Soa (祖阿)
Soa (year of birth and death unknown) was a priest in the Muromachi period and the seishi (senior envoy) headed the first Envoy Ships Dispatched to Ming China by the Muromachi bakufu (Japanese feudal government headed by a shogun). His origin is unknown. He seemed to have been a member of doboshu (the shogun's attendants in charge of entertainment), which attended seii taishogun (literally, "great general who subdues the barbarians").
At the beginning of the period from1394 to 1428, Koitomi (also known as Koitsumi, Koizumi), a merchant of Hakata, came back to Japan from Ming and convinced Yoshimitsu ASHIKAGA, the third shogun of the Muromachi bakufu of the interests of the Japan-Ming trade. The bakufu floundering in financial difficulties accepted Koitomi's advice and sent Soa as seishi and Koitomi as fukushi (vice envoy) to Ming, which had implemented isolationism, in 1401 to begin establishing relations with Ming.
In the next year, Soa returned to Japan, accompanying Doi TENRIN and Ichijo ICHIAN who were the envoys of Ming. After that, the seishi and fukushi to head the Envoy Ships Dispatched to Ming China were selected from the priests of gozan (Zen temples highly ranked by the government) of the Rinzai sect.