Masamune stared at the globe. “They must have, in order to draw these longitude lines, neh? Well, if you can’t build such clocks yet, we can’t either.” The Europeans had brought clocks to Japan.
Tasman didn’t belabor the point, but the clocks made for use in Japan wouldn’t be useful for voyagers even if the waters of the Pacific were as quiet as those in a bathtub. The Japanese didn’t have a standard hour, but rather divided the day and night each into six equal parts, whether the days were summer long or winter short. The customized clocks presented by the Europeans to the shogun and several of the more important daimyos had complicated mechanisms to adjust for the seasonal variation at Edo or Nagasaki in the length of the day.
“So, milord, our route is a bit of a compromise. We head northeast, passing abreast of your northern island—”
“Ezochi,” Masamune interjected.
Tasman inclined his head slightly. “Thank you, Your Grace. The American globe calls it Hokkaido. And then when we are at latitude forty-five degrees, by the sun, even with this island—” he pointed at Iturup, in the Kurile Islands, with his rather grimy fingernail—“we turn east. When we sight the coast of America, we turn south, and this ‘California Current’ will speed us down to the latitude of Monterey.”
Masamune turned to the Japanese captain on his left, and they spoke hurriedly and softly in Japanese. “Captain, please repeat what you just told me.”
“Tasman-sama,” said the Japanese captain, “why do we need to worry about where the sun journeys? We can follow this chain of islands to this peninsula, then cross to this second island chain, and run along this second peninsula, and finally sail down the coast.” The path he outlined was from the Kurile Islands, to Kamchatka, the Aleutian Islands, the Alaska Peninsula, and then along Alaska, British Columbia, and the Pacific Northwest. “According to the distance scale, I think we would always be in sight of land.”
“In sight of land, yes, if there were no fog. Are fogs not common in your northern waters?” The Japanese captain nodded.
“Then you don’t want to be close to land, I assure you. The island-hopping route, also, takes you even farther north than the shortest path route, to sixty degrees north. And part of the way, you’ll be fighting the Alaska current.”
Masamune spread his hands. “Perhaps it would be prudent to defer the island-hopping and shortest path routes to another time, after we have more experience in the waters in question. For now, Captain Tasman is our sensei.”
Tasman bowed in polite acknowledgment. “If I may be permitted a question of my own, Great Lord, why Monterey? It is an open roadstead, and the largest harbor in the world is to the north. San Francisco Bay.”
“And perhaps you are also interested in the gold fields of the Sacramento and San Joaquin River valleys that lie beyond that bay, neh?”
Tasman smiled. “Exploration is an expensive pastime. And so is transporting thousands of people across the world’s greatest ocean.”
Masamune cocked his head. “Consider this, Captain. Which power is the greatest threat to the California endeavor?”
“Spain, of course, they are already in what the Americans called Mexico.”
“Indeed. And there are two reasons that the Spanish might send a force to California in the near future. The first is that they learn about our activities from their spies in Asia. That won’t be easy. The Spanish have been banned from Japan since 1624. We seized the Black Ships of the Portuguese at Nagasaki a few months ago, and so they have heard nothing since then. The kirishitan only know that they are going to America, not where. If the Spanish learn of our interest in California, it will be because some Dutchman tells them.”
Tasman stiffened. “My lord, we have fought the Spanish for our independence since 1568. While I do not doubt that the Spanish have spies in our ranks—as of course we do in theirs—only a few of us, the participating ship captains, and senior officials in the Dutch East India Company, are aware of your great adventure. And we have kept secrets before.”
“See that you do so here. The other reason for the Spanish to go to California is that they, too, are tantalized by the stories of the California Gold Rush. They could sail north, never suspecting our intentions, and enter the Bay. If they find us there, what would do?”
“They would blockade the Golden Gate, or fortify it, and then hunt down your settlements,” Tasman admitted.
“Exactly. And that would cut our supply line, and doom us, if we were indeed inside San Francisco Bay.” He paused.