19Guarding Nagasaki Harbor and the Sign of Saga Domain’s Modernization

The Saga Domain was able to be alert to situations in foreign countries because it was responsible for guarding Nagasaki harbor, which was the only window to the Netherlands and China. By the nineteenth century, the ships from countries including England, which promoted the industrial revolution, approached Asia. Ships from many countries arrived in Japan during the period of national isolation to ask for the country to be opened to the West. Thus, the Saga Domain had to tighten up the security of Nagasaki harbor. The Domain’s sense of threat was increased even further due to incidents such as the “Phaeton incident”, which happened in 1808 when the British frigate, the Phaeton, sailed into Nagasaki harbor disguised as a Dutch trading vessel, and the Opium War from 1840 to 1842, in which China was defeated by England. These incidents led the Saga Domain to build Japan’s first reverberatory furnace in 1850 in Tsuiji near Saga Castle. The Saga Domain succeeded in casting metal cannons for the first time in Japan and began the road to modernization.