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Chapter 1. Flying Dutchmen
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Chapter 1 Flying Dutchmen On the third day of the fifth month in the year of the Sheep, Kan’ei twenty,* the lower white study of Chiyoda Castle was filled to capacity. Here, at eleven o’clock in the morning in a relatively small space of twenty-four and a half tatami mats in the middle interior of the central donjon (honmaru), were gathered the biggest local power holders of Japan. Thirty men sat on their knees in five rows facing the upper white study, which was four tatami mats larger than the lower study but remained empty during the proceedings. Most of these men were usually not allowed this far into the castle, for they were outer lords (tozama daimyò), whose place—when received by the shogun—was in the grand and wide audience hall (òhiroma) near the entrance of the omote, the only part of the castle open to outsiders.1 Yet here they sat, and the significance of the occasion was lost on none of them. Lined up, two to a mat, as neatly as school boys, they were put faceto -face with the awesomeness of someone who did not deign to appear. The order in which they sat was the grand result of centuries of warfare. Although the castle had ushers, powerful men of low birth, who performed their duties on larger ceremonial occasions, these thirty lords knew their respective and reciprocal places well enough to have no need for such upstarts telling them where to sit. No man who did not know his exact place could survive inside the castle. If perchance a man should forget himself so far as to make a mistake and he was well liked or lucky, a short snakelike hiss from somewhere *Thursday, 18 June 1643. Flying Dutchmen 19 would warn him and he might have a few precious seconds in which to correct himself. Failing this, it would not be long before the most offended man around him would plunge his dagger into his back. Such was the atmosphere of the castle, and such was the importance of the seating arrangements in the eyes of the participants in the game of power. The shogun’s close relatives, the Matsudaira of Echizen and Echigo, were the first, by virtue of their name, their rank, and the size of their holdings. They were followed by the shogun’s adopted relatives , men who had sided with or never been defeated by the first Tokugawa shogun Ieyasu, such as the Maeda of the Kaga domain, the Date of the Sendai domain, and the Shimazu of the Satsuma domain. These families administered the largest fiefs in the country, the Kaga domain being valued at more than one million koku of rice.* They had been Tokugawa rivals once and were still under suspicion, but they had been appeased and granted the Matsudaira family name.2 Twenty of these and other outer lords were followed by two more relatives of the shogun, shinpan daimyò, one of whom was Hoshina Masayuki, the second shogun’s youngest son and brother of the present shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu. Masayuki had been adopted into the Hoshina family, and was now the future shogun Ietsuna’s guardian. In ten years he would be the most powerful man in Japan, but at this moment he was still only number 24 among those called up. After him followed six fudai daimyò, once loyal followers of Ieyasu, but now excluded from bakufu affairs because they had accumulated too much wealth.3 When all these men were seated, seven other fudai made their appearance . They proceeded to sit in a row at the top of the room, near the partition to the Upper Study, facing the men who had been called up. First among them was Ii Naotaka, fifty-four years old, the senior counselor (tairò) to the present shogun, a largely ceremonial position. He was flanked by Doi Toshikatsu, the most powerful man in Japan during the reign of the previous shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada, but at this moment seventy-one years old. Half paralyzed, he had trouble sitting up straight. Third in line was Sakai Tadakatsu, at fifty-six years old Iemitsu’s closest advisor and policy maker. Thirty-five-year-old Hotta Masamori sat next to him: he was Iemitsu’s mignon and closest confidante. This line of the shogun’s representatives was completed by Matsudaira Nobutsuna and the Abe cousins, Tada’aki and Shige- *A little less than 5 million bushels. [3.235...