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Yet, while Satsuma earned the shogunate's suspicion and had various economic restrictions enacted against it, Tsushima received considerable aid from the shogunate in the 19th century. To begin, a significant decline in the volume of trade at Nagasaki in the 1820s-30s left the shogunate's [[Nagasaki kaisho|Nagasaki customs house]] with surpluses of copper; whereas the shogunate had earmarked one million ''kin'' in copper for export via Nagasaki, as much as 300,000 ''kin'' was remaining in the customs house's possession each year. This led to Tsushima being sold, for a time, an additional 50,000 ''kin'' of copper each year, which it would then exchange with Korea to import silver. Tsushima acquired even more copper from the shogunate when the Joseon Court began requesting additional copper in place of water buffalo horn; from [[1838]] until [[1866]] (with a few breaks in the 1840s and 1850s), the shogunate provided Tsushima with an additional 11,000 ''kin'' each year. Beyond this, the domain was granted 90,000 ''ryô'' plus an addition 30,000 in loans in [[1811]] to help finance the [[Korean embassies to Edo|Korean embassy to the domain]] in that year, plus another 2500 ''ryô'' annual stipend for a period of twenty years, plus another 10,000 ''koku'' in rice at one point, to help alleviate difficulties created by a poor harvest in Korea. As a reward for successfully receiving the 1811 mission, the domain was further granted 20,000 ''koku'' worth of additional fief lands on mainland Kyûshû. Finally, Tsushima's financial burden was further alleviated by lax enforcement on the part of the shogunate of the feudal obligation of ''[[sankin kotai|sankin kôtai]]''; the lord of Tsushima made formal "alternate attendance" trips to Edo only five times between 1810 and 1842, at a cost of over 1,300 ''kan'' each time, while most ''daimyô'' were obliged to appear in attendance to the shogun fifteen times during that same period. Even so, despite all of this aid, Tsushima still suffered from economic difficulties. While its debts to the Osaka merchants came nowhere close to the 320,000 ''kan'' owed at one point by Satsuma, they were still sizable, especially for such a small domain, amounting to over 8,300 ''kan'' in 1835.<ref>Hellyer, 143-145.</ref>
Yet, while Satsuma earned the shogunate's suspicion and had various economic restrictions enacted against it, Tsushima received considerable aid from the shogunate in the 19th century. To begin, a significant decline in the volume of trade at Nagasaki in the 1820s-30s left the shogunate's [[Nagasaki kaisho|Nagasaki customs house]] with surpluses of copper; whereas the shogunate had earmarked one million ''kin'' in copper for export via Nagasaki, as much as 300,000 ''kin'' was remaining in the customs house's possession each year. This led to Tsushima being sold, for a time, an additional 50,000 ''kin'' of copper each year, which it would then exchange with Korea to import silver. Tsushima acquired even more copper from the shogunate when the Joseon Court began requesting additional copper in place of water buffalo horn; from [[1838]] until [[1866]] (with a few breaks in the 1840s and 1850s), the shogunate provided Tsushima with an additional 11,000 ''kin'' each year. Beyond this, the domain was granted 90,000 ''ryô'' plus an addition 30,000 in loans in [[1811]] to help finance the [[Korean embassies to Edo|Korean embassy to the domain]] in that year, plus another 2500 ''ryô'' annual stipend for a period of twenty years, plus another 10,000 ''koku'' in rice at one point, to help alleviate difficulties created by a poor harvest in Korea. As a reward for successfully receiving the 1811 mission, the domain was further granted 20,000 ''koku'' worth of additional fief lands on mainland Kyûshû. Finally, Tsushima's financial burden was further alleviated by lax enforcement on the part of the shogunate of the feudal obligation of ''[[sankin kotai|sankin kôtai]]''; the lord of Tsushima made formal "alternate attendance" trips to Edo only five times between 1810 and 1842, at a cost of over 1,300 ''kan'' each time, while most ''daimyô'' were obliged to appear in attendance to the shogun fifteen times during that same period. Even so, despite all of this aid, Tsushima still suffered from economic difficulties. While its debts to the Osaka merchants came nowhere close to the 320,000 ''kan'' owed at one point by Satsuma, they were still sizable, especially for such a small domain, amounting to over 8,300 ''kan'' in 1835.<ref>Hellyer, 143-145.</ref>
Western ships began to call with significant frequency at Tsushima in the late 1840s, just as they were doing in Ryûkyû at that same time. Whereas Satsuma decided to accommodate and negotiate with the Westerners, and worked to keep their engagement with the Westerners a secret from the shogunate, however, Tsushima actively pursued shogunate aid in strengthening domain defenses. Despite the domain's success in earning financial support to make up for the decline in trade (as described above), however, it was not successful in securing any aid explicitly aimed at the defense of the domain until the 1840s. Whereas the domain had previously, with success, argued for its importance to the defense of the realm because of its role in obtaining intelligence, in 1846, Tsushima officials began to argue more explicitly for Tsushima's strategic or tactical importance in military terms, as a stepping stone or gateway into the realm which needed to be more securely defended. Two high-ranking Sô retainers, [[Yoshikawa Saemon]] and [[Sasu Iori]], submitted a memorial to ''[[roju|rôjû]]'' [[Abe Masahiro]] that year describing Tsushima as a "bulwark," a physical barrier protecting the realm, and suggested that their lord, [[So Yoshiyori|Sô Yoshiyori]], might be granted additional fief land the revenues from which would help pay for the costs of increasing coastal defenses. Their request was rejected. The following year and into [[1848]], on several occasions, officials at the central castle town of Fuchû, and in Pusan, reported hearing cannon fire offshore, but no foreign ships actually appeared in port. When Tsushima officials petitioned the shogunate again, citing in particular the additional costs of fortifying an island, they were granted 10,000 ''ryô'', to be paid out across two years.<ref>Hellyer, 168-170.</ref>
The first face-to-face interaction between Tsushima officials and Westerners took place in [[1849]]/2, when fifteen Western ships were spotted offshore, and a few men came ashore in a launch. Speaking purely through gestures, the samurai somehow determined the men to be Americans; after exchanging a few items, the Americans peacefully and willingly obeyed the officials' request that they leave. Several more Americans appeared two months later, and stayed overnight in a village on the eastern coast of the island. Though Tsushima was fortunate to have not been visited with any true difficulties - such as the use of physical force - yet, the ''daimyô'' sent men to bolster coastal defenses, and sent to the shogunate to ask that interpreters be sent from the ''Wakan'' in Pusan to Nagasaki, to learn "Dutch writing," to help facilitate communication with Westerners who might arrive in future. Indeed, later that year, Tsushima officials began to report sightings of as many as tens of ships, sometimes within just a period of several days, though it is likely that many of these sightings were double-countings of the same ship. Tsushima requests to extend the annual 5,000 ''ryô'' grants granted in 1848 were initially rebuffed, but eventually granted, along with authorization to defer repayments owed on earlier loans taken out by the domain. Subsequent requests from Tsushima also suggested that Western pressures on Korea, and the resulting financial focus of the Korean Court on coastal defense, might cause agricultural production in the kingdom to decline, harming the ability of the kingdom to send rice to Tsushima; a request for an additional 7,000 ''koku'' from the shogunate made around 1851 was rejected.<ref>Hellyer, 170-172.</ref>
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