The A-Z of Curious Kent by Susan McGowan

Author:Susan McGowan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press

A JOURNEY TO JAPAN: THE LEGEND OF THE SHOGUN

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Portugal had sole trading rights with Japan, and other countries coveted these privileges. In 1598, 34-year-old William Adams, having retired from the Royal Navy, joined a Dutch trading expedition and arrived two years later on the shores of Japan. He was immediately imprisoned at the behest of the Portuguese, who were reluctant to allow a Protestant into the country, but he was quickly released when the Japanese realised that his navigation and shipbuilding skills could be of use to them.

Adams lived in Japan for the next twenty years, changing his name to Miura Angin and even taking a Japanese wife by whom he had two children, but his death in 1620 signalled the end of trade with the country, which closed itself off from the West completely. He was the last Englishman to enter Japan for 250 years, and many readers may be familiar with his story as it was fictionalised into the popular television series Shogun in the 1980s.

A superb clock tower was erected in Gillingham in 1934 in his honour, which can be seen on the north side of the A2. The town of Ido in Japan also honours Adams with a festival called Anginsai, which was started in 1947 and continues to this day.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.