The Japanese invasion of Taiwan (1616) was an attempt by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

to secure a base on

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, following an exploratory mission in 1609.Jansen, Marius B. (1992). China in the Tokugawa World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Japanese magistrate of

Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...

Murayama Tōan launched the invasion against Taiwan.Taiwan Government
The objective was to establish a base for the direct supply of Chinese silk, instead of having to supply from

Macao Macau or Macao is a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most densely populated region in the world. Formerly a Portuguese colony, the ter ...

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

.''Recent Trends in Scholarship on the History of Ryukyu's Relations with China and Japan''

Gregory Smits Gregory James Smits (born 1960) is an American historian, academic, writer and Japanologist. He is a professor of Japanese history at Pennsylvania State University.Pennsylvania State University "Gregory James Smits"; retrieved 2013-3-22. Early l ...

, Pennsylvania State University, p.1

Earlier

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

also planned to conquer Taiwan and increase to the Japanese power at sea. On 15 May 1616 they left Nagasaki. Murayama's fleet of 13 ships and 4,000 warriors, under the command of one of his sons. However a

typhoon A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere and which produces sustained hurricane-force winds of at least . This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, accounting for a ...

dispersed the invasion forceFrei, Henry P.,''Japan's Southward Advance and Australia'', Univ of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, ç1991. p.34 - "...ordered the Governor of Nagasaki, Murayama Toan, to invade Formosa with a fleet of thirteen vessels and around 4000 men. Only a hurricane thwarted this effort and forced their early return" and only one ship managed to reach the island, but it was repelled by local forces. This failure put an early end to the invasion effort. An other single ship was ambushed in a river, and all her crew committed suicide to avoid capture by indigenous Taiwanese tribespeople. Boxer, Charles. R. (1951). ''The Christian Century in Japan.'' Berkeley: University of California Press
OCLC 318190
p. 298 Several Japanese ships diverted themselves to plunder the Chinese coast. Some Japanese ships reached the coasts of

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

and did not return to Nagasaki until July 1617. They are said to have killed over 1,200 Chinese people.

Sources

{{reflist Invasions of Taiwan Conflicts in 1616 Invasions by Japan Wars involving Japan Wars involving Taiwan 1616 in China 1616 in Japan 1610s in Taiwan Wars involving the Ming dynasty Foreign relations of the Ming dynasty China–Japan military relations 17th-century military history of Japan 17th-century military history of China

See also

Sources