the constant strife, in Hirado, Japan, Cox, president of the British Chamber of Commerce, maintains a good relationship with Spekes, president of the Dutch Chamber of Commerce, after all, in this closed island country, they can only rely on each other to pass on the news of the outside world.
This temporary calm was changed on 8 August 1618. The Dutch dragged the captured British merchant ships into the harbor, and the flaunting posture made the British extremely angry.
The Dutch refused to return the ships and captives, and after fruitless negotiations, it was William Adams who managed to rescue the British crew, which further demonstrated Adams's unparalleled role in the Chamber of Commerce.
In the days that followed, the British Chamber of Commerce and the Dutch Chamber of Commerce turned against each other, and the Dutch were numerous, and several times they attacked the British Chamber of Commerce, and it was William Adams who calmed the situation by virtue of his good official relations with the local area.
It was not until 1620 that Britain, which had been at war for more than four years, reconciled with the Dutch, and the two countries ceased to act in hostilities and formed a combined fleet against the Spaniards and Portuguese. Cox and Specx returned to their original good relationship.
The merger of the British Chamber of Commerce and the Dutch Chamber of Commerce in Hirado is only a microcosm of the maritime disputes and interest disputes between the two countries in the world. In the process, William Adams almost single-handedly protected the British Chamber of Commerce in the impression of the shogunate, and it is no wonder that he received such high praise in Britain.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >6, the curtain of the times fell</h1>
There was always a time when the curtain fell, and after years of exertion, William Adams suddenly had problems with his health and died on May 16, 1620.
This marks the passing of an era.
Shortly after william Adams' death, on December 23, 1623, after ten years of bitter japanese operations, six months and thirteen days, the British abandoned Japan.
After the British took the initiative to evacuate, Tokugawa Iemitsu, who was extremely hostile to foreigners, began to expel people from other countries more and more intensely.
First Christians, then Portuguese merchants, then Dutchmen. However, the Dutch merchants were slightly better off, and Ieko allowed them to stay on the outlying islands of Nagasaki, but could not make contact with the Japanese.
Japan has completely entered the historical process of closing the country, and when its own doors were opened again, it was already the time when the Western powers knocked on the door with ironclad steel cannons.
As a link between Japan and Europe, William Adams must have felt a lot of emotions when he saw this scene.
William Adams' story is destined to be a legend, leaving a mark on both Japanese and British history.
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