Post-Shogun: How Toranaga betrayed the Church and died badly.

for me, one of the interesting things about this excellent series / book was doing the follow-up reading. that is, reading the further history of william adams (the real-life blackthorne / anjin-san) and the further history of tokugawa ieyasu (the real-life toranaga). it's been some years now, but i recall the following:

- in later years, toranaga (or was it his successors?) basically broke the arrangement with the jesuits and portuguese traders, despite their earlier political aid and arrangements. namely, they were ignominiously kicked out of japan. this was followed by a long period of isolationism on japan's part.

- <warning: this next one is a little gruesome> toranaga did not live long after "shogun"- only a few years IIRC. furthermore, he had developed some kind of wasting disease, and after his death, his corpse apparently blew up like a balloon and quickly rotted, producing a terrific spectacle and stench. all in the space of a couple days, remarkably.

...

that's it for now. feel free to fact-check me on these. there are probably other points of interest, too, but that's all i can rememember at the moment.