Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 424, The City on the Edge of Forever, Part 3.

It can seem sometimes, like up until the mid-1580s, the city of Nagasaki was living, for lack

of a better word, a charmed life. So many things could have gone wrong, almost did go wrong,

to end the port town prematurely,

but the city constantly caught the lucky breaks it needed to survive.

It's hard to blame Jesuit chroniclers, like Louis Frois, for seeing the hand of God in that.

But the thing about fortune is that it's a fickle friend, as the Jesuits began to find out, starting with

the decision to invite Toyotomi Hideyoshi to intervene in Kyushu. Not that any of them realized

this at the time. Instead, the lead Jesuit of Nagasaki, Gaspar Kowelho, finally got a chance to

sit down with Hideyoshi in Osaka Castle in May of 1586, having

literally dodged assassins from the Shemazu family sent to stop him, believing that he had once

again managed to put one up in the wind column. Hideoishi greeted the Jesuits warmly, sitting

close to them and repeatedly praising them for coming all the way to Japan just to propagate their faith, a truly selfless act.

According to Louis Frois, who was present as an interpreter, Gaspar Coelho never having bothered to learn much Japanese,

Hideoshi then went on to explain that after finishing his conquest of Japan,

he planned to go on and invade China.

In exchange for Portuguese assistance, providing him with two of their warships to escort his

invasion force, Hideoshi planned to build churches all over China, and he would allow the Jesuits

to convert as much of Japan as they

could to Christianity.

Hideoshi then led the fathers on a personal tour of Osaka Castle, during which time he

spoke about how he would put some of his Christian retainers in positions of power once he

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