Abstract
This chapter describes the short period of diplomatic exchanges, from 1606 to 1629, and the private and governmental trade that complemented these missions. During the 1630s, the Japanese government banned much of its foreign trade. When Tokugawa Ieyasu came to power as shogun of Japan in 1603, he seized every available opportunity to promote diplomatic relations and to restore Japan’s trading relations, which were severed from 1592 to 1598 in the course of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s war with Korea. During the early years of the Tokugawa shogunate, Ishin Suden was an important counselor on domestic and foreign policy, and had responsibility for diplomatic correspondence. He was a prominent Zen-Buddhist monk of Nanzenji, was also known as Konchiin and resided in Kyoto. In mid-1629, the minister out-manoeuvred one of his chief opponents, Yamada Nagamasa, who at that time was the commander of the Japanese guard in the king’s palace.