What Were Smuggled to Japan (10)

     After the victory in the Battle of Okehazama, Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) married his younger sister, Oinu(?-1582), to Saji Nobukata (1550-1571), who was the chief of the Saji Sea Forces, which were controlling the water transportation in Ise Bay.

     Nobukata took part in the First Siege of Nagashima in 1571, supposedly supporting Nobunaga’s troops from the sea, and was killed in the battle, which Nobunaga lost.

     In 1574, Nobunaga mounted the Third Siege of Nagashima to win, employing more powerful sea forces, the Kuki Clan.  However, Nobunaga did not forget Nobukata’s support.  When Nobukata’s son, Kazunari (1569-1634), came of age, Nobunaga married his niece, Ogo (1573-1626), to Kazunari.

     In the earliest months of the year 1569, Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) sent his vassals to 2 port towns at the east end of the Seto Inland Sea; Amagasaki, Settsu Province, and Sakai, Izumi Province, to force them pay taxes.  Amagasaki citizens refused, and the port town was burned out on March the 6th.  Sakai citizens yielded.  Imai Sokyu (1520-1593), one of the richest merchants of Sakai, was appointed magistracy, and Matsui Yukan(?-?), a merchant from Nobunaga’s hometown, Kiyosu, Owari Province, was appointed local finance officer.  Thus, Nobunaga grabbed the international smuggling networks Sakai merchants had.

     When Nobunaga sent gifts to Eastern warlords to placate them, he presented imported goods.  For example, he gifted, according to Imai Sokyu’s notes, gold-brocaded satin damask, a tiger hide, crimson strings etc. to Date Terumune (1544-1585), Ou Province, and satin damask, crimson, hides of a tiger, a leopard, and an orangutan etc. to Shiratori Nagahisa (?-1584), Dewa Province.  The notes tell us that a tiger hide cost about 2kilograms of silver or about 1 ton of rice.

     There seems to have been wide preferences for imported goods among warlords, and presenting imported goods might have been an effective way to conciliate enemy warlords.  They might have been more effective against Eastern warlords who had fewer chances to purchase those imported goods directly by themselves.