page_title: Red seal ships
section_title: Ship design
hierarchical_section_title: Red seal ships / Ship design
caption_attribution_description: English: A drawing of a trade ship heading from Nagasaki to Vietnam, from the Gaiban Shokan. This book was prepared as a reference work for "Gaiban Tsusho," the compilation of diplomatic documents of the Tokugawa shogunate, prepared by Kondo Seisai (1771 - 1829), who served as the magistrate of Nagasaki and the magistrate of books and records. It contains copies of diplomatic papers, including 33 certificates impressed with the shogun's vermillion seal for officially authorized trips to Annam (Vietnam), the Netherlands, and Luzon (in the Philippines). It was completed in the first year of Bunsei (1818), and the two sets of two-volume were presented to the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1819. One copy was kept at the Momijiyama Library, and the other, at the Shoheizaka-Gakumonjo run by the shogunate.Bân-lâm-gú: Tsū Tn̂g-kiā kàu An-lâm-kok tsûn-tôo. 自長崎到安南國船圖。Tiếng Việt: Tự Trường Kỳ đáo An Nam Quốc thuyền đồ. 自長崎到安南國船圖。
context_page_description: Red-seal ships were Japanese armed merchant sailing ships bound for Southeast Asian ports with red-sealed letters patent issued by the early Tokugawa shogunate in the first half of the 17th century. Between 1600 and 1635, more than 350 Japanese ships went overseas under this permit system.
context_section_description: Red Seal ships usually ranged in size between 500 and 750 tons, a size equal or superior to European galleons, but inferior to that of the massive Portuguese carracks, which were often over 1,000 tons or to a Manila Galleon which was often around 2,000 tons.
  The complement was about 200 people per ship (the average of the fifteen Red Seal ships for which the number of people is known, is 236).
  The ships were built in various places. Some of them, built in Nagasaki, combined Western, Japanese and Chinese ship designs. Others were Chinese junks. And once the trade with Southeast Asia became well established, numerous ships were ordered and purchased in Ayutthaya in Siam, due to the excellence of the construction and the quality of Thai wood.
  The ships were managed by rich trading families such as the Suminokura, Araki, Chaya and Sueyoshi, or by individual adventurers such as Suetsugu Heizō, Yamada Nagamasa, William Adams, Jan Joosten or Murayama Tōan. The funds for the purchase of merchandise in Asia were loaned to the managers of the expedition for an interest of 35% to 55% per trip, going as high as 100% in the case of Siam.
caption: A 17th-century Red Seal ship of the Araki trading family, sailing out of Nagasaki for Annam (Vietnam)
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