Naval history of Japan: Encyclopedia II - Naval history of Japan - Medieval period

Naval history of Japan - Medieval period

Naval battles of a very large scale, fought between Japanese clans and involving more than 1000 warships, are recorded from the 12th century. The decisive battle of the Genpei War was the 1185 naval engagement of Dan-no-ura between the fleets of the Minamoto and Taira clans. These battles consisted first of long-range archery exchanges, then gaving way to hand-to-hand combat with swords and daggers.

Naval history of Japan - Mongol invasions 1274–1281

The first major references to Japanese naval actions against other Asian powers occur in the accounts of the Mongol invasions of Japan by Kubilai Khan in 1281. Japan had no navy which could seriously challenge the Mongol navy, so most of the action took place on Japanese land. But groups of samurai, transported on small coastal boats, are recorded to have boarded, taken over and burned several ships of the Mongol navy.

Naval history of Japan - Wakou piracy 13th–16th century

During the following centuries, Japanese "Wakou" pirates became very active plundering the coast of the Chinese Empire. The first raid by Wokou on record occurred in the summer of 1223, on the south coast of Goryeo. At the peak of Wakou activity, circa 1350, fleets of 300 to 500 ships, transporting several hundred horsemen and several thousand soldiers, would raid the coast of China^[3]. For the next half-century, sailing principally from Iki and Tsushima, they engulfed the southern half of Goryeo. The worst period was the decade between 1376 and 1385, when no fewer than 174 instances of pirate raids were recorded in Korea. Wakou activity would only end in the 1580s with its interdiction by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Official trading missions, such as the Tenryujibune, were also sent to China around 1341.

Naval history of Japan - Warring States period 15th–16th century

Japan undertook major naval building efforts in the 16th century, during the Warring States period, when feudal rulers vying for supremacy built vast coastal navies of several hundred ships. The largest of these ships were called atakebune. Around that time, Japan seems to have developed one of the first ironclad warships in history, when Oda Nobunaga, a Japanese daimyo, had six iron-covered oatakebune ("great atakebune") made in 1576 ^[4]. These ships were called tekkousen (鉄甲船, tekkousen^?), literally "iron armored ships" and were armed with multiple cannons and large caliber rifles to defeat the large, but all wooden, vessels of the enemy. With these ships, Nobunaga defeated the Mori navy at the mouth of the Kizu River, near Osaka in 1578, and began a successful naval blockade. The Oatakebune are regarded as floating fortresses rather than true warships, however, and were only used in coastal actions.

Naval history of Japan - European contacts

Main article: Nanban trade period

The first Europeans reached Japan in 1543 on Chinese junks, and Portuguese ships started to arrive in Japan soon after. At that time, there was already trade exchanges between Portugal and Goa (since around 1515), consisting in 3 to 4 carracks leaving Lisbon with silver to purchase cotton and spices in India. Out of these, only one carrack went on to China in order to purchase silk, also in exchange for Portuguese silver. Accordingly, the cargo of the first Portuguese ships (usually about 4 smaller-sized ships every year) arriving in Japan almost entirely consisted of Chinese goods (silk, porcelain). The Japanese were very much looking forward to acquiring such goods, but had been prohited from any contacts with by the Emperor of China, as a punishment for Wakō pirate raids. The Portuguese (who were called Nanban, lit. Southern Barbarians) therefore found the opportunity to act as intermediaries in Asian trade.

From the time of the acquisition of Macao in 1557, and their formal recognition as trade partners by the Chinese, the Portuguese Crown started to regulate trade to Japan, by selling to the highest bidder the annual "Capitaincy" to Japan, in effect confering exclusive trading rights for a single carrack bound for Japan every year. The carracks were very large ships, usually between 1000 and 1500 tons, about double or triple the size of a large galleon or junk.

That trade continued with few interruptions until 1638, when it was prohibited on the ground that the ships were smuggling priests into Japan.

Portuguese trade was progressively more and more challenged by Chinese smugglers on junks, Japanese Red Seal Ships from around 1592 (about ten ships every year), Spanish ships from Manila from around 1600 (about one ship a year), the Dutch from 1609, the English from 1613 (about one ship per year).

The Dutch, who, rather than Nanban were called Kōmō (紅毛, Kōmō^?), lit. "Red Hair" by the Japanese, first arrived in Japan in 1600, onbard the Liefde. Their pilot was William Adams , the first Englishman to reach Japan. In 1605, two of the Liefde's crew were sent to Pattani by Tokugawa Ieyasu, to invite Dutch trade to Japan. The head of the Pattani Dutch trading post, Victor Sprinckel, refused on the ground that he was too busy dealing with Portuguese opposition in Southeast Asia. In 1609 however, the Dutch Jacques Specx arrived with two ships in Hirado, and through Adams obtained trading privileges from Ieyasu.

The Dutch also engaged in piracy and naval combat to weaken Portuguese and Spanish shipping in the Pacific, and ultimately became the only westerners to be allowed access to Japan from the small enclave of Dejima after 1638 and for the next two centuries.

Naval history of Japan - Invasion of Korea and the Ryukyus

In 1592 and again in 1598, Japan invaded Korea with an army of 160,000, in the Seven-Year War. Although Japan had several victories on land, her navy suffered several major setbacks against ironclad Turtle ships of the Korean navy, led by Yi Sunsin. Japan's failure at sea, and the difficulty in resupplying troops on land, were one of the major reasons for the invasion's ultimate failure. The defeat at the Battle of Myeongnyang was still vivid in Japanese memory when, three hundred years later, Admiral Togo would mention Yi Sunsin as one of his "teachers".

In 1609, the lord Shimazu Tadatsune of Satsuma invaded the southern islands of Ryukyu (modern Okinawa) with a fleet of 13 junks and 2,500 samurai, thereby establishing suzerainty over the islands.

Naval history of Japan - Oceanic trade 16th–17th century

Japan built her first large ocean-going warships in the beginning of the 17th century, following contacts with the Western nations during the Nanban trade period. In 1604, the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered William Adams and his companions to build Japan's first western-style sailing ship at Ito, on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula. An 80-ton vessel was completed and the Shogun ordered a larger ship, 120 tons, to be built the following year (both were slightly smaller than the Liefde, the ship in which William Adams came to Japan, which was 150 tons). According to Adams, Ieyasu "came aboard to see it, and the sight whereof gave him great content". The ship, named San Buena Ventura, was lent to shipwrecked Spanish sailors for their return to Mexico in 1610.

In 1613, the Daimyo of Sendai, in agreement with the Tokugawa Bakufu, built Date Maru, a 500 ton galleon-type ship that transported a Japanese embassy to the Americas, and then continued to Europe.

From 1604, about 350 Red seal ships, usually armed and incorporating some Western technologies, were also commissionned by the Bakufu, mainly for Southeast Asian trade. Japanese ships and samurai helped in the defense of Malacca on the side of the Portuguese against the Dutch Admiral Cornelis Matelief in 1606. Several armed ships of the Japanese adventurer Yamada Nagamasa would play a military role in Siam (Thailand). The English adventurer William Adams, who participated in the Red Seal ship trade, would comment that "the people of this land (Japan) are very stout seamen".

Naval history of Japan - Invasion project of the Philippines

The Tokugawa shogunate had, for some time, planned to invade the Philippines in order to eradicate Spanish expansionism in Asia, and its support of Christian factions within Japan. In November 1637 it notified Nicolas Couckebacker, the head of the Dutch East India Company in Japan, of its intentions. About 10,000 samurai were prepared for the expedition, and the Dutch agreed to provide four warships and two yachts to support the Japanese junks against Spanish galleons. The plans were cancelled with the advent of the Christian Shimabara Rebellion in Japan in December 1637.

Naval history of Japan - Seclusion 1640–1840

The Dutch's cooperation on these, and other matters, would help ensure they were the only Westerners allowed in Japan for the next two centuries. Following these events, Japan chose the policy of Sakoku (seclusion), which forbid contacts with the West, eradicated Christianity, and prohibited the construction of ocean-going ships on pain of death. The size of ships was restricted by law, and design specifications limiting sea-worthiness (such as the provision for a gaping hole in the aft of the hull) were implemented. Sailors who happened to be stranded to foreign countries were prohibited from returning to Japan on pain of death.

A tiny Dutch delegation in Dejima, Nagasaki was the only allowed contact with the West, from which the Japanese were kept partly informed of western scientific and technological advances, establishing a body of knowledge known as Rangaku.

Many isolated attempts to end Japan's seclusion were made by expanding Western powers during the 19th century. American, Russian and French ships all attempted to engage in relationship with Japan, but were rejected.

• In 1787, La Perouse (1741–1788) navigates in Japanese waters in 1787. He visit the Ryukyu island, and the strait between Hokkaido and Honshu, giving it his name.
• From 1797 to 1809, several American ships traded in Nagasaki under the Dutch flag, upon the request of the Dutch who were not able to send their own ships because of their conflict against Britain during the Napoleonic Wars.

• In 1837, an American businessman in Canton, named Charles W. King saw an opportunity to open trade by trying to return to Japan three Japanese sailors (among them, Otokichi) who had been shipwrecked a few years before on the coast of Oregon. He went to Uraga Channel with Morrison, an unarmed American merchant ship. The ship was fired upon several times, and finally sailed back unsuccessfully.
• In 1844, a French naval expedition under Captain Fornier-Duplan visits Okinawa on April 28, 1844. Trade is denied, but Father Forcade is left behind with a translator.
• In 1846, Commander James Biddle, sent by the United States Government to open trade, anchored in Tokyo Bay with two ships, including one warship armed with 72 cannons, but his demands for a trade agreement remained unsuccessful.
• In 1846, the French Admiral Cecille arrives in Nagasaki, but is denied landing.
• In 1848, Captain James Glynn sailed to Nagasaki, leading at last to the first successful negotiation by an American with "Closed Country" Japan. James Glynn recommended to the United States Congress that negotiations to open Japan should be backed up by a demonstration of force, thus paving the way to Perry's expedition.
• In 1849, the British Navy's HMS Mariner entered Uraga Harbour to conduct a topographical survey. Onboard was the Japanese castaway Otokichi, who acted as a translator. To avoid problems with the Japanese authorities, he disguised himself as Chinese, and said that he had learnt Japanese from his father, allegedly a businessman who had worked in relation with Nagasaki.

These largely unsuccesful attempts continued until, on July 8, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy with four warships: Mississippi,Plymouth, Saratoga, and Susquehanna steamed into the Bay of Edo (Tokyo) and displayed the threatening power of his ships' Paixhans guns. He demanded that Japan open to trade with the West. These ships became known as the kurofune, the Black Ships.

The following year, at the Convention of Kanagawa (March 31, 1854), Perry returned with seven ships and forced the Shogun to sign the "Treaty of Peace and Amity", establishing formal diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States. Within five years Japan had signed similar treaties with other western countries. The Harris Treaty was signed with the United States on July 29, 1858. These treaties were widely regarded by Japanese intellectuals as unequal, having been forced on Japan through gunboat diplomacy, and as a sign of the West's desire to incorporate Japan into the imperialism that had been taking hold of the continent. Among other measures, they gave the Western nations unequivocal control of tariffs on imports and the right of extraterritoriality to all their visiting nationals. They would remain a sticking point in Japan's relations with the West up to the turn of the century.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Medieval period", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki