Blackthorne Receives Two Hundred Samurai and Permission to Leave

Toranaga’s grant to Blackthorne turns release into a consequential transfer of authority: Blackthorne is free to leave Japan or remain, and receives two hundred armed vassals, restored silver, and unusually broad privileges at Toranaga-controlled ports. The grant does not simply return him to his former life as a pilot. It gives him the means to recruit and command a crew, while formally locating him within Japanese law on land and outside it at sea.

Maritime skill and political value

Blackthorne’s new position draws its force from the maritime knowledge that made him valuable in the first place. On his voyage with Rodrigues, he was asked to judge whether the galley should risk open water rather than lose time hugging the coast. Blackthorne recalled the route south along the east coast of the Izu Peninsula, past Cape Ito, then west-southwest toward Cape Shinto, a landfall roughly two hundred miles away. The route was a practical demonstration of the judgment required when speed and safety pulled in opposite directions.

That judgment mattered in a world where navigational charts could be so vague as to be useless and longitude could not be fixed. A pilot’s rutter, compiled from experience, offered courses, soundings, seabed descriptions, winds, currents, storms, anchorages, and warnings about friends and enemies. Such information could make a voyage safer, but it could also contain copying errors or deliberate falsehoods; the pilot could not know for certain whether it was reliable until he had sailed the route himself. Portugal and Spain guarded their knowledge of overseas routes, while their English and Dutch rivals sought it. Blackthorne’s seamanship therefore carried strategic value beyond the handling of a single vessel.

The grant’s sea-going clauses recognize that distinction. In Toranaga’s territories, Blackthorne is to be treated as a samurai and hatamoto under samurai law. Beyond Japanese shores, he is governed by the laws of his own world. For his lifetime, he may dock at any port under Toranaga’s control without being searched by port authorities. The privilege links his freedom of movement to Toranaga’s authority over the ports, and protects the movement of the ship and crew that Blackthorne may build around him.

Freedom, property, and command

Before announcing Blackthorne’s status, Yabu has two samurai bring forward the ship’s heavy strongbox. It is brimful with silver coins, restored as the property taken from Blackthorne’s ship. Blackthorne understands the immediate consequence: with the silver, he can hire the best crew without having to rely on promises. The return of the money is thus more than restitution; it restores practical capacity to the man who has been given leave to sail.

Yabu then conveys Toranaga’s terms: Blackthorne may go or stay, and may leave whenever he wishes. When Blackthorne asks whether he could leave the next day, the answer is yes. His astonishment marks the scale of the reversal. The permission is not conditional on remaining in Japan, nor is it merely a vague assurance of future freedom. It is an explicit choice, backed by the authority of Toranaga and by resources sufficient to make departure conceivable.

The two hundred men are presented as Blackthorne’s vassals, with arms, as Toranaga had promised. Yabu explains that they are ronin from the northern provinces, men whose former liege lords were killed, died, or were deposed. They have agreed to swear eternal allegiance to Blackthorne and his descendants; many have fought at sea against wako. Yabu also warns that some may themselves have been wako. The offer therefore brings both military strength and uncertainty: the men are experienced, but their histories are not all fully established.

The oath and the making of a retinue

The grant becomes visible in a formal ceremony. A clerk sets out scrolls beside the litter, now used as a dais, while samurai guard the pile of weapons and porters unload equipment from pack horses. One by one, the men answer their names, give their lineage, bow, swear allegiance, sign, and seal the scroll with a drop of blood taken by a ritual prick of the finger. Each then receives swords and further arms, including shields. The weapons are handled with reverence and examined for their quality; as the men take their places armed, they no longer appear as displaced retainers but as a newly constituted body of samurai.

The ceremony binds personal loyalty to recorded and physical acts. A spoken oath is written down, marked in blood, and followed by the taking up of weapons. Blackthorne is not simply handed a group of fighters: he watches their formal transformation into his retainers and becomes the person to whom their allegiance is directed.

The last thirty men are bound. Blackthorne insists on cutting each man’s bonds himself before the individual oath is sworn. That gesture distinguishes their entry into his service: rather than leaving their release to an attendant, he personally frees them, and then receives their allegiance in the same manner as the others. They take their weapons after swearing that his enemies will be their enemies and that they will obey him. Their former condition of restraint gives way, in the ceremony, to armed service under a new master.

Uraga’s offer and the limits of status

The final presentation brings Uraga-noh-Tadamasa forward. Formerly Brother Joseph, he is introduced as a samurai who has become a ronin. He stands unarmed in a plain kimono and bamboo hat; his hair has been shaved in samurai style, but he has not yet grown the queue expected of a samurai. Uraga says he is ashamed of his appearance, but insists that the missing queue does not make him less of a samurai. He also admits that he has never trained with swords or other weapons and promises to learn.

Toranaga offers him to Blackthorne as a secretary and translator, as well as a man willing to do whatever work Blackthorne requires. Uraga’s changed religious allegiance and his new social position are therefore joined to a practical role in Blackthorne’s household. Blackthorne accepts him despite his lack of martial training, answering with a forgiving phrase rather than treating the deficiency as a reason to refuse him. Yabu laughs, but the nearby ronin do not; the scene makes acceptance, rather than proficiency with weapons, the decisive test of whether Uraga can enter the new service.

Significance of the grant

The event consolidates several forms of power that might otherwise remain separate. Silver gives Blackthorne the means to equip a crew; the men give him armed service; the oath ceremony makes their allegiance legible; and Toranaga’s port privilege gives that allegiance a protected maritime sphere. At the same time, the distinction between Japanese law ashore and foreign law beyond the coast marks Blackthorne’s divided position: he has been incorporated into Toranaga’s order without ceasing to possess an identity and legal status tied to the sea.

The grant also makes freedom concrete. Blackthorne’s choice to leave or remain is paired with the means to act on it, while the retainers and Uraga offer the beginnings of a new life in Japan. The ceremony does not resolve what Blackthorne will ultimately choose; it establishes that the choice is his, and that either course now has material and political consequences.