In 1598, a group of Dutch ships sets sail to plunder the recently opened Spanish and Portuguese possessions in the New World. After nearly two years of voyage, only one ship from the expedition remains, the Erasmus, with 28 sailors, commanded by the English navigator John Blackthorn. Struck by a violent storm, the ship wrecks off the coast of Japan, and Blackthorn and his crew, falsely accused by a local Portuguese priest- Jesuit of piracy, find themselves prisoners of the samurai. Fate gives John a second chance. He is released and sent to Osaka, as he wishes to meet the influential daimyo Yoshi Toronaga.