Yamada Nagamasa arrived in Ayutthaya during a period of instability at the Siamese court, in part caused by his own countrymen. However he is not mentioned in any contemporary document…

Yamada Nagamasa disembarked from his ship in Ayutthaya in February or March 1612. A few months before, on November 16, 1611, a group of Japanese had caused great commotion at…

As mentioned before, two of the discernable categories of Japanese who inhabited Ayutthaya’s Nihonmachi were merchants and warriors. Japanese novelists and historians seem to agree that most of their countrymen…

Most of the Japanese who began reaching Ayutthaya around the turn of the 17th century fell into two groups: merchants and warriors. The two groups were not two rigid entities,…

The Christian men were probably the only Japanese who brought their Japanese wives with them to Siam. For the rest, it can be assumed that intermarriage between Japanese men and…

Located halfway on the route between India and China, the Siamese capital Ayutthaya was predestined to become a hub for international trade. The few days necessary to reach the city…

As a shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu was a pragmatic ruler who understood how the world around Japan was changing. Accordingly, he decided that for security reasons, and to be capable of…

Yamada Nagamasa officially entered history in 1621 when he sent a set of three letters to Hidetada (ruled 1605-1623), the second Tokugawa shogun, and two of his ministers. From Ayutthaya, where he…

Ivan Moris, author of Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan, was one of the first modern scholars to explore Japanese history. In his book he also mentions Yamada Nagamasa (1590-1630),…

Yamada Nagamasa (or Yamada Nizaemon-no-jo Nagamasa – his full Japanese name) was born in Sumpu, Suruga province (today Shizuoka Prefecture, Chibu region, Honshu), in 1590. His father was a knife-maker, and thus…