Torihara Soan

• Japanese: 鳥原宗安 (Torihara Souan)

Torihara Sôan was a trader from Bônotsu in Satsuma province, who was sent to China in 1600 in an effort to establish normalized relations between the Tokugawa clan and the Ming Court.

Normally active in traveling to the Ryukyus to trade, Sôan, along with Mao Guoke, a prisoner of war from Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Korean Invasions who he was to repatriate, departed the port of Bônotsu-no-tomari in 1600, bound for Fujian. His journeys appear in the Ming shi-lu, and in the Liangchao pingrang lu, which indicate that he may have reached Zhejiang first, and only then made his way to Fujian in order to set out once more for Japan.

References

• Watanabe Miki. "An International Maritime Trader - Torihara Sôan: The Agent for Tokugawa Ieyasu's First Negotiations with Ming China, 1600." in Angela Schottenhammer (ed.) The East Asian Mediterranean: Maritime Crossroads of Culture, Commerce and Human Migration. Harrassowitz-Verlag, 2009. pp169-176.