Tsushima Incident

The Tsushima incident occurred in 1861 when the Russians attempted to establish a year-round anchorage on the coast of the island of Tsushima, a Japanese territory located between Kyushu and Korea.

On 13 March 1861, the Russian corvette Posadnik (Посадник, 1856), captained by Nicolai Birilev, arrived in Tsushima island in the inlet of Ozaki, the captain demanding landing rights. This event triggered fear in the Japanese Shogunate, as the Russians had already attempted to breach Japan's isolation policy in the northern island of Hokkaido with the events involving Adam Laxman in 1792, the burning of villages there in 1806, and the events leading to the arrest of Vasilii Golovnin in 1811. At that time, only a few Japanese ports were open to foreign ships (Hakodate, Nagasaki, Yokohama), and Tsushima was clearly not one of them, thus suggesting unfriendly intentions on the part of the Russians. If taken over by the Russians, Tsushima could have become an effective base for further aggression. Japan received British help to support its policy. As tension rose, a second Russian ship arrived, and requests were made by the Russians to build a landing base and to receive supplies.

On 13 May 1861, the Russians sent a launch to explore the eastern coast of the island, despite the presence of two Saga Domain warships, Kankō Maru and Denryū Maru, as well as one British warship. On May 21, 1861, a clash took place between the Russian sailors of a launch and a group of samurai and farmers, in which one farmer was killed and one samurai, who soon committed suicide, was captured by the Russians. In mid-July, Hakodate bugyō Muragaki Norimasa went directly to the Russian Consulate in Hakodate, demanding the departure of the ship to the Russian Consul Goshkevitch.

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