Tokiwa Bridge marks the beginning and the end of the Nagasaki Kaido, a road that played a vital role in the travel of the Edo period (1603–1868), including sankin kotai, the system in which daimyos (feudal lords) took turns to go to Edo (present day Tokyo) to serve the shogunate. The chief trader of the Dutch Trading Post took this road to offer tributes to the shogunate during the Edo period, boarding ships to Shimonoseki here, and it is highly likely that these tributes contained sugar.