traders were perceived as posing a threat to the shogunate's power and the nation's stability. Portuguese trade was progressively more and more challenged by Chinese smugglers, Japanese Red Seal Ships from around 1592 (about ten ships every year), Spanish ships from Manila from around 1600 (about one ship a year), the Dutch from 1609, and the English from 1613 (about one ship per year). Some Japanese are known to have travelled abroad on foreign ships as well, such as Christopher and Cosmas who crossed the Pacific on a Spanish galleon as early as 1587, and then sailed to Europe with Thomas Cavendish. The Dutch, who, rather than Nanban were called , lit. "Red Hair" by the Japanese, first arrived in Japan in 1600, on board the Liefde. Their pilot was William Adams, the first Englishman to reach Japan. In 1605, two of the Liefde'''s crew were sent to Pattani by Tokugawa Ieyasu, to invite Dutch trade to Japan. The head of the Pattani Dutch trading post, Victor Sprinckel, refused on the grounds that he was too busy dealing with Portuguese opposition in Southeast Asia. In 1609, however, the Dutchman Jacques Specx arrived with two ships in Hirado, and through Adams obtained trading privileges from Ieyasu. The Dutch also engaged in piracy and naval combat to weaken Portuguese and Spanish shipping in the Pacific, and ultimately became the only Westerners to be allowed access to Japan. For two centuries beginning in 1638, they were restricted to the island of Dejima in Nagasaki harbor. Invasions of Korea and the Ryūkyūs In 1592 and again in 1598, Toyotomi Hideyoshi organized invasions of Korea using some 9,200 ships. From the beginning of the War in 1592, the supreme commander of Hideyoshi's fleet was Kuki Yoshitaka, whose flagship was the 33 meter-long Nihonmaru. Subordinate commanders included Wakisaka Yasuharu and Katō Yoshiaki. After their experience in the Ōei Invasion and other operations against Japanese pirates, the Chinese and Korean navies were more skilled than the Japanese. They relied throughout upon large numbers of smaller ships whose crews would attempt to board the enemy. Boarding was the main tactic of almost all navies until the modern era, and Japanese samurai excelled in close combat. The Japanese commonly used many light, swift, boarding ships called Kobaya in an array that resembled a rapid school of fish following the leading boat. This tactic's advantage was that once they succeeded