"But neither Turks nor Christians had cannon," he had said. "Don't forget Shogun Toranaga breeched Osaka Castle with gai-jin cannon--these vermin can do likewise here."

"Even if they did, we would have withdrawn safely to the hills long since. Meanwhile every samurai, and every man woman and child in the land--even stinking merchants--would flock to our banner and fall on them like locusts. We have nothing to fear," Anjo had said contemptuously.

"Osaka Castle was different, that was daimyo against daimyo, not an invasion. The enemy cannot sustain a land war. In a land war we must win."

"They would lay waste everything, Anjo-sama.

We would be left with nothing to govern. Our only course is to web gai-jin like a spider webs its far bigger prey. We must be a spider, we must find a web."

But they would not listen to him. What's the web?

"First know the problem," Toranaga wrote in his Legacy, "then, with patience, you can find the solution."

The crux of the problem with the foreigners is simply this: how do we obtain their knowledge, armaments, fleets, wealth and trade on our terms, yet expel them all, cancel the unequal treaties, and never allow one to set foot ashore without severe restrictions?

The Legacy continued: "The answer to all problems for OUR land can be found here, or in Sun-tzu's "The Art of War"--and patience."

Shogun Toranaga was the most patient ruler in the world, he thought, awed for the millionth time.

Even though Toranaga was supreme in the land, outside of Osaka Castle, the invincible stronghold built by his predecessor, Dictator Nakamura, he waited twelve years to spring the trap he had baited, and lay siege to it. The castle was in absolute possession of the Lady Ochiba, the Dictator's widow, their seven-year-old son and heir, Yaemon--to whom Toranaga had solemnly sworn allegiance--and eighty thousand fanatically loyal samurai.

Two years of siege, three hundred thousand troops, cannon from the Dutch privateer Erasmus of Anjin-san, the Englishman who had sailed the ship to Japan, together with a musket regiment also trained by him, a hundred thousand casualties, all his guile and the vital traitor within, before Lady Ochiba and Yaemon committed seppuku rather than be captured.

Then Toranaga had secured Osaka Castle, spiked the cannon, destroyed all muskets, disbanded the musket regiment, had forbidden manufacture or the importation of all firearms, he had broken the power of the Portuguese Jesuit priests and Christian daimyos, reallocated fiefs, sent all enemies onwards, instituted the laws of the Legacy, forbidden all wheels, the building of ocean-going ships, and had, regretfully, taken a third of all revenue for himself and his immediate family.

"He made us strong," Yoshi muttered.

"His Legacy gave us power to keep the land pure, and at peace in the way he designed."

I must not fail him.

Eeee, what a man! How wise of his son, Sudara, the second Shogun, to change the name of the dynasty to Toranaga, instead of the real family name of Yoshi--so that we would never forget the fountainhead.

What would he advise me to do?

First patience, then he would quote Sun-tzu: Know your enemy as you know yourself and you need not fear a hundred battles; know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat; know neither the enemy nor yourself and you will succumb in every battle.

I know some things about the enemy, but not enough.

I bless my father again for making me understand the value of education, for giving me so many varied and special teachers over the years, foreign as well as Japanese. Sad I did not have the gift of tongues and so had to learn through intermediaries: Dutch merchants for world history, an English seaman to check Dutch truth and to open my eyes --just as Toranaga used the Anjin-san in his time --and all the others.

Chinese who taught me government, literature and Sun-tzu's "The Art of War"; the old renegade French priest from Peking who spent half a year teaching me Machiavelli, laboriously translating it into Chinese characters for me as his passport to live in my father's domains and enjoy the Willow World he adored; the American pirate marooned at Izu who told me about cannon and about oceans of grass called prairies, their castle called White House and the wars with which they exterminated the natives of that land; the Russian emigr`e convict from a place called Siberia who claimed he was a prince with ten thousand slaves and told fables of places called Moscow and St. Petersburg, and all the others--some teaching for a few days, some for months but never a year, none of them knowing who I was, and I forbidden to tell them, Father so careful and secretive and so terrible when aroused.

"When these men leave, Father," he had asked in the beginning, "what happens to them? They're all so frightened. Why should that be? You promise them rewards, don't you?"' "You're eleven, my son. I will forgive your rudeness in questioning me, once. To remind you of my magnanimity you will go without food for three days, you will climb Mount Fuji alone and you will sleep without covering."

Yoshi shuddered. At that time he did not know what magnanimity meant. During those days he had almost died but achieved what was ordered of him.

As a reward for his self-discipline his father, daimyo of Mito, had told him he was being adopted by the Hisamatsu family and made heir of that Toranaga branch: "You are my seventh son. In that way you will have your own inheritance, and be of a slightly higher lineage than your brothers."

"Yes Father," he had said, holding back his tears. At that time he did not know he was being groomed to be Shogun, nor was he ever told.

Then, when Shogun Iyeyoshi died of the spotted disease four years ago and he was twenty-two and ready and proposed by his father, tairo Ii had opposed him, and won--Ii's personal forces possessed the Palace Gates.

So his cousin Nobusada was appointed.

Yoshi, his family, his father and all their influential supporters were ordered into severe house arrest. Only when Ii was assassinated was he freed and reinstated with his lands and honors, along with the others who survived. His father had died in house confinement.

I should have been Shogun, he thought for the ten millionth time. I was ready, trained and could have stopped the Shogunate rot, could have formed a new bond between Shogunate and all daimyos, and could have dealt with the gai-jin. I should have had that Princess as wife, I would never have signed those agreements, or allowed the negotiations to go so badly against us. I would have dealt with Townsend Harris and begun a new era of careful change to accommodate the world outside, at our pace, not theirs!

Meanwhile I am not Shogun, Nobusada is elected Shogun correctly, the Treaties exist, Princess Yazu exists, Sanjiro, Anjo and gai-jin are battering at our gates.

He shivered. I had better be even more careful. Poison is an ancient art, an arrow by day or by night, ninja assassins in their hundreds are out there, ready for hire. And then there are the shishi. There must be an answer! What is it?

Sea birds circling and cawing over the city and castle interrupted his thought patterns.

He studied the sky. No sign of change, or tempest, though this was the month of change when the big winds came and, with them winter. Winter will be bad this year. Not a famine like three years ago but the harvest is poor, even less than last year...

Wait! What was it Anjo said that reminded me of something?

He turned and beckoned one of his bodyguards, his excitement rising. "Bring that spy here, the fisherman, what's his name? Ah yes, Misamoto, bring him to my quarters secretly at once--he's confined in the Eastern Guard House."