What Actually Happens In Japan After 'Shogun' Ends

Shogun culminates with the battle of Sekigahara in 1600, a struggle from which feudal lord (daiymo) Yoshii Toranaga emerges victorious. Toranaga is based on Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), the warlord who rose to power and took control of all of Japan.

Ieyasu's triumph at Sekigahara was a precursor to his establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603. In the immediate aftermath of the battle, Ieyasu rewarded the men who stood by him with land. Honda Masanobu (represented by Kashigi Yabushige in Shogun) was with Ieyasu at Sekigahara and functioned as a close confidant to him. Masanobu went on to become governor of Sado and represented Ieyasu in the Kantō region. 

In contrast, Ieyasu stripped land from those who opposed him and individuals he perceived to be a threat. The latter was especially true when it came to Toyotomi Hideyori, the child leader who nominally ruled while the Council of Five Elders actually called the shots. 

Hideyori was the son of Toyotomi Hodeyoshi and Yodo-dono (represented by Nakamura Hidetoshi and Ochiba, respectively, in Shogun, while Hideyori is represented by Nakamura Yaechiyo.) Hideyori was allowed to remain in Osaka but his land holdings were significantly diminished. 

The shogun in Japan, technically, had to be appointed by the emperor. Japanese emperors oversaw spiritual and ceremonial duties but held little political power. This fell to the shogun and his bakufu ("tent government") which reflected his military role. The imperial designation of the shogun had been established in 1192 CE by Minamoto Yoritomo. 

Tokugawa Ieyasu (Yoshii Toragana in Shogun) won the battle of Sekigahara in 1600 but didn't completely solidify his authority in Japan until 1603. Through land redistribution; social, economic, and military reform; and international policy, Ieyasu could finally obtain, in the words of J.S.A. Elisonas, “his identity as a secular ruler from Japan’s sacred monarch.” 

Although Ieyasu remained active behind-the scenes and on the battlefield until his death in 1616, he was only shogun until 1605. But it was enough time to set the foundations of his shogunate, oversee the succession of his son, Hidetada, and establish the hereditary lineage of the title.

Tokugawa Ieyasu was declared shogun in 1603, but members of the Toyotomi clan continued to fight against the shogunate until 1615. 

As Shogun depicts, there was a strong contingent in Japan dedicated to the heir of the Taiko taking control of the country. Supporters of Nakamura Yaechiyo on the show are just like the real-life members of the Toyotomi clan who supported Toyotomi Hideyori after Ieyasu took power. 

Hideyori was relegated to Osaka by Ieyasu where he lived with his mother, Yodo-dono. After the Toyotomi clan rebuilt Osaka Castle in 1614, the Tokugawas feared the rival group was hoping to one day take power again. 

Despite having turned over the title of shogun to his son in 1605, Ieyasu took the lead in quelling any potential conflict. Hideyori was unable to find support from other daimyo and engaged the services of ronin instead, while the Tokugawas marched toward Osaka with troops. Within the Tokugawa contingent were several samurai who were characterized in Shogun. Honda Masanobu, represented by Kashigi Yabushige in the show, and his son Honda Masazumi (Kashigi Omi in Shogun) were both present at the siege. 

A campaign during the winter of 1614 ended in a half-hearted peace that didn't last long. 

During the summer of 1615, the Tokugawas - led by Ieyasu's son Hidetada - overtook Osaka Castle and destroyed it. Hideyori and Yodo-dono took their own lives after their men were defeated by the Tokugawas. The last living heirs, Hideyori's children, were killed at Ieyasu's orders - ending the Toyotomi clan entirely and ridding the Tokugawas of their rivals.

John Blackthorne is based on William Adams, an Englishman who arrived in Japan in April of 1600 aboard the Liefde. By the time Adams landed in Japan, he was one of the few survivors from what had originally been a five-ship expedition. Alongside Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn, a Dutchman aboard the Liefde, Adams was taken into the service of daimyo Tokugawa Ieyasu.

As Ieyasu fought his way to power, Adams and Jan Joosten both served as advisors to the future shogun, and after Ieyasu took power, they continued to benefit from their benefactor's position. Adams was given the name Miura Anjin while Jan Joosten was called Yayosu. They received land in and around Edo and were licensed to trade (shuinjo). 

Adams, as was shown in the treatment of Blackthorne, was not allowed to leave Japan early during his time there but, with time, was in such a good position that he may have not had an incentive to return to Europe. Jan Joosten later turned down an opportunity to return to the Netherlands, married a Japanese woman, and continued to sail in the region until he died in 1623. 

Adams also married a Japanese woman and they had two children even though he had a wife and children in England. In 1613, after Adams made contact with the British East India Company, Ieyasu granted the Englishman authorization to return home. Adams, much like Van Joosten, declined an offer from English captain John Saris to make the journey.

Before European merchants were restricted to Nagasaki during the 1630s, William Adams was essential in helping both the Dutch and the British set up trading sites there while in the service of Tokugawa Ieyasu. His first efforts were on behalf of the Dutch. With Adams serving as a negotiator, the Netherlands was able to trade throughout Japan instead of at just one location. Much like Blackthorne was fairly combative toward the Catholic Spanish and Portuguese, Adams saw his aid to the Protestant Dutch as helping them acquire a “privilege that the Spaniards and Portingals could never get in this 50 or 60 years in Japan.” 

Further limitations were placed upon the Portuguese when Japan constructed the island of Dejima in Nagasaki Bay, a site from which they were only allowed to trade. The Portuguese were forced out of Japan by the end of the 1630s, at which time the Dutch took possession of Dejima. In 1641, that became the sole harbor from which the Dutch could trade in Japan. 

When Adams learned about the presence of the British East India Company in Indonesia in 1611, he wrote to them, had them relay news to his family that he was still alive, and invited them to start trading with Japan. Two years later, John Saris, captain of the Clove, arrived and met with Adams at Hirado, another island near Nagasaki and where the Dutch were based.

Adams and Saris traveled to Edo to meet with Tokugawa Hidetada, the shogun (although his father, Ieyasu, still made most of the decisions,) and the English were soon allowed to “build houses and carry on trade at whatever port they wish.” The English then made a permanent presence in Hirado. The arrangement between the English and the Japanese was short-lived, however. Ten years later, after relatively little trade had taken place, the British East India Company shut down operations in Japan.

Alongside the increasingly inflexible social order in 17th-century Japan came an intensified distrust of foreigners. John Blackthorne was a Protestant Englishman and Yoshii Toranaga was non-Christian, religious beliefs that corresponded to William Adams and Tokugawa Ieyasu in historic Japan. There's an obvious distrust of Christianity and Christians, largely seen in the interactions between Toranaga and clergymen like Father Marvin Alvito and Carlo Dell'Acqua. The same animus that is expressed for Christian outsiders is also present in discussions of merchant activity, especially after the Portuguese Black Ship reaped vast financial profit from the silk trade.

In line with the historical context of the period, as seen in Shogun, Ieyasu communicated with Europeans and took as much information from Adams as he could. Not long after Ieyasu became shogun, however, Dutch merchants upset the dominance of Portuguese traders. But in contrast to their Iberian rivals, the Dutch didn't push religion on the country. 

Neither the Dutch nor the Portuguese were able to avoid the ban on Western trade implemented in 1636, although the former was given one small site from which to trade in Nagasaki: 

On the arrival of foreign ships, arrangements will be made to have them guarded…
Strict search will be made… on all incoming ships…
No offspring of southern Barbarians will be allowed to remain. Anyone violating this order will be killed, and all relatives punished according to the gravity of the offense…

Leaving Japan was equally challenging:

No Japanese ships may leave for foreign countries.
No Japanese may go abroad secretly. If anybody tries to do this, he will be killed, and the ship and owner/s will be placed under arrest whilst higher authority is informed.
Any Japanese now living abroad who tries to return to Japan will be put to death.