Changes

Due to its prime position along maritime routes, and its peripheral location in both Korean and Japanese states, Tsushima was both a major intermediary point for regional trade, and was on numerous occasions the victim of foreign attacks, including in the 7th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th centuries. Both [[Mongol invasions]] (in 1274 & 1281) visited violence upon the island before moving on to Kyushu. In the 13th-16th centuries, the island was also a major center of [[wako|pirate]] activity. Joseon sent a naval fleet to attack pirate bases on Tsushima in [[1419]], in what is known as the [[Oei Invasion|Ôei Invasion]], claiming that the island had long been Korean territory. When the fighting was over, an envoy claiming to represent the Sô agreed to have the island incorporated into the territory of Korea's Gyeongsang province and to be granted a royal seal as a prefectural governor or administrator, a subject to the king of Joseon. However, the following year, a letter sent to Joseon bearing the name of [[So Sadamori|Sô Sadamori]] contested and rejected this.<ref>Robinson, 45-46.</ref>

Due to its prime position along maritime routes, and its peripheral location in both Korean and Japanese states, Tsushima was both a major intermediary point for regional trade, and was on numerous occasions the victim of foreign attacks, including in the 7th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th centuries. Both [[Mongol invasions]] (in 1274 & 1281) visited violence upon the island before moving on to Kyushu. In the 13th-16th centuries, the island was also a major center of [[wako|pirate]] activity. Joseon sent a naval fleet to attack pirate bases on Tsushima in [[1419]], in what is known as the [[Oei Invasion|Ôei Invasion]], claiming that the island had long been Korean territory. When the fighting was over, an envoy claiming to represent the Sô agreed to have the island incorporated into the territory of Korea's Gyeongsang province and to be granted a royal seal as a prefectural governor or administrator, a subject to the king of Joseon. However, the following year, a letter sent to Joseon bearing the name of [[So Sadamori|Sô Sadamori]] contested and rejected this.<ref>Robinson, 45-46.</ref>

In [[1443]], the Sô and the Joseon court reached an agreement by which the Sô would act to curb pirate activity, and to ensure that all merchants traveling to Korea were properly licensed (i.e. were not pirates, brigands, or smugglers), in exchange for stipends and trading rights from the Joseon court.<ref>Robert Hellyer, ''Defining Engagement'', Harvard University Press (2009), 31.</ref>

Regardless, the island - and the Sô lords - occupied a somewhat mixed status relative to the Joseon kingdom for the rest of the medieval period and into the early modern period. Tsushima continued to be represented as Korean territory on Korean maps. The court dispatched officials to Tsushima on sixteen occasions between [[1392]] to [[1443]]; these were mostly domestic affairs officials, dispatched from the capital to meet with a regional administrator as if Tsushima were a region within Korean territory, though sometimes they were foreign affairs officials.<ref name=robin4950>Robinson, 49-50.</ref> The court also granted the governor of Tsushima the power to grant travel permits and perhaps certain other documents, bearing official authority within Joseon jurisdiction.<ref name=robin4950/> However, conversely, no Korean officials were ever permanently stationed on Tsushima, and little if any orders were ever issued applying Joseon nationwide law or policies to Tsushima as a part of that political territory; to the contrary, the Sô clan and their (Japanese) retainers and others were left to govern and administer the island as they wished.

 

In 1443, the Sô and the Joseon court reached an agreement by which the Sô would act to curb pirate activity, and to ensure that all merchants traveling to Korea were properly licensed (i.e. were not pirates, brigands, or smugglers), in exchange for stipends and trading rights from the Joseon court.<ref>Robert Hellyer, ''Defining Engagement'', Harvard University Press (2009), 31.</ref>

==Tokugawa Period==

==Tokugawa Period==