I started writing the story that would become the Ronin Trilogy in about 1998, fueled by a passion for samurai films like Ran, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and Lone Wolf and Cub. That decision launched me into an overwhelming research effort, which propelled me into further research, which drove me to start learning the Japanese language, which ultimately led me to moving to Japan, Fukuoka Prefecture, where I lived for three years, which led me to even more research, much of it first-hand, including the fortifications around Hakata Bay, the museums, the shrines, and more.
If you’re curious about how far down the research rabbit hole goes, be assured it’s more like a wormhole. It goes all the way down, and beyond is a new galaxy.
When I started this journey, I found what I thought was plenty of research material in printed form, encyclopedias, library books, etc. Those were the days when the Internet was still in its infancy and the best research sources were only available in Japanese. Now, however, the sheer volume of digital information that is readily available astonishes me, and it continues to expand. More and more sources, both scholarly and otherwise, have become available in English, digitally and in print. (I could do the research in Japanese, but that doesn’t mean I want to.) If I had had this much information available in 1998...I probably wouldn’t have started at all. I’d have been paralyzed by overload.
One of the challenges with a work of this nature is that historians disagree on a myriad of small details like exact dates, the order of the events, who was there and what they did. The disparate sources I consulted often spanned many decades of scholarly research, and, like scientists, historians often change their conclusions when new evidence arises.
In the case of the Mongol invasions of Japan, the archaeological research is ongoing, much of it happening under the waters of Hakata Bay. That research offers new insights not only into the culture of 13th-century Japan, but also into the Mongols and their Chinese and Korean subjects. These archaeological discoveries allow new and ever-changing suppositions, which were unavailable to George Sansom in the 1950s when he was writing A History of Japan to 1334, one of my most comprehensive sources.
Over the course of writing this novel, I discovered more up-to-date research sources, some of which contradicted information I had already used in previous volumes, or which contradicted areas where I had applied artistic license. Tying the perspectives of so many sources together is a challenge. Relying on only one source might give the perception that the Battle of Takashima, for example, took place largely at sea, whereas a different source might imply that most of the fighting must have been on land. It is easy to become myopic and overlook the fact that the Mongols’ second invasion was of breathtaking scope, with purportedly 3,500 ships in total and more than 100,000 men in the Sung fleet alone. I have tried to get it all to jibe as best I could. In every case, however, the story’s needs were the final arbiter.
Astute readers of some previous editions of Sword of the Ronin will also note that I have changed the name of Tsunetomo’s castle town from Oita to Hita. This was an error I felt obliged to correct. Oita and Hita are both real, modern day cities on Kyushu, but the geographical locale I intended was situated more properly in the location of modern-day Hita. I hope those readers will forgive the inconsistency.
The end result, I hope, is that the reader experiences the kind of wonder that I do when history meets fiction: trying to figure out where the real history begins and ends. The historical record is full of stories of incredible heroism and astonishing courage. I hope the reader will seek out those boundaries and explore them further.
Travis Heermann
June, 2015