Editing Red Seal ships (section)

==Destinations==
[[File:JapanesePortolanMap.jpg|thumb|350px|Japanese [[Portolan chart|portolan]] sailing map, depicting the Indian Ocean and the East Asian coast, early 17th century.]]

The crew of the Red Seal ships were international, for many Cantonese, Portuguese, and Dutch pilots and interpreters joined the sails. The first Red Seal ships were required to have a Portuguese pilot on board, although the Japanese progressively developed pilots of their own. The [[Portolan chart|Portolan]] maps used on the Red Seal ships were drawn on the Portuguese model, with directions in the Japanese language.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

Major Southeast Asian ports, including Filipino [[Manila]], Vietnamese [[Hoi An|Hội An]], Siamese [[Ayutthaya (city)|Ayutthaya]], Malay [[Pattani Province|Pattani]], welcomed the Japanese merchant ships, and many Japanese settled in these ports, forming small [[Nihonmachi|Japanese enclaves]].<ref>William Wray, "The Seventeenth-century Japanese Diaspora: Questions of Boundary and Policy", in Ina Baghdiantz McCabe et al (eds.), Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks, Oxford: Berg (2005), 82.</ref>

The Japanese seem to have been feared throughout Asian countries, according to a contemporary, Sir Edward Michelbourne:

<blockquote>The Japons are not suffered to land in any port in India (Asia) with weapons; being accounted a people so desperate and daring, that they are feared in all places where they come.<ref>Boxer, ''The Christian Century'', p. 268</ref></blockquote>

A Dutch commander wrote (c. 1615): "they are a rough and a fearless people, lambs in their own country, but well-nigh devils outside of it".

===Philippines===
Around 50 Red Seal ships to [[Luzon]] in the [[Philippines]] are recorded between 1604 and 1624 (and only 4 more recorded by 1635). The Japanese had established quite early an enclave at [[Paco, Manila|Dilao]], a suburb of [[Manila]], where they numbered between 300 and 400 in 1593. In 1603, during the [[Sangley]] rebellion, they numbered 1,500 and 3,000 in 1606. The [[Franciscans|Franciscan]] friar [[Luis Sotelo]] was involved in the support of the Dilao enclave between 1600 and 1608.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

The Japanese led an abortive rebellion in Dilao against the Spanish in 1606–1607. Their numbers rose again with the interdiction of Christianity by [[Tokugawa Ieyasu]] in 1614, when 300 Japanese Christian refugees under [[Dom Justo Takayama]] settled in the Philippines. In the 16th and 17th centuries, thousands of [[Japanese people|Japanese]] traders also migrated to the Philippines and assimilated into the local population.<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-I6owJcCOdwC&q=Racial+intimacy+in+Japan&pg=PA126 | title=Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900| isbn=9780826460745| last1=Leupp| first1=Gary P.| date=January 2003| publisher=A&C Black}}</ref> They are at the origin of today's 200,000-strong [[Japanese in the Philippines|Japanese population]] in the Philippines.

===Siam (Thailand)===
[[File:Yamada-Nagamasa-Portrait-Shizuoka-Sengen-Shrine.png|thumb|130px|[[Yamada Nagamasa]] c.1630.]]

The Siamese "Chronicles of the [[Ayutthaya Kingdom|Kingdom of Ayutthaya]]" record that already in 1592, 500 Japanese troops under the King of Siam helped defeat an invading Burmese army.<ref>Yoko Nagazumi</ref>

Around 56 Red Seal ships to Siam are recorded between 1604 and 1635. The Japanese community in Siam seems to have been in the hundreds, as described by the [[Portuguese people|Portuguese]] [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] priest, [[António Francisco Cardim]], who recounted having administered sacrament to around 400 Japanese Christians in 1627 in the Thai capital of [[Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province|Ayuthaya]] ("''a 400 japões christãos''") (Ishii Yoneo, Multicultural Japan).{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

In December 1605, [[John Davis (explorer)|John Davis]], the famous English explorer, was killed by Japanese pirates off the coast of Siam, thus becoming the first Englishman to be killed by a Japanese.<ref>Stephen Turnbull, ''Fighting ships of the Far East'', p. 12, Osprey Publishing</ref>

The colony was active in trade, particularly in the export of deer-hide and sappan wood to Japan in exchange for Japanese silver and Japanese handicrafts ([[Japanese swords]], [[Japanese lacquerware]], high-quality papers). They were noted by the Dutch for challenging the trade monopoly of the [[Dutch East India Company]] (VOC), as their strong position with the King of Siam typically allowed them to buy at least 50% of the total production, leaving small quantities of a lesser quality to other traders.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

A Japanese adventurer, [[Yamada Nagamasa]], became very influential and ruled part of the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand) during that period. The colony also had an important military role in Thailand.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

===Macau===
Although prohibited by China from touching Chinese soil, Japanese sailors from Red Seal ships transited through the European Portuguese port of [[Portuguese Macau|Macau]] on the Chinese Cantonese coast in some numbers. On 30 November 1608, [[Nossa Senhora da Graça incident#Incident in Macau|a fight with about 100 Japanese samurai]], wielding [[katana]] and [[musket]]s, confronting Portuguese soldiers under the acting governor and Captain of the Japan voyage [[André Pessoa]] led to a fight in which 50 Japanese lost their lives. The remaining 50 were released by the authorities after having to sign an [[affidavit]] blaming themselves for the incident. Ieyasu prohibited visits to Macau by Japanese nationals in 1609: 
: Since it is an undoubted fact that the going of Japanese in ships to Macau is prejudicial to that place, this practice will be strictly prohibited for the future. (25 July 1609, Ieyasu Shuinjo, remitted to Mateus Leitão)<ref> C. R. Boxer, ''The Christian Century'' (University of California Press, 1951) p. 272</ref>

===Indonesia===
[[File:AmboynaFort1655.jpg|thumb|250px|Nine Japanese [[samurai]] were employed at [[Ambon Island|Amboyna]] in 1623, when they were victim of the [[Amboyna massacre]].]]

Although few Red Seal ships are recorded for the areas of modern Indonesia ([[Java]], [[Maluku Islands|Spice Islands]]), possibly because of the remoteness and because of the direct Dutch involvement there, Japanese samurai were recruited by the Dutch in the area. They distinguished themselves in the capture of the [[Banda Islands]] from the English and the defense of [[Batavia, Dutch East Indies|Batavia]], until the practice of hiring Japanese mercenaries was prohibited by the Shōgun in 1621. In 1618, [[Jan Pieterszoon Coen]], the Dutch governor of Java, requested 25 Japanese samurai to be sent to him from Japan. In 1620, the Dutch record that 90 Japanese samurai were recruited from the islands surrounding Java, in order to reinforce the fort of Batavia.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

In 1623, during the [[Amboyna massacre]], 9 Japanese mercenaries were recorded to have been with the 10 English traders of the [[East India Company|English East India Company]] factory. They were tortured and killed by Dutch forces from the neighboring factory. This event was partly the cause for the advent of the [[Anglo-Dutch Wars]].{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

===India===
[[File:Tokubei.jpg|thumb|130px|[[Tenjiku Tokubei]], 17th century.]]

The Japanese adventurer [[Tenjiku Tokubei]] is related to have traveled to Siam as well as India on board a Red Seal ship of Jan Joosten. Upon his return to Japan, Tokubei wrote an essay titled ''Tenjiku Tōkai Monogatari'' ("Relations of travels to India") on his adventures in foreign countries, which became very popular in Japan. He is sometimes referred to as the [[Marco Polo]] of Japan.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

===Other destinations===
Other major destinations included [[Đàng Trong]] in central Vietnam (74 ships), [[Cambodia]] (44 ships), [[Taiwan]] (35 ships), and other parts of [[Vietnam]] (14 ships).{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}