Ming East India Company

Late spring of the ninth year of Keicho.

William Adams had been struggling for nineteen months on the raging waves of the Pacific Ocean.

In the dim and damp cabin, the sea breeze, carrying a biting salty chill, rushed in through the hole.

An old sailor, his face sallow and his gums oozing black blood, stumbled toward William Adams, leaning on a cane. Despair and rage raged in his cloudy eyes, and his voice was hoarse as if it had been sanded:

"Adams! Open your eyes and look! Look at what we've become!"

We followed you from Rotterdam, believing you were the most knowledgeable navigator and stargazer in the entire fleet, and that you could lead us to the Spice Islands and make us more money than we could ever spend in a lifetime! But now?

We've been adrift at this damned sea for a full nineteen months! There were one hundred and ten sailors when we set out, and now less than thirty are still breathing!

Adams, gripping the decaying gunwale, coughed violently, each cough tugging at a dull ache in his chest, a trickle of blood escaping from the corner of his mouth.

"Shut up! I didn't want this either, but who could have predicted such a huge storm! Don't forget, my brother is still lying on the beach in Tierra del Fuego!"

After saying this, Adams, exhausted, took several deep breaths before recovering and continuing:

"What we need now is not to complain. Four of the five ships in our group have already sunk. All we can do now is keep heading west. If we can find any island or land on the western coast of the Pacific, we will be saved."

After Adams finished speaking, the old sailor could only lower his head and return to the cabin.

Everyone knows that we're all in this together now, and if we fight amongst ourselves, no one will benefit.

William Adams, 34 years old, is the navigator of this Dutch Far East fleet. A native of Kent, England, he has spent his life with the wind and waves. He previously served as a pirate under Drake and also defeated the Spanish Armada. He is considered an old sailor in the Age of Exploration.

To combat their common enemy, Spain, England and the Netherlands were in a political alliance at the time, which allowed him, an English sailor, to join the Dutch merchant fleet and become the captain of one of their ships.

One year and seven months ago, they set sail from Rotterdam in five fully armed merchant ships, carrying the ambition to develop the spice trade in the East, planning to cross the Strait of Magellan and head towards the legendary East Indies, a land of gold.

But fate had forsaken them from the very beginning. Shortly after setting sail, a storm scattered the fleet. Then, just three months later, fleet commander Simon de Cordes unexpectedly fell ill and never recovered, causing the fleet's command structure to collapse rapidly. The ships scattered and fled for their lives.

The ship "Loyalty," on which Adams was aboard, sailed together with another ship, "Loyalty." As a result, they clashed with Native Americans on a South American beach over supplies, and his brother Thomas Adams and 20 other crew members were eaten by the Native Americans.

During the subsequent voyage, scurvy and dysentery, like the scythe of death, successively claimed the lives of the crew. The ship Loyalty, which was traveling with them, sank in a storm, leaving only the Friendship, like a withered leaf torn by the gale, drifting on the boundless Pacific Ocean.

They've long since given up on making a fortune; they just hope to find an inhabited island so they won't perish on the high seas...

"What is that?"

Adams looked up at the sky and his gaze suddenly became focused. In the sky, a pure white seabird flew by, stopped at the top of the mast, pecked a few times, and then quickly flew away after finding there was nothing to eat.

Adams became excited. He knew that such small waterbirds could not possibly sustain a long voyage across the sea, so there must be land nearby where they could inhabit.

He took out a sextant and a compass to check the direction. The direction was correct. Based on the experience of his predecessors, the land on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean must be not far ahead.

This thought struck him like a thunderbolt, instantly shattering the gloom of despair that had been weighing on his heart for nineteen months.

Despite the excruciating pain coursing through his body, Adams slowly made his way to the cabin opening, and with all his might, raised his hoarse but unusually firm voice, forcefully breaking the deathly silence of the cabin:

"Wake up, everyone! Everyone, lift your heads!"

The sailors, dazed and numb, waiting to die, opened their heavy eyelids blankly and looked at the navigator who had been holding the ship aloft all the way. There was no expectation in their eyes, only a despair they had become accustomed to.

Adams raised his hand, pointing steadily at the waterbirds flying overhead, his voice filled with barely suppressed excitement:

"Look closely! Those are waterbirds near the shore! They never fly too far from land! We've been drifting for nineteen months, and finally reached the edge of land!"

His gaze swept over the haggard, desperate faces, his tone softening, yet still tinged with a hint of excitement:

"We've been adrift in hell for almost two years, and now, land is just ahead. Let's all muster our last bit of strength; we will reach the shore, we will survive!"

The once lifeless cabin gradually began to stir with subtle movements. A spark of life ignited in pairs of numb, empty eyes.

A few days later, at dawn, a faint bluish-black outline appeared directly ahead of the ship, where the sea met the sky. It was not floating dark clouds, but a continuous stretch of land.

"It's land...we've arrived..." Adams murmured to himself, his voice hoarse.

The crew members struggled to their feet and looked at the shore that was so close at hand. Some burst into tears, while others collapsed to the ground helplessly. The nineteen months of hellish drifting had finally come to an end.

Three days later, the Boai wobbled into a calm bay and ran aground on the shallows of Usuki in Bungo Province.

The hull of the ship was completely cracked and it could no longer sail.

Adams, with the remaining twenty-four survivors, staggered onto land.

They were ragged, emaciated, and covered in wounds and filth, like a group of lost ghosts crawling out of hell. They clutched the few remaining short knives in their hands and looked around with a mixture of fear and wariness.

They were quickly discovered by the local villagers.

Japanese people dressed in kimonos and carrying bamboo spears and samurai swords surrounded them from all directions, speaking in a language the Japanese couldn't understand at all, their eyes filled with wariness and hostility.

Unable to speak the language and exhausted, Adams and his companions had no strength to resist and were quickly disarmed, bound hand and foot, and taken to the castle town of the local feudal lord.

Bungo Province was a direct territory of the Toyotomi family. The one who now held power in Japan was Toyotomi Hideyori, the fifteen-year-old son of the late Taiko Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The young lord of Osaka Castle was surrounded by his retainers and Catholic missionaries, and his knowledge of foreign countries came entirely from the indoctrination of others.

The first to approach them were Portuguese Jesuit missionaries who had been operating in Japan for many years.

These Portuguese missionaries had long regarded Japan as the backyard of Catholicism and had always been hostile to sailors from Protestant countries such as the Netherlands and England, regarding them as heretics and pirates.

When they learned that a Dutch merchant ship had drifted to Japan and that there was a British navigator on board, they immediately saw an opportunity to eliminate their rivals.

They rushed to the castle town overnight and went to great lengths to frame the feudal lord, falsely claiming that Adams and his crew were pirates who roamed the Western Ocean, specializing in plundering merchant ships and slaughtering civilians. They claimed that their drift to Japan was not due to getting lost or encountering danger, but rather to spy on Japan's strengths and weaknesses, intending to cooperate with the enemy to plunder coastal cities.

"These people are enemies of God, wicked pirates. If we keep them around, they will become a great threat to Japan!"

The missionary spoke earnestly, every word aimed at vilifying the missionary in the most sinister direction.

"The ringleader should be immediately escorted to Osaka Castle and handed over to Lord Hideyori for personal judgment and public execution, as a warning to others and a deterrent to the foreign barbarians!"

The lord was already wary of these strange-looking foreigners who couldn't speak the language, and after being instigated by the missionaries, he immediately believed them without a doubt.

He gave Adams no chance to explain, and directly ordered the group to be placed under strict guard, nailed with heavy wooden shackles, and escorted by a large force to Osaka Castle to await Toyotomi Hideyori's orders.

After reading the testimonies of the local lords and missionaries, Toyotomi Hideyori didn't even bother with a basic trial and directly ordered his men to behead Adams and his party in the fall.

The order was sent on horseback at top speed out of Osaka Castle to deliver the execution order to the prison where Adams was being held. By then, Adams had already been brought from Bungo to Osaka and was being held in a dark, damp, and filthy death row cell.

He was imprisoned along with more than twenty surviving crew members.

They survived the raging storms of the Pacific Ocean, endured hunger and disease, but ultimately could not escape the execution in a foreign land.

When the jailer presented the execution order and told them in harsh words that they would be beheaded in the autumn, despairing sobs and wails instantly filled the prison.

"We are not pirates...we are just sailors who have drifted here..."

Adams tried to explain himself in the few Japanese phrases he knew, but his voice was hoarse and weak, and no one paid any attention.

He leaned against the cold prison wall, gazing at the small patch of sky outside the cell window, his eyes filled with resentment and sorrow. He thought of his wife and daughter far away in England, of the navigation and shipbuilding skills he had devoted half his life to studying, and of the nineteen months of life-and-death wandering he had endured. His heart was filled with despair.

He thought he had survived the most terrible suffering in the world, but in the end he would still be buried in Japan, becoming a victim of the sword, unable to even leave behind a clean reputation.

The crew members huddled in a corner of their cell. Some wept silently, while others muttered to themselves in a daze. All of them had given up hope and were just waiting for the day of their execution in the autumn to face the end of their lives.

But fate always takes unexpected turns.

No more than three days after the execution order was issued, the sound of rapid hoofbeats suddenly came from outside Osaka Castle. The sound was powerful and unimpeded, heading straight for the Honmaru Palace.

A samurai dressed in dark black attire, with a katana at his waist, carrying a secret letter written by Mori Terumoto, went directly to see Toyotomi Hideyori as a special envoy of the Mori clan.

The messenger stood tall and walked with a steady gait, exuding an air of superiority—he knew that the Toyotomi family dared not offend the Mori family at all.

The messenger skipped the elaborate formalities, delivering directly a handwritten letter from Mori Terumoto. His tone was neither humble nor arrogant, yet carried an undeniable air of authority:

"I have come to pay my respects to Lord Hideyori on the orders of Lord Mori. My lord is stationed in the western provinces, preparing his troops for war, guarding against Tokugawa Ieyasu's eastern army day and night, and is determined to protect the safety of the Toyotomi family. His loyalty is as clear as day and night."

I've heard that a group of foreign prisoners are being held in Osaka's death row, and the leader of them is named William Adams.

My lord has recently been building warships, expanding maritime trade, and preparing the navy in the Western Kingdom, and urgently needs manpower. I've heard that Adams has some knowledge of shipbuilding and navigation, and even as a pirate, he possesses great strength and is capable of hard labor.

Therefore, my lord humbly requests Lord Hideyori to rescind the order to behead them in the autumn, and to hand over William Adams and his entourage to my Mori clan for disposal. They should be reduced to slavery, taken to a shipyard in the west, and forced into hard labor to build warships for my Mori clan, thus aiding in the fight against Tokugawa Ieyasu.

The Mori clan controlled the military forces in western Japan, which was the only thing the Toyotomi clan could rely on to fight against Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Toyotomi clan had no choice but to accept this request.

Sitting on the throne, Toyotomi Hideyori didn't need to think much, nor did he even consult with Yodo-dono. Thinking of the importance of the Mori family, he spoke without hesitation, his tone filled with eager agreement, as if he was afraid that any hesitation would offend the Mori messenger.

"allow!"

That single word completely rewrote Adams's fate.

When the cell door was opened again and the blinding sunlight shone into the dark death cell, Adams and his crew thought the execution day had been brought forward, and they were all ashen-faced and trembling.

But to their surprise, the jailer removed their shackles and brought them before the Mori messenger, informing them that they would not be beheaded, but instead be taken to the west to become slaves of the Mori family.

From a condemned prisoner awaiting execution to a slave at the mercy of others, he was still trapped in a desperate situation, but in the end, he survived.

Adams had become numb; for him, wherever he went, as long as he could live, he was willing to accept it.

He was pushed and shoved by the Maori warriors as he embarked on his journey to the west.

Strangely, not long after leaving Osaka, Adams discovered that his group had reboarded the ship. This made Adams suspicious.

During this time, he gained some understanding of Japanese geography.

The western province where the Mori family lived and the Bungo province where the Toyotomi family lived were connected by land, so there was no need to travel by water.

Even more strangely, Adams discovered that his ship had somehow sailed directly out of the Seto Inland Sea and headed towards the open ocean.

Where are you planning to go?

Moreover, in the following ten days or so, Adams noticed that the Japanese crew were becoming increasingly polite to the prisoners. Previously, they were fed coarse rice, wood leaves, and wild vegetables, but now they were served a meal of refined rice every day, and even small yellow croakers.

Adams repeatedly tried to find out where he was going next by subtly probing.

They were all rejected.

Adams could only swallow his words and comfort his crew, telling them that the voyage should not end too badly.

Finally, after more than twenty days of sailing, Adams and his crew arrived at their final destination—Kagoshima.