1613: The Departure of the Keichō Embassy and the Nationwide Christian Ban

Date Masamune, lord of Sendai, dispatched an embassy led by his retainer Hasekura Tsunenaga to Spanish Mexico and onward to the courts of the King of Spain and the Pope. Ironically, just after the mission's departure, the shogunate extended its Christian prohibition edict to daimyo domains across the entire country, making this a year in which the expansion of overseas contact and the tightening of domestic religious control advanced side by side.