Relics of the Ruler Who Unified Japan Come to Leeds

Delicate negotiations between British museum curators and a Japanese shrine have unlocked a 400-year-old chest of sacred art, which goes on show today under the supervision of Shinto priests.

Paintings on gold leaf and minute instructions about military etiquette in a savage civil war will be on display for three months at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, along with a spidery letter from the English sea-pilot William Adams, whose story inspired the best-selling novel Shogun.

The exhibition tells the story of Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu, the 17th-century unifier of Japan who took the title Shogun and was later declared a god. The status of objects such as a vast gold fan which he carried at his many battles led to years of negotiations over their first loan for showing abroad.

"It has been a triumph for international cooperation," said Paul Evans, chief executive of the Royal Armouries, which will return a number of the most delicate artworks after only six weeks as their fragile condition requires limited exposure to light.

"It has called on all the expertise, diplomacy and determination of the staff of the Royal Armouries and the Nikko Toshogu shrine (dedicated to the Shogun) to bring to life the story of a great man."

Launched yesterday with a hair-raising display of Yabusame, the high-speed mounted archery which won Tokugawa's battles, the exhibition also shows the mismatch in understanding between Japan and the west for centuries. In spite of the presence of men such as Adams, an Armada war veteran who advised the Shogun on naval policy, ignorance was sometimes spectacular.

The exhibition includes a presentation suit of armour sent by the Shogun to England's King James I which within 30 years was catalogued at the Tower of London as "a gift from the Great Moghul" (of India). Even greater indignities were inflicted on similar suits sent to the court in Austria, where they were reclassified for diplomatic purposes to do with the conquest of Mexico as "having belonged to Montezuma and his son".

Shogun is at the Royal Armouries until August 30