The Rebellion that Closed Japan’s Borders

He was sixteen years old, leading forty thousand people with nothing left to lose. This episode tells the story of Amakusa Shirō and the Shimabara Rebellion — part peasant uprising, part holy war, and the largest act of armed resistance the Tokugawa shogunate would ever face. When it was over, thirty-seven thousand were dead, and Japan’s doors closed a little tighter.