Samp'o Incident

• Date: 1510/4/4
• Japanese: 三浦の乱 (sanpo no ran)

The Sanp'o ("Three Harbors") Incident was a 1510 uprising by Japanese residents and merchants in three Korean ports against Korean restrictions on trade.

Japanese merchants had been active in the Korean ports of Naei, Pusan, and Yŏm since 1426, when certain arrangements had been put into place for it. By 1494, however, smuggling had become such a problem in the eyes of the Korean Court that private trade was banned, leaving only official trade (i.e. that associated with official diplomatic missions) as the only legal mode of import of Japanese goods into Korea. Since all private trade was now considered smuggling, the amount of smuggling then increased. The Korean Court, led by King Jungjong (r. 1506-1544), made further efforts to curb this activity, restricting the number of Japanese ships which were allowed to make port in these three harbors each year down to fifty.

In response, the Japanese merchants and residents of these ports rebelled, supported by over 200 warships sent by the Sô clan of Tsushima. The Korean navy met that from Tsushima, and put an end to the uprising. Relations were officially, and completely, severed, and the Japanese merchants & residents were expelled from Korea.

After appeals from Tsushima, trade resumed in Naei in 1512, but in an extremely limited manner; only 25 ships were permitted to make port there each year. Pusan reopened to Japanese trade in 1521 and remained the primary site of Japanese merchant activity in Korea through the remainder of the Sengoku and all of the Edo period, until after the 1876 Treaty of Kanghwa.

References

• "Sanp'o Uprising." Encyclopedia of Japan. Kodansha.
• "Sanpo no ran" 三浦の乱. Digital Daijisen デジタル大辞泉. Shogakukan.
• "Sanpo no ran" 三浦の乱. Nihon daihyakkata zensho Nipponica 日本大百科全書(ニッポニカ). Shogakukan.