Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan - Couverture rigide

Milton, Giles

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0340794674 ISBN 13 : 9780340794678

Editeur : Hodder & Stoughton, 2002

A propos du livre

Extrait :

Prologue

They had reached the end of the world. A tremendous storm had pushed them deep into the unknown, where the maps and globes showed only monsters of the deep. The night sky sparkled, but the unfamiliar stars had proved a mischievous guide to these lost and lonely adventurers.

For almost two years, William Adams and his crew had braved wild and tempestuous oceans. They had clashed with spear-toting island chieftains, and suffered from sickness and empty bellies. Now, on April 12, 1600, these few survivors had once again sighted land, where they expected death at the hands of barbarous savages.

The bell of the great Manju-ji monastery clanged at dawn. As the weak spring sunlight spilled over the southern mountains, a dozen temples seemed to echo in reply. It was already light on the watery delta of the Oita River, but night still lingered in the palaces and pagodas of Funai. Their cuneiform roofs trapped the shadows. It would be several hours before daylight pierced the gridlike maze of walkways.

The strange vessel that was drifting helplessly into the harbor was in a terrible state of repair. Her sails were in shreds and her timbers had been bleached by the sun. With her stately poop and mullioned prow, she was quite unlike the junks that occasionally dropped anchor on the southern shores of Japan. No sooner had she been sighted than the alarm was raised and a small party of townsmen rowed out to view the vessel. Those who clambered aboard were greeted by a pitiful sight. A dozen adventurers lay helpless and groaning in their own filth. Many were covered in blotches — a sign of advanced scurvy — while others had been stricken with terrible tropical diseases. Their victuals had run out long ago and they had subsisted on the rats and other vermin that scavenged for scraps in the filthy swill in the hold of the vessel. Only William Adams was sufficiently coherent to greet the boarding party. He blinked in astonishment as he caught his first glimpse of a civilization that was older — and perhaps more sophisticated — than his own.

Adams immediately realized that these men had come not to their rescue, but to pillage the ship. He could only hope that he and his men would receive a welcome on shore. They had achieved the remarkable feat of crossing both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, negotiating the treacherous Magellan Straits en route. They had survived Antarctic blizzards and tropical storms, and had watched in horror as their friends and fellow crewmates had weakened and expired. Of a fleet of five ships, only one had made it to Japan. Of an estimated one hundred crew members, just twenty-four men were still alive. Of these, six were on the verge of death.

After more than nineteen months at sea, Adams had reached the fabled island of Japan, where no Englishman had ever before set foot. As he stepped ashore, he prayed that his voyage of discovery had at long last come to an end. In fact, it was just about to begin.

The adventurers of Elizabethan London knew almost nothing about Japan. When they unrolled their maps and gazed at the remote East, they saw only squiggles, dots, and grotesque sea monsters. Gerardus Mercator's 1569 map of the world depicted this kingdom as a lozenge-shaped blob with two tentacles of islands. Edward Wright's projection was little better. When he came to draw Japan, he delved deep into his imagination and came up with an island that looked like a misshapen prawn with a long fluffy beard. Although he took great pride in labeling his map "a true hydrographical description," he admitted that he had only accurately drawn "so much of the world as hath been hitherto discovered." That — alas — did not include Japan.

The Bookish gentlemen elsewhere in northern Europe were equally ignorant as to the whereabouts, and people, of Japan. In the Low Countries, France, and the Holy Roman Empire the only information about this mysterious "kingdom" was to be found in the account of the great Venetian traveler Marco Polo. That was already three centuries old and was based on nothing more than hearsay. Polo himself had never been to Japan — a land he called Chipangu — but he had learned from the Chinese that the "people are white, civilised and well-favoured" and he noted that they were ferociously proud and "dependent on nobody." He added that no one — not even their neighbors the Chinese — dared to sail to Japan, for the distances were enormous and the dangers were great.

Forbidden kingdoms made for rich kingdoms in the minds of gentlemen adventurers, and distant Japan — the Land of the Rising Sun — was believed to glisten with gilded splendor. "The quantity of gold they have here is endless," wrote an excited Polo, "for they find it in their own islands." The emperor's palace was "entirely roofed with fine gold:' while the windows glittered and twinkled, "so that altogether the richness of the palace is past all bounds and all belief."

Dozens of English adventurers were lured into uncharted seas by such tantalizing riches, placing their trust in the good Lord and a fair breeze. They studied their maps, consulted their charts, and concluded — quite logically — that the frosty Arctic Ocean offered the shortest route to the East. They little imagined that their fragile galleons would be battered by monstrous icebergs and translucent cliffs of ice. Sir Hugh Willoughby's 1553 expedition to the East had been the most spectacular failure. His vessel had been. trapped in the icy jaws of the White Sea, to the north of Muscovy, and his men had frozen to death in an Arctic blizzard.

The Northwest Passage across the top of North America was believed to offer an even shorter route to Japan and China. But it, too, had displayed a voracious appetite for Elizabethan sea dogs. The route, wrote the Arctic adventurer George Beste, was so "freezing cold [that] not only men's bodies, but also the very lines and tackling are frozen." The seas were choked with ice even in midsummer, for tremendous storms would crack the polar ice cap and fling mountainous cliffs into the paths of their wooden vessels. "The ice enclosed us," wrote the mariner on one expedition, "that we could see neither land nor sea."

George Beste urged his countrymen on in their endeavors to reach the East, encouraging them with the lure of unimaginable wealth: "Whole worldes offer and reach out themselves to them that will first vouchsafe to possess, inhabit and till them." The riches of the world were there for the taking in the sixteenth century, and there were vast tracts of ocean that had never been crossed. "Yea, there are countreys yet remaining without masters and possessors, which are fertile to bring forth all manner of corne and grayne." Beste might have displayed slightly less enthusiasm had he known the perils of tropical seas. Elizabethan galleons were frail and entirely dependent on the whim of the winds and the swirl of the currents. There were no charts of the shoals and sand-banks of the East China Sea, and the mysterious island of Japan was said to be surrounded by unpredictable storms that swallowed ships with one watery gulp.

Revue de presse :

Giles Milton is a man who can take an event from history and make it come alive. Milton's book delivers that most precious of commodities - fun. He has a genius for lively prose, and an appreciation for historical credibility. With Samurai William he has crafted an inspiration for those of us who believe that history can be exciting and entertaining. (Matthew Redhead, Times Play)

Milton's account of this remarkable life is rich in historical detail. It's a page-turner of a book, a good read, an accessible, well-crafted piece of popularised history. (Allan Spence, The Scotsman)

Giles Milton has once again shown himself to be a master of historical narrative. The story of William Adams is a gripping tale of Jacobean derring-do, a fizzing, real-life, Boys' Own adventure underpinned by genuine scholarship. (Katie Hickman, The Sunday Times)

Milton makes the story a compelling one. Lovingly researched and strikingly written (Time Out)

Giles Milton has been assiduous in searching through all the published sources. This is an attractive book. If it brings more readers to the marvellous story of how West discovered East and East discovered West, that's good. (Anthony Thwaite, Sunday Telegraph)

The subject matter of Samurai William is fascinating. Milton can certainly write, and is at his best when imaging the details of say, London's Limehouse district where "in the half-light of dawn, the dockside looked like the skeletal frame of a wrecked galleon". (James Wood, Scotland on Sunday)

An intensely readable account of the first trading missions to Japan. Giles Milton has managed to provide a complex history lesson in the form of an engaging narrative. Anyone interested in the mysteries of the East or in the cultural make-up of the inscrutable Japanese will find this an engaging read. (Alex Meehan, Sunday Business Post (Dublin))

Milton bring his customary panache to his latest work. This is an author who cannot buckle his swash. The basic story needs little gilding from Milton. Milton, however, gives it added breadth and depth by playing his two major trump cards: research and a clear writing style. Samurai William is swash-buckling in its scale and execution but, like its hero, it has quieter, perhaps more substantial traits. (Hugh MacDonald, Glasgow Herald)

Giles Milton again expertly navigating the eastern seas (Economist)

Giles Milton is a great biographer for the unknown. After his well-liked NATHANIEL'S NUTMEG and BIG CHIEF ELIZABETH he turns his painstaking researcher's eye on William Adams. Milton makes the story a compelling one. Lovingly researched and strikingly written. (Time Out)

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Hodder & Stoughton
• Date d'édition: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0340794674
• ISBN 13: 9780340794678
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 416