@XcUtiOn96

2 months ago

William Adams (the character Blackthorne is based on) really did push some heavy propaganda against the Catholics because he worked for the Dutch East India Company and the United Provinces were at war with the Hispanic Monarchy and in the end, the Tokugawa favoured the Dutch traders because they weren't interested in proselitism. That being said, by 1600 the Japanese authorities had already started to distrust the Portuguese after nearly 20 years were several daimyos, Oda Nobunaga included, used the Jesuits to counter the political power of the Buddhist temples. Both Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu were aware of the growing Portuguese presence in Asia and they definitely knew about Macau being a colony, basically because since China banned all trade with Japan (the Ming blamed the Japanese for the growing acts of piracy in their coasts) the Portuguese acted as a middleman between both nations. I mean, "Macau" is literally a Portuguese minstranslation of the name of the island of Aomen. Not just that, but the Philippines were already under the rule of the Spanish and, again, the Japanese knew about it: Hideyoshi even planned to conquer them but he died before he could start his invasion. So having Torenaga (Tokugawa Ieyasu) being this surprised about European colonialism and the Jesuits being used as some sort of subversive force trying to pave the way by converting the population before an imminent invasion seems a bit out of place because at that point he already suspected it. Then there's the fact that even when Blackthorne talks about the "kings of Portugal and Spain" as if they were diferent people, by 1580 (and up to 1640) the king of Spain (or more correctly, Castile and Aragon) was also the king of Portugal. That's just some small context for those who are interested in the real history, otherwise I'm really liking the series so far.

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