The end of the Taikō’s peace and the looming war

The end of the Taikō’s peace and the looming war marks the change from a tense political standoff to a crisis in which military preparations and rival claims to lawful authority point toward civil war. Toranaga publicly presents his cause as the defense of the Taikō’s testament and the imperial order, while preparing for an attack he expects Ishido to initiate. The danger is not only that the peace has failed: the weapons, alliances, and official decrees of the coming conflict threaten to change what samurai warfare itself can be.

The weapons of a new conflict

The crisis has a military dimension before it becomes an openly declared war. Yabu discovers the armament aboard the ship and, exhilarated by what it could give him, orders it removed and concealed. His haul includes five hundred muskets, twenty cannon, five thousand cannonballs, and crates of ammunition and fire arrows. He directs Mura to provide porters and charges Igurashi with secretly transporting the weapons to his castle at Mishima. The crates are to be repacked and disguised beneath nets or sacking: the secrecy is part of the plan, not an afterthought.

Yabu’s ambition is more than to possess unfamiliar weapons. He has privately imagined a trained unit of five hundred musketeers spearheading twelve thousand conventional troops, with cannon operated by specially trained men. He sees firearms as a possible decisive advantage in the coming war. That vision confronts a martial code in which close combat and the sword carry honor, while guns are treated as dishonorable and cowardly. The narrative sets the emerging conflict at the junction of military innovation and inherited ideas of samurai duty: even Yabu’s private questioning of bushido does not make the contradiction disappear.

The later demonstration of disciplined musket fire gives the theory a practical form. Against an apparent attack, the musketeers assemble into five phalanxes of four ranks, each containing twenty-five men; three advance while two remain in reserve forty paces behind. On command, the front rank fires and kneels to reload as the ranks behind it fire in sequence. The attack is staged with blank ammunition, but its pattern makes the consequences legible to the watching Jozen: the defenders’ losses would be real in battle. When a final charge drives the formation back, the musketeers retreat, regroup in a V, and resume firing. The mock engagement ends without a real battle, yet demonstrates how coordinated volleys might defeat warriors who expect combat to be decided by individual valor.

Toranaga’s public case and private preparations

Toranaga addresses a gathering of 150 officers, with Yabu, Omi, and Buntaro at the front and Mariko kneeling near Blackthorne. He announces publicly, for the first time, the broad outline of his battle plan. The code words “Crimson Sky” will launch the attack when the rains cease. He predicts that Ishido will illegally convene a new Regency Council, falsely impeach him, and declare war against him in violation of the law.

His declaration is carefully framed as a defense rather than a bid for power. Toranaga says he upholds the Taikō’s testament, acknowledges his nephew Yaemon as Kwampaku and heir, and desires neither additional lands nor honors. If attacked, he says, he must defend himself; if traitors deceive the Emperor and try to seize power, he has a duty to defend the Emperor and banish evil. The officers answer with approval and cries of “Kasigi” and “Toranaga.” His language offers a shared public justification for resistance even as his description of the plan remains incomplete.

He withholds essential details from the assembled officers: the planned insurrections and the choice of the northern rather than southern coastal road. Meanwhile, orders turn the announcement into military movement. The Attack Regiment is to embark for Yedo within five days, commanded by Buntaro with Omi second-in-command. Yabu is ordered to mobilize Izu and send six thousand men to the frontier passes, guarding against Ikawa Jikkyu cutting Toranaga’s lines of communication. The prospect of attack is thus met with preparations to protect routes, assemble forces, and move troops, while the full design remains concealed even from allies.

The Regency changes sides

The crisis sharpens when Toranaga learns that Zataki, his half brother and Lord of Shinano, has arrived from Osaka seeking safe conduct to Anjiro. Zataki travels with a hundred samurai and bearers under the cipher of the new Regency Council. Hiro-matsu’s report confirms that Zataki has openly aligned himself with Ishido and has become a Regent in place of Sugiyama. His appointment bears the signatures of Ishido, Kiyama, Onoshi, and Ito. A family relationship that might have offered a route to agreement instead becomes part of the opposing political structure.

Hiro-matsu also reports that northern clans may join Ishido now that Zataki’s Shinano has turned against Toranaga, while Jikkyu is secretly mobilizing. He urges Toranaga to leave Anjiro by sea rather than risk being trapped. Toranaga considers whether Zataki might be won over with a prize, but identifies the attraction plainly: the Kwanto is what Zataki has always wanted, and what Ishido wants as well. The same territory is both the political prize behind the conflict and a possible inducement for changing sides.

Toranaga names the change in a stark private exchange: “The Taikō’s peace has ended. War is beginning.” The words register more than a forecast. The Regency has acquired a replacement for the murdered Sugiyama, its members now support an invitation backed by the authority of the Emperor, and Toranaga’s military preparations are already under way. What had been a struggle over council procedure and allegiance is becoming a contest backed by armies.

The summons and the threat of execution

Zataki delivers the new Council’s formal summons in the name of Emperor Go-Niji. It orders Toranaga to make obeisance before the Council in Osaka forthwith and to tell its ambassador, Zataki, whether he accepts or refuses. Zataki emphasizes that the scroll bears all the Regents’ signatures and the Great Seal of the Realm. The invitation therefore carries the weight of imperial authority, not merely the demand of Toranaga’s political rival.

Toranaga studies the scroll rather than answering immediately. Zataki then produces a second document: a formal impeachment and an order for Toranaga to commit seppuku. He declares that the demand for an immediate answer has already been refused and says he will leave Izu, with their next meeting to take place on a battlefield. The ultimatum closes off the appearance that Toranaga can simply wait out the dispute. The Council’s summons, impeachment, and death order combine political submission with the threat of physical elimination.

Toranaga answers the threat by recalling Sugiyama as a friend and honorable comrade, and by insisting that the truth about Sugiyama’s death matters. Zataki responds that Toranaga’s own fate matters more to him. Their exchange makes the personal and political stakes inseparable: the new Regent is Toranaga’s brother, but he speaks for the Council that has branded Toranaga a traitor. The state remains poised between formally declared authority and armed opposition, with the order of the Taikō invoked by both sides as the crisis approaches war.