Sunpu (Shizuoka City) is also the birthplace of Yamada Nagamasa, an incredible figure who in the 1620s was head of the Japanese community in Ayutthaya (Siam), head of the Ayutthaya royal guard, and red seal ship (shuinsen) merchant.

http://wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Yamada_Nagamasa

When talking about Japanese foreign relations, we often talk about relations with Europeans, and with China and Korea. But c. 1590-1630, Japanese merchants + residents in Ayutthaya, Vietnam (Hoi An, Tonkin), Phnom Penh, and elsewhere were prominent and influential.

They traded in valuable luxury goods - silks, deerhides, incense woods - with licenses sealed with the shogun's Vermillion seal (shuin), and generally dominated SE Asian markets despite being far outnumbered by the Chinese, and nvm the Dutch.

Besides, what's cooler than the idea of a troupe of samurai warriors, led by Nagamasa, riding on elephants, fighting back a Burmese invasion on behalf of the Siamese king?

Most Japanese communities in Southeast Asia petered out by 1700, a couple generations after the Tokugawa closed off trade. But for a brief time, Japanese were extremely active overseas, and there are numerous examples of intermarriages, involvement in local politics, etc.

Unfortunately for Nagamasa, he fell afoul of the wrong side of court intrigues. He was named royal regent in 1629, but then his fellow regent engineered a coup, taking the throne, killing Nagamasa, and burning down the Japantown just in case, to prevent any possible retaliation.

Nagamasa's Siamese-born son, Oin, may have then led a group of Japanese warriors based in Cambodia for a time. And, inheriting his father's red seal license, he continued to engage in lucrative SE Asia - Japan trade for a time.

Interestingly, you might think that Japan-Siam trade was severed after this just as a part of the broader Tokugawa "sakoku" (isolation / closed country) policies.

But it's my understanding that it was specifically bc of this coup that the Tokugawa, not recognizing the new ruler as legitimate, cut off relations. Siam sent a number of official diplomatic embassies which *were* received before this, but all later missions were rebuffed.

Today, Sengen Shrine in Shizuoka holds these two 19-20th c images associated with Yamada Nagamasa (displayed on loan from the shrine at the Shizuoka Cultural Properties Museum 静岡市文化財資料館). – bei 静岡浅間神社

Despite these being totally rare, unique, images - or perhaps precisely because of that - the Museum does not allow photos . Go figure. It's not as if the point of a public museum is to share things with the public or anything.

In any case, Nagamasa's legacy , like that of many other pre-modern figures, was hijacked and twisted for the justification of Japanese Imperialism in the early 20th c.

I'm not sure the exact logic - because some Japanese had played prominent roles in the past, now it was only right for Japan to conquer, colonize, and control all of Southeast Asia? I guess it doesn't really have to make sense.

In any case, it was neat to finally get to see these images, and funny to see the Nagamasa statue equipped with a facemask. I guess from now on, anytime I use this to illustrate Nagamasa in a PowerPoint lecture, it'll be clear when it was I had visited Shizuoka.