Care to expand on TaiPan and Noble House? 🤔 /pay @4606 0.…

Sure. I've read nearly all of James Clavell's books. His "Asian Saga" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asian_Saga books are EXCELLENT.
I would rate Noble House as my 2nd Favorite (being a 60s/70s follow on to the empire left by the founders in the earlier books beginning with TaiPan). Though you ought to read TaiPan first. And Pierce Brosnan's NOBLE HOUSE tv movie series is done by the book author himself and almost perfect to form.
Gaijin is my 3rd favorite, though it's main charachter is less impressive than it's setting.
These are based on the Opium sellers for The Company in China prior to and after the Opium wars, and the settling of Hong Kong. JardineMatheson company is the real life version "Struan and Company", though the analogues for Jardine himself with Dirk Struan are unsure to me.
Shogun, however, is the ULTIMATE book in the series and set apart from the others, though still based on real happenings (William Adams in Japan 400 years ago around the formation of the Tokugawa Shogunate).