Kyūshū

Kyūshū, the southernmost of Japan's main islands and nearest the Asian continent, was the historic gateway for continental ideas and foreign trade. Under the eighth-century Taihō Code it became the Saikaidō, nine provinces administered from Dazaifu.

In 1274 and 1281 it bore the brunt of Kublai Khan's Mongol invasion fleets; Kamakura vassals fought off the landings, and typhoons scattered the ships, the storms remembered as kamikaze, or divine wind. Portuguese reached Tanegashima in 1543 with firearms, and the Jesuit Francis Xavier landed at Kagoshima in 1549; the Christian daimyō Ōmura Sumitada opened Nagasaki to Portuguese ships in 1571.

After Toyotomi Hideyoshi's 1587 Kyūshū campaign the rulers turned against the new faith, and the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637–1638 ended in massacre and brought on seclusion. The Portuguese were expelled and the Dutch confined to Dejima, making Nagasaki Japan's only official window abroad; after the Dutch book ban was lifted in 1720 it became the sole channel for the European learning called rangaku.