Tsushima han
- Kokudaka: 100,000
- Other Names: 対馬府中藩 (Tsushima Fuchuu han)
- Japanese: 対馬藩 (Tsushima han)
Tsushima han, based on Tsushima Island (today part of Nagasaki prefecture), was the domain of the Sô clan, and managed relations with Joseon Dynasty Korea. The territory of the domain also included small areas known as tobichi on the mainland of the island of Kyushu, in Hizen and Chikuzen provinces. The domain was ranked at 100,000 koku, though its actual agricultural production was equivalent to less than 10,000.[1] The enhanced kokudaka ranking is usually said to either be a reflection of the importance of the Korea trade and the measure of the economic benefit from it, or a result of the necessity for the Sô clan to possess a higher rank and title in order to represent Japan honorably and effectively in interactions with Korea.[2]
At the peak of the Korea trade, the population of the domain was around 32,000, with half the population living in the castle town of Fuchû.[3] Of these 32,000, roughly half lived off of grain produced on the island, while rice grown on Sô lands on the mainland of Kyushu fed another 7,000; the remaining 7,000 or so people relied upon rice given the Sô as gifts from the Korean court - typically around 8,300 koku a year from the mid-17th century onwards.[4]
The trade with Korea was quite sizable, amounting, in the 1710s-1730s for example, to 30,000 kan of silver, or roughly 8% of all silver coins minted in Japan during that time.[5]
References
- Robert Hellyer, Defining Engagement, Harvard University Press (2009).
- ↑ Hellyer gives 20,000. Hellyer, 40.
- ↑ Toby, Ronald. "Rescuing the Nation from History: The State of the State in Early Modern Japan." Monumenta Nipponica 56:2 (2001). p206.
- ↑ Not to be confused with Fuchû in Kai province, or Fuchû castle in Echizen province; Tashiro Kazui. "Foreign Relations during the Edo Period: Sakoku Reexamined." Journal of Japanese Studies 8:2 (1982). p298.
- ↑ Hellyer, 40.
- ↑ Tashiro. p303.
