The Imperial summons; Uraga dies

The galley reaches tai-fun-scarred Osaka, the castle untouched. Blackthorne has sent the quarrelling crew back to Yedo and kept Vinck. Uraga explains "rice Christians" and spills Jesuit secrets: ten million in silk a year, a Jesuit at the court of Peking. Prince Ogaki, a black-toothed courtier, boards with the Regents' cipher: the Emperor himself will come to Osaka to receive Toranaga's obeisance on the twenty-second day, an Imperial summons no one can refuse. Yabu sees Toranaga's whole scheme collapse and decides, per Yuriko, to be the best of vassals by removing Ishido. Mariko embraces Kiri and Sazuko in the castle; the Anjin-san is to be shown off at Ochiba's birthday reception. Uraga bluffs past a patrol as a Buddhist priest and reports rumours: Yodoko sick, rice doubled, Chimmoko entering the Mission. Then arrows fly from the darkened fishing boats. Blackthorne pulls the shaft from Uraga's throat and crosses himself over the dying man.

Osaka again, from the sea. The Imperial summons is the plot's escalation past what Toranaga can refuse, and Clavell lets Yabu understand it first so the reader sees the trap through the traitor's eyes. Uraga's death by arrow is the cost of the disguise, and the first death Blackthorne blesses.