[2] During the Bakumatsu period, the growing number of incursions of foreign warships (kurofune) attempting to end Japan's self-imposed national isolation policy was of increasing concern to the Tokugawa shogunate.

A master carpenter, Ozaki Koemon, was sent to Heda in Izu Province, where the a two-masted schooner was under construction with Russian assistance to replace the Diana which had been lost in the Ansei-Tōkai earthquake of 23 December 1854.

In June of the following year, the ship successfully made a trial run to the island of Mishima, located some 40 kilometers off the coast.

[3] In 1860, another carpenter, Fujii Katsunoshin, who had studied under the Dutch at the Nagasaki Naval Training Center, returned to Chōshū and supervised the construction of the domain's second vessel, the 43-meter, three-masted Kōshin Maru, equipped with eight cannon.In 1863, Kōshin Maru was sunk by an American warship during the Battle of Shimonoseki Straits, but it was salvaged and used by Chōshū Domain until about 1868.

[3] However, these were the only ships constructed by Chōshū Domain as the clan changed its policy and began to purchase foreign-made steamships instead.The site of the shipyard has been under archaeological excavation since 2009.