The Portuguese plan to fire on Toranaga’s ship

The Portuguese plan to fire on Toranaga’s ship turns a passage through Osaka harbor into a confrontation over who may command the sea, and over whether religious authority can restrain a captain ready to kill. As Toranaga’s galley approaches the frigate, Ferriera prepares his guns for an ambush against Toranaga and Blackthorne. Dell’Aqua intervenes at the cannon’s muzzle; Ferriera abandons the immediate shot but orders his crew to fire if the galley comes within fifty yards without invitation. The threat persists as the frigate bears down on the galley under full sail.

Causes and Maritime Setting

The danger grows from Toranaga’s escape and the galley carrying him toward safety. Blackthorne has watched the frigate slip its moorings when its Gray escort hurried away. Its longboat warps it out from the jetty into deep water, where it lies offshore with a light bow anchor. To Blackthorne, this is a familiar European precaution in a hostile harbor: the cannon are primed, muskets issued, ammunition ready, cutlasses at hand, and armed men posted aloft. The crew has noticed the galley change course, and the frigate’s two thirty-pound stern chasers point toward it. The vessel is prepared before its officers openly declare what they intend to do.

The opposing ships do not have equal freedom of movement. On the later approach, Blackthorne sees that the frigate must tack against the wind to reach the harbor mouth, while the galley can maneuver more freely; the frigate nevertheless has the advantage of speed. Rodrigues had already warned that the galley must leave the Santa Theresa room to maneuver. The encounter thus hinges on more than a decision to fight: wind, limited sea room, the harbor mouth, and the different handling of sail and oars determine how long the galley can remain beyond gun range.

That imbalance reflects a wider contest over navigational knowledge. Blackthorne knows that charts are often too vague to be useful and that longitude cannot be fixed by the methods available to him. A rutter can supply a pilot with detailed observations—courses, depths, currents, winds, hazards, and places to take on water—but its usefulness depends on the accuracy of the pilot, copyist, printer, or translator. Portuguese and Spanish authorities treat overseas rutters as guarded national secrets, while their Dutch and English rivals seek them. In Japan, the Taikō’s law required the few ocean-going Japanese ships to carry Portuguese pilots. Rodrigues’s role piloting Toranaga’s galley therefore places an experienced European navigator inside a Japanese political escape, even as Portuguese guns threaten the vessel he is guiding.

Ferriera’s Plan and the Interventions

Ferriera declares that he will blow the galley out of the water. He presents its approach as hostile: if the galley means no attack, he argues, it should escape while the way is clear. He proposes treating the ship as though it were using false colors, claiming that the Portuguese did not know Toranaga was aboard and that they mistook the approaching force for bandits led by Blackthorne. In this account, a supposed danger to the frigate can serve as a pretext for striking first.

The supposed uncertainty is increasingly difficult to maintain. Father Alvito points out that the galley is flying Toranaga’s flag; Ferriera answers that the flag could be false. The chief gunner explains that he can take off the galley’s bow, stern, or middle, or wait until it comes close enough to kill a particular man. Ferriera names his intended targets: Toranaga and Blackthorne. His plan is therefore not merely defensive fire against a ship entering range. It is a proposed killing disguised as a response to danger.

Rodrigues supports the attack, arguing that Toranaga’s death could end the war and protect Portuguese trade. He also sees an opportunity to remove Blackthorne, whom he calls a heretic, and is concerned with his own position as pilot of the Black Ship. Ferriera likewise describes the decision as military and accepts responsibility for it. The exchange exposes how quickly commercial calculations, religious hostility, and military language converge: killing Toranaga can be presented as peacekeeping, while killing Blackthorne becomes a religious benefit.

Dell’Aqua’s Refusal

Dell’Aqua rejects the proposed attack and insists that the Portuguese must not harm Toranaga but help him. When the gun crews prepare to fire, he invokes the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill!” Ferriera dismisses the objection by calling Toranaga’s party heathens and heretics. Dell’Aqua answers that Christians are among them, but his refusal does not depend on the presence of Christians: he moves to the cannon’s muzzle, placing his body between the gun and its target, crucifix in hand.

The gesture makes his authority physical. Ferriera has the prepared weapon, a willing gunner, and the capacity to give the firing signal; dell’Aqua has no comparable force, but he occupies the space from which the shot would be made. He acknowledges the violence carried out by his own side and expresses shame for it, yet draws a boundary at this ambush. When Ferriera asks what difference it makes whether they kill now or later, dell’Aqua does not answer the argument on its terms. His thought is that Toranaga has promised everything and Ishido nothing. Religious duty and political calculation meet in his refusal, without making the scene’s moral conflict disappear.

The Attack Checked, the Threat Renewed

At the gunner’s urging, Ferriera turns away from the priests, throws down the taper, and orders the crew to prepare to repel an attack. He sets a condition: if the galley comes within fifty yards without invitation, the sailors are to destroy it regardless of what the priests say. The immediate shot has been stopped, but the armed frigate remains poised to fire. Rodrigues, furious yet unable to overrule the priest, watches Blackthorne at the galley’s helm and recognizes that the escape is not secure.

The next chapter carries the threat into motion. Ferriera orders the cannons primed, grape loaded, and the crew to action stations. Blackthorne urges the oarsmaster to quicken the beat while judging the frigate’s next tack in the narrow water beside the cliffs, where success and disaster are separated by little room. The galley can alter course more freely, but the full-sailed frigate is faster and closes to about fifty yards. The Portuguese plan has not produced a shot in the standoff described here; instead, it becomes an immediate pursuit backed by an explicit firing order.

The episode makes the sea a political arena rather than a neutral route between ports. Toranaga’s survival depends on the galley’s handling and Blackthorne’s judgment, while the frigate’s guns make Portuguese control of ships and navigational expertise a direct threat to Japanese power. Dell’Aqua’s intervention prevents the proposed killing for the moment, but it cannot dissolve the competing interests aboard the frigate. Its cannons remain loaded, its captain retains his conditional order, and the galley must continue its escape under fire’s shadow.