It is the year 1860, and Japan is at last being forced out of age-old isolation. A feudal warrior state of exquisite culture and barbaric savagery. Where forces gather to threaten the Shogun - and a new Emperor challenges the samuari. Captain Ralph Freeman, US officer on the run, can find no other refuge but this alien land. Alison Gray, victim of shipwreck, must endure years of bondage and sexual humiliation. And both face a fearful struggle for survival as a proud nation is torn apart by bloody civil war.