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 importing new technologies and ideas, international diplomacy had to be one of the bedrocks of his political strategy.
Ieyasu learned a lot from William Adams (an English navigator who travelled to Japan and resided there until his death; believed to be the first Englishman ever to reach Japan; and the inspiration for Jack Blackthorne in James Clavell’s novel Shogun) whom he had relied from 1600 for international intelligence, and later for shipbuilding.
The animosity toward Japan in the region was well demonstrated by a fact recorded in the Ming Chronicles of the ruling Chinese Ming Dynasty. The Siamese King Naresuan, once he had heard of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea, offered to send troops to fight alongside the Ming to repel the Japanese in 1592. The request was rejected on February 6, 1593 and perhaps the Chinese refusal safeguarded the future relations between Siam and Japan.
Thus, 1603 marks the beginning of Japan’s international trade managed by the Tokugawa shogunate. In 1604, Ieyasu began to issue shuin, or vermillion seal certificates, which were originally a Chinese idea. (Oda Nobunaga and Hideyoshi had issued similar permits before). These were certificates allocated to merchants willing to conduct official international trade under the seal of approval of the newly established shogunate.
Such permits, valid for a voyage from Nagasaki to ports in the Southeast Asian region and back, were issued to several merchants like Ibarakiya Matazaemon (going to Cochin-China in southern Vietnam) and the Hirano and Takaseya families (to Luzon in the Philippines). Other permits were issued to merchants going to Tonkin (today northern Vietnam), Patani (today southern Thailand), Cambodia and Siam.
Four permits were issued for Siam, one of them to a merchant called Yoemon. This is the first substantiation of commercial relations between Japan and Ayutthaya, even though official relations had to wait for another two years.
There are interesting similarities between the two rulers who opened official relationships between Japan and Siam. Just as Ieyasu sought diplomatic solutions in order to enhance commercial ties and obtain friendly relations between Japan and other Asian countries, the Auytthayan King Ekathotsarot looked beyond the borders of Siam in order to enrich his country through trade.
Ieyasu wrote a letter to the sovereign of Siam on October 22, 1606 in which he introduced himself, and approached the Siamese monarch by proposing a symbolic exchange of weapons. In about ten yeas from the start of his new foreign policy, Ieyasu and his ministers (now residing in Sumpu, Nagamasa’s hometown) had managed to open a door to the rest of the world. Nagamasa, who was by then 20 years old, was one of the Japanese who embarked on the sea voyage to try his fortunes in a faraway kingdom.
The year of Nagamasa’s departure from Japan is not known. The only way to try to determine it is to work back from what van Vliet wrote in 1640 about Oin (also called Ockon Senaphhimocq or Senaphimuk), Nagamasa’s son, who was allegedly about 18 years old in early 1630, the year his father died. If we accept this fact, and we consider Oin a biological son born in Siam by a local woman, then Nagamasa must have been there already in 1611. Accordingly, he might have been on the only Japanese ship that in early 1611 officially sailed from Nagasaki to Siam.
Of course, it is possible that Nagamasa might have traveled on a non-Japanese ship, or he could have reached another destination in Southeast Asia, before moving on to Ayutthaya. Most tales and quasi-historical biographies of Nagamasa say he crossed to Ayutthaya by smuggling himself on the junk of two Japanese merchants, Taki and Ota.
It is worth mentioning that after crossing to the Asian mainland, most of the Japanese ships were not seaworthy for the journey home. Also, once the Japanese envoys stopped sailing to China in the mid 9th century, travel overseas was sporadic and did not bring an improvement of shipbuilding and navigation skills. It took the Japanese five weeks to get to the continent, while a Chinese vessel could cover the opposite route in as little as three days. (The first Japanese ship that crossed the Pacific Ocean in 1610 to New Spain was designed and built on western style for the shogunate by William Adams, and was navigated by Iberian pilots.)
For intra-Asian routes, the ships that navigated to and from Nagasaki during Nagamasa’s time took their name from the shogunal permits they needed to sail south. They were known as shuinsen, or vermillion seal ships, and resembled Chinese junks. As depicted in paintings of the era, they had large rudders and rounded keel-less bottoms, and often featured hybrid elements, such as a combination of Chinese squared sails and western style lateen sails.
Shuinsen were initially built in Nagasaki, but some Japanese merchants began to order their vessels from Ayutthaya, where the Chinese community specialized in the construction of high-quality and relatively cheap junks. For example, when, in March 1613, four Japanese-owned vessels left Ayutthaya, two were brand new ships made in Ayutthaya. The tonnage changed according to the different models, but was usually between 500 and 750 tons. This was still less than the Portuguese ships which were capable of carrying 1,000 tons of merchandise. The shuinsen carried an average of 236 people.
Between 1600 and 1635, 100,000 Japanese, among which Yamada Nagamasa himself, sailed to Southeast Asia. The junks to Siam and other destinations in the South left Japan in January or February with the southern winds, and returned in June or July. The direct voyage from Nagasaki to Ayutthaya took an average of 47 days. It might have taken longer for Nagamasa, if, as described in many of the fictional narratives about his life, he actually stopped in Formosa (today Taiwan). Though, researchers find this stop least probable due to the known presence of pirates in the area.
To reach Ayutthaya, Nagamasa had to sail up the Menam (today Chao Phraya river). Once the pilot and his crew were able to locate the mouth of the river and had avoided the sandbars in front of it, their ships headed north for 140 kilometers of fluvial water, zigzagging up for a river trek that took about nine days. After passing by customs, watchtowers, fortifications and temples, at the end of the trip the traveler was greeted by the golden pagodas of Ayutthaya and its fortified walls. But Nagamasa’s ship couldn’t go within the city walls, but rather anchored in the large basin just south of the island that formed the core of Ayutthaya. In the east side of the Menam laid the Nihonmachi, or the Japanese enclave (opposite the Portuguese one across the river).
For sure, Nagamasa’s trip to and arrival in Siam was a remarkable experience. To begin with, while the climate in Japan can also be very humid, it’s nothing compared to the hot temperatures of Siam. Today, the average difference in temperature between Shizuoka and Ayutthaya in the early months of the year is about 20 degrees Celsius. The different latitude meant a different environment, with distinctive flora, fauna, smells and flavours. The mosquitoes, for sure, soon became a nightmare and health hazard for many travelers of that period.
Resources: “Samurai of Ayutthaya – The Historical Landscape of
Early 17th Century Japan and Siam: Yamada Nagamasa
and the Way to Ayutthaya” by Cesare Polenghi (p. 13-20)
