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He hated the shameful cage that he was in. Like the Taiko and Goroda before him, he had to tolerate the Christian priests because the priests were as inseparable from the Portuguese traders as flies from a horse, holding absolute temporal and spiritual power over their unruly flock. Without the priests there was no trade. Their good will as negotiators and middle men in the Black Ship operation was vital because they spoke the language and were trusted by both sides, and, if ever the priests were completely forbidden the Empire, all barbarians would obediently sail away, never to return. He remembered the one time the Taiko had tried to get rid of the priests yet still encourage trade. For two years there was no Black Ship. Spies reported how the giant chief of the priests, sitting like a poisonous black spider in Macao, had ordered no more trade in reprisal for the Taiko's Expulsion Edicts, knowing that at length the Taiko must humble himself. In the third year he had bowed to the inevitable and invited the priests back, turning a blind eye to his own Edicts and to the treason and rebellion the priests had advocated.

There's no escape from that reality, Toranaga thought. None. I don't believe what the Anjin-san says - that trade is as essential to barbarians as it is to us, that their greed will make them trade, no matter what we do to the priests. The risk is too great to experiment and there's no time and I don't have the power. We experimented once and failed. Who knows? Perhaps the priests could wait us out ten years; they're ruthless enough. If the priests order no trade, I believe there will be no trade. We could not wait ten years. Even five years. And if we expel all barbarians it must take twenty years for the English barbarian to fill up the gap, if the Anjin-san is telling the whole truth and if - and it is an immense if - if the Chinese would agree to trade with them against the Southern Barbarians. I don't believe the Chinese will change their pattern. They never have. Twenty years is too long. Ten years is too long.

There's no escape from that reality. Or the worst reality of all, the specter that secretly petrified Goroda and the Taiko and is now rearing its foul head again: that the fanatical, fearless Christian priests, if pushed too far, will put all their influence and their trading power and sea power behind one of the great Christian daimyos. Further, they would engineer an invasion force of iron-clad, equally fanatic conquistadores armed with the latest muskets to support this one Christian daimyo - like they almost did the last time. By themselves, any number of invading barbarians and their priests are no threat against our overwhelming joint forces. We smashed the hordes of Kublai Khan and we can deal with any invader. But allied to one of our own, a great Christian daimyo with armies of samurai, and given civil wars throughout the realm, this could, ultimately, give this one daimyo absolute power over all of us.

Kiyama or Onoshi? It's obvious now, that has to be the priest's scheme. The timing's perfect. But which daimyo?

Both, initially, helped by Harima of Nagasaki. But who'll carry the final banner? Kiyama - because Onoshi the leper's not long for this earth and Onoshi's obvious reward for supporting his hated enemy and rival, Kiyama, would be a guaranteed, painless, everlasting life in the Christian heaven with a permanent seat at the right hand of the Christian God.

They've four hundred thousand samurai between them now. Their base is Kyushu and that island's safe from my grasp. Together those two could easily subjugate the whole island, then they have limitless troops, limitless food, all the ships necessary for an invasion, all the silk, and Nagasaki. Throughout the land there are perhaps another five or six hundred thousand Christians. Of these, more than half the Jesuit Christian converts - are samurai, all salted nicely among the forces of all daimyos, a vast pool of potential traitors, spies, or assassins - should the priests order it. And why shouldn't they? They'd get what they want above life itself: absolute power over all our souls, thus over the soul of this Land of the Gods - to inherit our earth and all that it contains just as the Anjin-san has explained has already happened fifty times in this New World of theirs . . . . They convert a king, then use him against his own kind, until all the land is swallowed up.