Red Seal Ship
Red Seal Shuinsen ( Japanese 朱 印 船 Shuinsen ) were armed Japanese merchant ships with destinations in Southeast Asian ports that held a red seal patent from the early Tokugawa Shogunate . Between 1600 and 1635 , more than 350 Japanese ships traveled overseas under this system.
Origins
From the 13th to the 16th century, Japanese ships were quite active in Asian waters, but often in the role of " wokou " - pirates who plundered the shores of the Chinese Empire. Their activities were initially severely restricted in 1588 by Hideyoshi prohibiting piracy. Official trade missions were also sent to China, such as the Tenryūjibune around 1341.
Between the 15th and 16th centuries, the main middleman in East Asia was the island kingdom of Ryūkyū (now Okinawa ), which exchanged Japanese products such as silver and swords and Chinese products for Southeast Asian sappan wood and deer skins. A total of 150 ship voyages from Ryuku to Southeast Asia are recorded, of which 61 to Siam , 10 to Malacca , ten to Pattani and eight to Java . This trade ceased around 1570 with the rise of Chinese traders and the intervention of Portuguese and Spanish ships. This point in time corresponds to the beginnings of the red seal system. The Ryūkyū Kingdom was finally conquered by Japan in 1609.
When the first Europeans started sailing the Pacific , they regularly met Japanese ships. In 1589, for example, the Spaniards received a Japanese junk in Manila with severe storm damage that was on its way to Siam. The Dutch circumnavigator Olivier van Noort met a 110-ton Japanese junk in the Philippines in December 1600 and, on the same voyage, a Red Seal ship with a Portuguese captain off Borneo , through whom he learned of the arrival of William Adams in Japan.
The red seal system
The red seal system is first mentioned in a document in 1592 under Toyotomi Hideyoshi . The first received Shuinjō (red seal license) is dated 1604, when Tokugawa Ieyasu was the first Tokugawa shogun in Japan. Tokugawa issued the licenses to feudal lords in his favor and important traders who were interested in foreign trade. This enabled him to control the Japanese traders and reduce Japanese piracy in the southern sea. His seal also guaranteed the ships' protection, as he had sworn to prosecute any pirate and country that attacked them.
In addition to Japanese traders, twelve Europeans (including William Adams and Jan Joosten ) and eleven Chinese citizens are known to have licenses . At a time after 1621 Jan Joosten is said to have owned ten red-sealed ships for trading.
The Portuguese , Spanish , Dutch and English ships, as well as the Asian rulers, generally protected the Japanese Red Seal ships because they had diplomatic relations with the Shogun. Only Ming China was not involved in this practice, as the Empire had officially banned Japanese ships from entering Chinese ports (but Ming officials, on the other hand, were unable to prevent Chinese smugglers from traveling to Japan).
Ship design
The red seal ships were usually 500 to 750 tons in size, which was as much or more than the European galleons but less than the large Portuguese carracks , often over 1000 tons. The crew was about 200 people per ship (the average of the 15 ships for which this number is known is 236).
The ships were built in different places. Some of them built in Nagasaki combined Western, Japanese, and Chinese ship designs. Others were Chinese junks . After the trade with Southeast Asia was firmly established, numerous ships were ordered and built in Ayutthaya in Siam , as the construction of Thai ships and the quality of the Thai wood were considered to be excellent.
The ships were run by wealthy trading families. These include the Sumikura, Araki, Chaya and Sueyoshi. Individual adventurers such as Suetsugo Heizo , Yamada Nagamasa , William Adams , Jan Joosten or Murayama Toan also organized red- sealed ships. The funds for the purchase of the goods in Asia were borrowed by the organizers of the expedition at interest rates of 35 to 55 percent per trip, in the case of Siam up to 100% interest was possible.
import and export
Japanese traders mainly exported silver , diamonds , copper , swords and other handicrafts. They imported Chinese silk as well as Southeast Asian products such as sugar and deer hides. Black pepper and spices , which played an important role in Southeast Asia's trade with Europe, were seldom imported into Japan because they did not eat much meat to season with them. Southeast Asian ports offered themselves as places where Japanese and Chinese ships could meet.
Destinations
The crew of the ships was international, as many Chinese, Portuguese and Dutch joined the seafarers as navigators and translators. The first red seal ships were required to have a Portuguese navigator on board, but the Japanese increasingly trained navigators from their own ranks. The Portolan charts used by the navigators were drawn from Portuguese models, but with sailing instructions in Japanese.
Major Southeast Asian ports, including Manila in Spain , Hội An in Vietnam , Ayutthaya in Siam, and Patani in Malaysia , welcomed the Japanese merchant ships. Many Japanese settled in these port towns and formed small Japanese enclaves.
The Japanese seem to have been feared all over Asia:
- "In no port in India (Asia) one tolerates the Japanese landing armed, since they are such a desperate and daring people that they are feared wherever they go" (Sir Edward Michelbourne, Boxer, p. 268).
A Dutch frigate captain wrote around 1615: "They are a raw and fearless people, lambs in their own country, but downright devils outside it."
Philippines
About 50 red seal ships to Luzon in the Philippines are recorded for a period from 1604 to 1624, after that only four more until 1635. The Japanese had established an enclave in Dilao , a suburb of Manila , fairly early on ; in 1593 they numbered 300 to 400 people. During the Sangley Rebellion in 1603 there were 1,500, three years later it was 3,000. The Franciscan brother Luis Sotelo was involved in supporting the enclave between 1600 and 1608.
The Japanese in Dilao carried out an unsuccessful rebellion against the Spaniards from 1596 to 1607, after which their numbers rose again, until the ban on Christianity by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1614. At that time, 300 Japanese Christian refugees settled in the Philippines under Takayama Ukon . They are the ancestors of the Japanese Filipino group, which today has around 200,000 members .
Siam
The Siamese " Chronicles of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya " recorded as early as 1592 that 500 Japanese soldiers under the King of Siam helped to repel an invasion of the Burmese army ( Yoko Nagazumi ).
About 56 Red Seal ships to Siam are recorded for the years 1604 to 1635. The Japanese community in Siam seems to have been in the hundreds, as described by Father Antonio Francisco Cardim. He reports that in Ayutthaya , the capital of the Siamese, he donated the sacraments to around 400 Japanese Christians in 1627 (“a 400 japoes christaos” source: Ishii Yoneo, Multicultural Japan).
The colony was actively involved in trade, especially in the export of deer hides and sappan wood to Japan in exchange for Japanese silver and Japanese handicrafts (swords, lacquered boxes, high-quality paper). She was known for questioning the Dutch East India Company's (VOC) trading monopoly , as her strong position with the king allowed her to buy at least 50 percent of the total production and only leave smaller quantities of inferior quality to the other traders.
The Japanese adventurer Yamada Nagamasa achieved great influence and was finally appointed lord of Ligor (now Nakhon Si Thammarat ) on the southern peninsula of the Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand) in 1630 . The colony also played an important military role in Thailand.
Macau
Although they were forbidden from entering Chinese soil by China, Japanese seafarers from Red Seal ships came into the country in some numbers via Macau . In November 1608 there was a fight between about 100 Japanese samurai , armed with katana and muskets , and Portuguese soldiers under the ruling governor and captain of the trip to Japan, André Pessoa . This killed 50 Japanese, the other 50 were fired after they signed an affidavit in lieu of an oath that they were responsible for the incident. Ieyasu forbade Japanese citizens from visiting Macau in 1609:
- "Since it is an indubitable fact that the journey of Japanese ships to Macau is detrimental to this place, this practice will be strictly prohibited in the future" (July 25, 1609, Ieyasu Shuinjo, transmitted to Mateo Leitão, Boxer S. 272)
Indonesia
Some red seal ships are recorded for the area of present-day Indonesia (Java, Spice Islands ), perhaps because of the direct Dutch influence here. However, Japanese samurai were recruited by the Dutch in the area. They excelled in the conquest of the Banda Islands from the English and the defense of Batavia . In 1621 the practice of hiring Japanese mercenaries was banned by the Shogun. In 1618, Koon, the Dutch governor of Java, requested 25 samurai from Japan. In 1620, according to Dutch records, 90 samurai were recruited from the islands around Java to strengthen the fort of Batavia.
India
It is mentioned of the Japanese adventurer Tenjiku "India" Tokubei that he traveled to Siam and India on board a Red Seal ship together with Jan Joosten. On his return he wrote a book about his trip.
Other destinations
Other important destinations included:
- Cochinchina (74 ships),
- Cambodia (44 ships),
- Taiwan (35 ships),
- Annam in Vietnam (14 ships).
Relative importance
The 350 Red Seal ships recorded for the period from 1604 to 1634, an average of ten ships per year, must be compared to the one Portuguese carrack that came to Nagasaki from Macau every year , although this ship was a large one Tonnage (two to three times as much as a single Red Seal ship), and carried a rich cargo of silk straight from China.
In the years from 1604 to 1639, Japanese exports were:
- Red seal ships: goods worth 1,053,750 kg of silver (of which 843,000 silver)
- Portuguese ships: 813,375 (650,700)
- Chinese Ships: 429,825 (343,860)
- Dutch ships 286,245 (228,996)
- Total: 2,583,195 (2,066,556)
- Values in kg of silver, the number in brackets denotes the share of silver in export
In comparison, only four ships from England arrived at the English trading post in Hirado during the ten years of its existence (1613–1623), and also with predominantly low-value cargo. In fact, the trading post had to rely on trade between Japan and Southeast Asia under the red seal system. She organized seven expeditions, four of which were William Adams .
The Japanese shogun was very hostile to Spain and Spain did not want to disperse its available ships to distant areas. With the exception of a few shipwrecks of the Spanish Manila galleon on the Japanese coast, only about one Spanish ship came to trade in Japan each year. The Spaniards had a small base in Uraga , where William Adams was used on several occasions to sell the goods.
Only Chinese ships seem to have been quite significant in the last few years of the Ming Dynasty . Richard Cocks , head of the UK trading post in Hirado, reported that 60 to 70 Chinese junks visited Nagasaki in 1614, led by Fujian smugglers. In 1612, the priest Valentim de Carvalho , head of the Jesuit mission, reported that the annual "Great Ship" from Macau brought 1,300 quintals of silk, while 5,000 quintals were delivered by red-sealed ships and ships from China and Manila.
End of the system
In 1635 the Tokugawa Shogunate forbade the Japanese from traveling overseas. This ended the days of the red seal trade. At that time, this measure was still welcomed by the Europeans, especially the Dutch East India Company , who saw competition restricted to their disadvantage.
literature
- 永 積 洋子 「朱 印 船」 2001 日本 歴 史 会館, Yoko Nagazumi, “Red Seal Ships”, 2001, Japanese Historical Society. ISBN 4-642-06659-4 (Japanese)
- CR Boxer: The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650 . Carcanet 1993. ISBN 1-85754-035-2 (English)
See also
- Epoch of the Namban Trade : Main article on the epoch with timeline, which also includes the red seal ships.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nagazumi Yoko: Red Seal Ships