Oda
Nobunaga's world map. He spent evenings talking with Jesuit missionaries
and mobile merchants, instead of any artistic waste of time. Oda
never missed a chance to hear of the latest stuff imported from
across the ocean, or what went on in another hemisphere at the
time; in his very last day on earth he still mused about sailing
with Toyotomi Hideyoshi to China.
A
lot of tourists have been told that Oda Nobunaga was 'close with
the Catholic priests' and that 'he was interested in Christianity'
-- that's very untrue. He was sort of friendly toward them for
what came from their countries (guns and cakes, for instance),
and to 'use' the missionaries to drive his bitter enemies the
Buddhist warrior-monks to some nerve-wrecking rage.
Click
here if you have no idea what I'm talking about. 
Click
here for what Oda Nobunaga said about a voyage around the world,
just one night before he died. |
