With his newly-won power, one of Ieyasu's first acts was to reward his allies with the confiscated lands. He greatly increased the estates of the lords of Fukushima, Ikeda, Kuroda, Kobayakawa, Terasawa, Ii, Honda and others and ordered them to establish their residences in the new capital and regularly to attend formal occasions in Edo Castle. Every other year, they were permitted to return to their fiefdoms, where their wives and children were to reside as custodians of the estates. At the same time, Ieyasu confiscated all Lord O￣ ta's land and forced him into an itinerant life on the outer edges of the country. He also dramatically reduced to 700,000 koku the land of Hideyori, in the clearest signal that the would-be successor's star was waning. Hidetada, his own son, received nothing. Ieyasu gave Adams a reward of 10,000 reals, his men a total of 10,000 reals and condolence money of 5,000 reals for a departed soul. Sadly for them, the most important announcement never came. Ieyasu did not allow Adams and his men to return home. Adams decided he must appeal directly to Ieyasu.

A few days later, Adams was taken to a reed field surrounded with sparse trees in the Kyoto suburb of Fushimi, where Ieyasu had been enjoying falconry every day since his victory. Stepping out of the jin-chi or tent, which normally hid great men from public gaze and on which the hollyhock trefoil coat of arms of the Tokugawa clan was now embroidered (see Plate 7), Ieyasu welcomed Adams warmly. ‘You come here to ask me why I don't permit De Liefde ’s crew to return home, do you not?’ Ieyasu said, as if he had prepared for Adams’ visit. He tried to explain the reason to Adams, but struggled to recall the word ‘geometry’. Eventually, Adams understood that Ieyasu was deeply fascinated by a science which made it possible to find accurate distances and angles for gun fire, even in a fog. He also had a strong desire to learn about navigation, astronomy, mathematics and much else from Europe. Adams suggested a deal.