Ranshin Samurai Crusaders

In 1276 AD, after losing a battle with the Saracens, Edward Gawain, an English knight, and his band of fellow Crusaders flee the Holy Land by sea. A violent storm sets the Crusaders adrift off the coast of Nippon (modern-day Japan), which has been under siege by Mongolian invaders from the Yuan Dynasty for several years. Hatred and distrust of foreigners run high among the locals. And Edward and his men are equally wary of their samurai captors, whose language they do not speak and whose culture they do not understand. After Edward heroically saves the life of the samurai leader from a Mongolian scouting party, barriers between East and West begin to fall. Brought to Kamakura, Edward meets Hojo Tokimune, a young regent of the shogunate. They relate to each other immediately as knight and samurai. The English Crusaders soon become accustomed to life in Nippon, and Edward falls in love with a beautiful courtesan. One day, news of a second Mongolian invasion arrives in Kamakura. Entrusted by Tokimune, Edward leaves for Hakata, where he takes command of the Nippon army and fights with his new comrades to defend the people and civilization he has come to love and respect.

After working as a scientist for the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, Ted Takashima moved to California, where he studied at the University of California. He has published more than twenty novels in Japan. His novels include Intruder, which won the 1999 Suntory Mystery Award; Pandemic (2010), which foretold the global spread of COVID-19 in 2020; The Wall (2020), a redemption story set against the backdrop of a refugee crisis at the Trump border wall with Mexico; and The Gene of Life (2021), a Sci-Fi crime page-turner.