rom 1617 until his death in 1630, Yamada Nagamasa was head of the Japanese village referred to as Ban Yipun in the Thai language. This village was situated within the city of Ayutthaya (the capital city of the Ayutthaya Kingdom). Ban Yipun was home to roughly 1,000 Japanese citizens, and was headed by a Japanese chief who was nominated by Ayutthayan authorities. Its inhabitants of were a combination of traders, Christian converts who had fled their home country following the persecutions of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Rōnin (unemployed former samurai) who had been on the losing side at the battle of Sekigahara (1600) or the Siege of Osaka (1614–15):
From the years of Gen'na (1615–24) through the later years of Kan'ei (1624–44), the Rōnin or warriors who lost their lords after the defeats of the Siege of Osaka (1614–15) or the earlier Battle of Sekigahara (1600), as well as the defeated Christians of the Shimabara Uprising, went to settle in Siam in great numbers.
—Senrakoku Fudo-gunki, 17th century, quoted by Uchida Ginzo
The Christian community seems to have been in the hundreds, as described by Padre António Francisco Cardim, who recounted having administered sacrament to around 400 Japanese Christians in 1627 in the city of Ayutthaya.[1]The Ban Yipun colony was active in trade, particularly in the export of deer hide to Japan in exchange for Japanese silver and handicrafts (swords, lacquered boxes, high-quality papers). The Japanese were noted by the Dutch for challenging the trade monopoly of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie). The colony also had an important military role in the Ayutthaya Kingdom.
Early lifeYamada Nagamasa is alleged to have carried on the business of a privateer from the period of 1620, attacking and plundering Dutch ships in and around Batavia (present-day Jakarta). Stories of Yamada burying his treasure on the east coast of Australia (and in particular, Magnetic Island off Townsville) persist but it is highly unlikely that Yamada would have ventured into that area as there were no trade routes in this region and the only ships to venture to this region were the ones blown off course during the summer storms. Furthermore, Yamada would have passed thousands of islands in the Torres Strait and Coral Sea and these would have provided safekeeping for any treasure and avoided a very long recovery voyage in the future.
Military involvement and lordshipAfter more than 12 years in Siam, Yamada Nagamasa went to Japan in 1624 onboard one of his ships, where he sold a cargo of Siamese deer hide in Nagasaki. He stayed in Japan for three years, trying to obtain a Red Seal permit, but finally left in 1627, with the simple status of a foreign ship.
In 1626, Nagamasa offered a painting of one of his fighting ships to a temple of his hometown in Shizuoka. That painting was lost in a fire, but a copy of it remains to this day. It portrays a ship with Western-style rigging, 18 cannons, and sailors in samurai gear. He returned to Siam in 1627.
In 1628, one of his ships transporting rice from Ayutthaya to Malacca was arrested by a Dutch warship blockading the city. The ship was released once the identity of the owner became clear, since the Dutch knew that Yamada was held in great respect by the King of Siam, and they did not wish to enter into a diplomatic conflict. Yamada was also valued by the Dutch as a supplier of deer hide, and they invited him to trade more with Batavia. [2]
Death[edit]

In 1629, Yamada Nagamasa visited Japan with a delegation from King Songtham.
He soon travelled back to Siam, but became involved in a succession war following the death of the King Songtham. He was wounded in combat in 1630, and then apparently poisoned through his wound, which led to his death.