Kamiagata

Kamiagata denotes northern Tsushima, facing the sea passage towards Korea. Within this region, Sasuna offers a specific example of how local bays formed part of a much wider diplomatic route. Its deep inlet opened onto the western Tsushima Strait, and a checkpoint controlled shipping associated with Korea during the early modern period.

Tsushima's Sō family worked to restore relations after Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasions had interrupted trade. A Korean embassy came to Japan in 1607, and trade resumed in 1609. Those are island-wide developments; Sasuna's own connection appears in the travel account of Sin Yuhan, the literary official accompanying the 1719 Korean embassy. His Haeyurok described the party's landing there. The local harbour therefore belonged to the practical infrastructure of exchange: landing, checking vessels and receiving visitors, rather than an isolated fishing coast cut off by the Tokugawa restrictions on foreign contact.