Taikō's Expulsion Edicts

The Taikō's Expulsion Edicts are presented as a still-valid legal instrument that Toranaga intends to use to reshape the religious and political order after a hoped-for victory. In his private forecast, invoking them would help dislodge Kiyama from power and provide legal cover for a broader effort to restrict Christianity and foreign influence.

Legal Status and Political Use

Toranaga treats the Edicts as law that remains in force, not as a discarded decree: his plan depends on the Regents being able to invoke them against Kiyama. He anticipates that Kiyama, as the leading Christian lord, will openly display his religion after the battle. Toranaga expects this to give Kasigi Omi and the other Regents grounds to call for the Edicts’ enforcement and remove Kiyama from the council.

That use would serve a political purpose as well as a religious one. Toranaga imagines Kiyama’s removal ending the presence of a Christian Regent, while Omi gains power in the resulting arrangement. The Edicts thus appear in the plan not simply as a general prohibition, but as a means of converting a lord’s religious allegiance into a vulnerability that can be acted upon through the council.

Projected Religious Restrictions

Toranaga’s forecast extends beyond Kiyama’s removal. He imagines the Regents gradually tightening their control over Christianity, which he regards as a threat to the Land of the Gods. The passage presents this as a future policy he expects to pursue after victory, not as an action already carried out: the Edicts’ continuing legality is established, but their planned invocation remains conditional on the political outcome.

Foreigners, Trade, and Enforcement

In the same imagined settlement, Toranaga proposes encouraging Anjin-san’s countrymen to take over Portuguese trade. He also foresees confining foreign commerce and foreigners to a small, heavily guarded part of Nagasaki, then closing the country to them, their guns, and their poisons. These projected controls connect the Edicts’ religious purpose to a wider program of regulating foreign presence and influence. The text does not establish that these measures are enacted; they belong to Toranaga’s anticipated order after a victory he still describes as uncertain.