JAPAN: AND THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST^355Nobunaga were allies, Nobunaga conceived the notion that Ieyasu's
wife and his son, who was married to Nobunaga's daughter (ergo his
son-in-law), were plotting against him. Kill them both, he demanded
of Ieyasu. So Ieyasu had his wife executed and ordered his son to kill
himself. Which he did. It is hard to say which act was crueler:
Nobunaga's demand or Ieyasu's obedience. But to ask is to not think
like a samurai.)
Now for Japanese Christians, the highest loyalty and duty was to
God. They had stopped thinking like good Japanese. So, when suspi
cious chieftains put their Christians to the test, the Christians failed.
The Buddhists, Confucianists, and xénophobes were right. Here was
a threat to Japanese values and political stability. In 1612, then, after
backing and filling, Tokugawa Ieyasu banned the Christian religion.
How many Japanese were Christian at that point is hard to say. Perhaps
300,000. Some estimates run as high as 700,000, in a population of 18
million.
The Japanese went about eradicating Christianity with characteris
tic ferocity. Nero would have been ashamed for his softness. Chris
tians were compelled publicly to abjure. Those who refused or backslid
were tortured and burned or beheaded. Those who helped missionar
ies, the same. The third Tokugawa shogun (army chief), Iemitsu, con
tinuing the policy of his grandfather and father, often attended the
torture sessions himself. Those who resisted were killed to the last
babe in arms. One hundred thousand warriors invested some 37,000
Christian men, women, and children at Shimabara in 1637-38. Thir
teen thousand of these samurai died in the bitter fighting—no quar
ter given or asked. Later, in 1671, the Bakufu (the Tokugawa
government) made sure that no more of these Catholics would be
born. All births had to be registered, from Kyushu in the south to
Hokkaido in the far north, with evidence of Shinto or Buddhist reli
gious affiliation.^6 This procedure lasted over a hundred years. It was the
Spanish Inquisition all over again, this time against Christians.
Root-and-branch religious persecution stood apart at first from trade
relations, which proved extremely profitable, but in the long run the
two came together, leading to Japan's commercial and cultural isola
tion. No other way to keep Christian missionaries and propaganda out.
In 1616, all foreign merchant vessels—except Chinese—were barred
from ports other than Nagasaki and Hirado. Foreign residence was
limited to Edo (later named Tokyo), Kyoto, and Sakai. In 1624, the
Spanish were barred; in 1639, the Portuguese. The English just
stopped coming. That left the Dutch.