Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 6/Chapter 4
Chapter IV
THE HISTORY OF COMMERCE
IN JAPAN
AACCURATE information relating to the origin and development of commerce in the opening centuries of the State's existence is very scanty. The positions of the principal markets seem to have been fixed from a time as remote as the third century of the Christian era—the tenth of the Japanese dynasty,—but the dimensions of commerce were evidently insignificant, inasmuch as only one market is mentioned in each reign until the Nara epoch (709—784 A.D.), when the list extends to five places in central Japan and two on the northeastern and southwestern coasts, respectively. Incidental evidence is furnished of the existence of itinerant traders, or pedlars, for in the fifth century one of the Island-sea provinces is said to have been the haunt of a pirate whose raids upon travelling merchants were sufficiently notorious to entitle him to a place in history. Beyond these meagre facts there are no materials for constructing the story of trade in remote times.
The annals become a little more distinct from the beginning of the eighth century, which opened with the remarkable series of administrative and legislative changes traditionally known as the "Taihō Reform." In the system thus organised the Minister of Finance was charged with the functions of providing for periodical inspections of weights and measures, for superintendence of sales and for valuation of commodities, while to other officials was entrusted the duty of controlling shops, stores, and all commercial institutions. Each market was placed under the direction of a headman, who not only presided over its affairs, but also had the responsibility of examining the weights and measures used as well as the quality of the coins circulated, and fixing the prices which dealers were entitled to ask. All through the history of Japanese trade there is evidence of this tendency on the part of officialdom to deprive tradesmen of the right to appraise the selling rates of their own commodities. The market headman of the eighth century had to divide into three classes the goods offered for sale, and to set a limit to the price of each class. He had also to examine all swords, saddles, and lacquer wares to see that each bore the name of its manufacturer, and to order the withdrawal of any article which failed to comply with the regulations as to dimensions or superscription. With the exception of purchases made on behalf of the Government, every transaction had to be effected within the bounds of the market; the name of the purchaser had to be proclaimed, and any attempt to charge a price higher than the fixed rate, or any other violation of rule, involved confiscation of the goods. The men's and women's quarters of the market were strictly separated; over each stall the name of its keeper had to be eligibly posted; the market was opened exactly at noon and closed at sunset by a signal consisting of three beats on a drum. Already, even at this early era, a derogatory character appears to have been attached to transactions of commerce, for it was enacted that no prince of the blood nor any nobleman of or above the fifth official rank might send articles into the market for sale by a servant of his own.
These regulations suggest a well-ordered and strictly supervised system, but show also that officialdom usurped a right of arbitrary interference, based on the doctrine that the people's reward for the products of their labour must be regulated primarily with regard to the convenience of the ruling classes.
That commerce with China and Korea was carried on prior to the eighth century cannot be doubted. Two harbours in the southern island of the Empire are mentioned as places of entry for foreign ships; and these ports were under the control of officials whose functions resembled those of superintendent of customs. Foreign trade, however, was regarded as a legitimate field for governmental monopoly, all over-sea goods being purchased in the first instance by officials and subsequently sold to the people, who exposed themselves to the penalty of having their acquisitions confiscated if they attempted to conclude any independent bargains. No restriction was placed upon the travel of foreigners in the interior, but they were required to have their baggage passed by the duly appointed officials, and were strictly forbidden to purchase weapons of war from the inhabitants.
Looking to the facts that, according to the system introduced in the eighth century, all weights and measures used in the capital, whether officially or privately, had to be submitted for examination at the Finance Department in March, each year, and that those employed in the provinces were tested by the local governors, it might be inferred that these things were regulated in accordance with scientific and approved principles. But the Japanese never showed any intelligent originality in such matters. They were either primitive or imitative. Their indigenous methods of measurement were three: the "span" (atari) , or greatest distance that could be covered between the tips of the thumb and middle finger; the "grasp" (tsuka), or greatest circumference that could be encircled by the hand; and the stretch (hiro), or width across the extended arms. Intercourse with China and Korea, however,
must have familiarised them with the weights 
A Japanese Interior.
China is said to have sent weaving experts in the fifth century, and since architects at the same epoch were sufficiently celebrated to find a place in history, it is probable that some fixed unit of length was recognised. The matter is removed from the region of conjecture in the seventh century, when two units are known to have been in use, one borrowed from China, the other from Korea. Both approximated very closely to the English foot, the Chinese being a fraction shorter than the foot and the Korean a fraction longer. Ultimately, however, the Korean measure ceased to be employed, and the Chinese went into sole use, though the change did not greatly simplify matters, for not only were there two kinds of Chinese foot, but also, in the absence of a fixed standard, the dimensions of each varied considerably. Measures of capacity and weight appear to have been equally unscientific. At first the unit for corn was a bundle consisting of a certain number of stalks, but ultimately the Chinese system was adopted, in which the unit of weight was a momme (the one-hundred-and-twentieth part of a pound avoirdupois); and the unit of capacity a go, of which ten made a sho, one hundred a to, and one thousand a koku (5.73 bushels). Several square vessels of varying capacity are preserved in ancient temples as representatives of the measuring boxes of different epochs.
In remote times sales, in the ordinary sense of the term, did not take place. All transactions of commerce were in the nature of barter. It is difficult to determine the era when media of exchange began to be generally used. The chronicles of the semi-mythical Empress Jingo (201 A.D.) allege that among the spoils carried by her from Korea were coins in the shape of a bird. But these curiosities remain a mere tradition. Not until the year 485 A.D. do silver coins seem to have served as tokens of exchange. They were not in common use, however. The Japanese did not possess stores of precious metal sufficient for purposes of currency. There were no mines in the country. Whenever gold or silver came across the sea in the form of gifts or tribute from China or Korea, the casting of idols suggested itself as the natural use for such rare and beautiful metals, and if they were not devoted to that pious end, they served as personal ornaments, or were employed in the decorative arts. Not until 675 A.D. was silver discovered within the Japanese realm. The island of Tsushima furnished it, and of the first supply forwarded to the Government portions were offered to the gods,—which means, of course, that they came into the possession of the priests,—the rest being distributed among officials and men of rank. The discovery of copper followed that of silver by twenty-three years, and, at the close of the seventh century, a mint was established where, according to the records, coins of gold, silver, copper, and iron were struck, though it must be noted that neither the silver nor the gold tokens were made from metal produced in Japan. From a commercial point of view it may be said that the first coinage operations took place during the Wado era (708 A.D.), and that the tokens then struck were almost entirely of copper. A silver piece was, indeed, issued, but in quantity too limited to affect general transactions of trade. Interesting and suggestive measures were adopted by the authorities to put an end to the method of barter hitherto in vogue, and to induce the people to accept the new coins as media of exchange, measures evidently dictated by economical principles of Chinese origin. One imperial edict urged farmers and merchants to appraise their products and commodities in terms of the new tokens, of which the unit was a mon (cash), and promised that steps of official rank should be given to persons who accumulated stores of copper cash; a second made the possession of a fortune of six thousand cash an essential preliminary to promotion in office; a third directed that land sales effected by process of barter, and not by transfer of coin, would involve confiscation of the land; a fourth ordered travellers to carry a stock of coin instead of a store of goods for defraying the expenses of their journey; and a fifth enacted that taxes might be received in coin instead of in kind. Such legislation was quickly followed by the consequences that might naturally have been expected. Scarcely ninety years had elapsed before the Government found it necessary to prohibit the hoarding of cash, and to remind the agricultural class that, in the event of a bad harvest, coins could not be cooked and eaten. But the propensity to hoard had already become epidemic. Another decree quickly followed, declaring that any person who concealed coins and paid his taxes in kind, would have his store of cash confiscated, one-fifth of the amount being promised to an informer. All through the history of these early centuries the arbitrariness and the embarrassments of Japan's empirical financiers may be traced. The people, of frugal habits and generally in humble circumstances, had little use for exchange media of large denominations. They did not want gold or silver coins, except to a very limited extent, and could not have procured them, for the mintage of such tokens was insignificant. When a merchant came into possession of either gold or silver, he paid it out by weight, cutting it into parallelograms of the required size; and in later times—from the eleventh to the sixteenth century—all coinage operations being interrupted by domestic troubles, the precious metals were exported to China to purchase copper tokens, for which alone any really wide use existed. While the mint worked, it turned out from five and one-half to one and three-fourths millions of copper cash annually,—figures whose difference indicates not merely the variable output of the mines, but also the prime importance attached in those eras to the worship of heaven. For the chief demand for copper being in connection with the casting of idols, it resulted that the quantity available for coinage purposes depended largely upon the fervour of the Court's piety, or the need of invoking heaven's aid in some national crisis. Religious zeal thus became responsible for the earliest debasement of the coinage. During the first hundred years of minting operations, the weight of the copper unit varied within comparatively narrow limits in five issues. But the business of erecting temples and peopling them with images of the gods attained such extraordinary dimensions during the whole of the Nara epoch and the opening years of the Heian that the Government, finding the supply of copper inadequate and the treasury exhausted, resorted to the device of debasing the coinage, and the weight of copper in the unit suddenly fell by nearly fifty per cent. Another scheme was to strike special coins to which arbitrary values were given far in excess of their intrinsic values as compared with the unit. The perplexity and confusion resulting from these financial vagaries were, of course, very great. Even apart from such technical irregularities, it must have been exceedingly difficult to conduct tradal transactions with copper coins only. Money-bags were used and boxes; but a hand-cart was the usual means of transporting these cash, which were strung on ropes of straw with knots dividing them into hundreds and thousands. It will readily be conceived that the coins themselves were not high specimens of minting technique. The ideographs entering into their superscriptions had generally the honour of being moulded after a copy traced by some renowned or princely calligraphist, but the mint appliances were rude, and from time to time merchants exercised their judgment so far as to reject defaced coins, or accept them at greatly reduced values,—discrimination which the Emperor Saga (820 A.D.) checked by flogging the fastidious trader, his Majesty's theory being that the tenderer of a coin was not responsible for its condition or quality, and should not be exposed to the risk of a reduced dinner or a curtailed coat because the disc of the token happened to be serrated or its superscription illegible.
Probably in the Government's defective and dishonest coinage is to be found one of the causes which contributed to blunt what philosophers have called "the commercial conscience" in Japan. In the realm where strict integrity was conspicuously essential to the safe conduct of tradal affairs, an example of selfish unscrupulousness was set by those to whom the people were naturally entitled to look for standards of morality. Incidentally history here pays a tribute to the Chinaman's superior appreciation of the value of commercial probity, for the copper coins obtained by Japan from her neighbour were always intrinsically more trustworthy than those struck by herself, and the people showed their appreciation of the fact by circulating the former at four times the exchange value of the latter. Strenuous efforts were made by the Government to prevent such discrimination. It seems to have been regarded as a species of lèse-majesté that a farmer or a trader, a "common fellow," should venture to prefer a foreign coin to a domestic, or, in the matter of Japanese tokens, should exercise a right of choice between pieces which, whatever their variations of intrinsic value, were uniformly franked by sovereign sanction. Of course the victory ultimately rested with the people. Many were scarred in the fight, and carried to their graves stigmata branded on their cheeks by official irons; others paid the penalty of three days' exposure on the public highway, and had the chagrin of seeing every member of their village fined for their sin of "shroffing." But in Tokugawa days the Government abandoned the fight, and Chinese cash were definitely recognised as possessing four times the value of their Japanese contemporaries.
Many notices of the price officially fixed for rice are found in the old chronicles. Almost without exception it was one cash (mon) per go, or a thousand cash per koku. This very convenient assessment at once suggests an important fact; namely, that rice itself was a standard of value. That was the case down to the latest times. Taxes were originally levied in the form of a percentage of the gross produce of a farm. Then, when, copper having been discovered here and there throughout the Empire, supplies of it became desirable for minting purposes, the Government enacted that taxes might be paid in that metal; a change obviously necessitating official assessment of the koku in terms of cash. Fiscal convenience dictated the simplest possible assessment, so the koku was declared to represent one kwan (1,000 cash), and its thousandth subdivision, the go, became the equivalent of one cash. Of course nature, capricious in a subtropical country like Japan, did not lend constant sanction to such an arbitrarily fixed value. Sometimes a koku of rice sold in the open market for nearly twice the official assessment, and once, in time of famine (867 A.D.), it rose to eight times that figure. But even as late as the era of the Vice-regents of Kamakura (1230) the Government, maintaining its theoretical independence of storms and inundations, clung to the old assessment of one go for one mon, and up to comparatively modern times the official figure corresponded approximately with the true market measure. A labourer in Japan is credited with capacity to consume five go (one and one-half pints) of rice daily; a man of refined habits is allowed three go. It is thus seen that a thousand cash purchased from two hundred to three hundred and thirty-three days' supply of rice for an adult.
It is generally found, in comparing ancient times with modern, that the advantage is on the side of the former in cheapness of living. The opposite appears to have been the case in Japan. During the eighth century the ten days' labour which a farmer had to perform annually to official order was declared commutable for fifteen mon; in the ninth century the figure was doubled, and under Tokugawa rule labour was assessed at five mon per diem, the equivalent of five go of rice, or the quantity consumed by an adult male of the working class. At present, a labourer's daily wage is at least forty sen, which purchases twenty-seven or twenty-eight go of rice. Thus a day's work procures from five to six days' sustenance now, whereas formerly it only produced one day's sustenance at most. On the other hand, a thousand mon being the fourth part of a ryo, which was equivalent to thirty-two shillings, it follows that a koku of rice cost only eight shillings in ancient times, whereas to-day it costs about thirty shillings.
The coins spoken of above are those that circulated among the lower orders of the people until very recent times, and among all orders until the last quarter of the sixteenth century—rough copper tokens such as may now be seen in China, where a coolie trundling a wheelbarrow laden with strings of cash is an every-day spectacle. The silver coins of the fifth century and the solitary gold coins of the eighth were cast in the same mould as the copper cash, and do not seem to have had any extensive circulation. But in the last quarter of the sixteenth century a wholly new departure was made under the auspices of the Taikō, that great captain, administrator, politician, statesman, and art patron, whose influence for progress was felt in almost every region of Japan's national existence. At the mint founded by him and placed under the direction of the Goto family, who rank in Japan as the greatest workers in metal she ever possessed, a coin was struck magnificent in dimensions and entirely original in design. The easiest way to conceive it is to suppose sixteen guineas beaten into an oval plate, its surface hammered in "wave pattern" and having the superscription "ten riyo" boldly written in black ink. It was certainly a very remarkable transition from a little copper token not an inch in diameter and worth only a fraction of a farthing, to a slab of gold,[1] as large as the whole of a man's open hand and worth sixteen guineas. Other gold coins were also struck—a five-riyo piece, a one-riyo piece and a half-ryo piece,—and there were also silver coins, somewhat similar in shape and design though of smaller dimensions. But it is unnecessary to particularise further. The interesting point is the sudden introduction of this system by order of the Taikō. It remained in operation—not, however, without occasional debasement of the coins—until the abolition of feudalism in 1871, when one of the Government's first measures was to establish a mint in Ōsaka, equip it with foreign machinery, and strike coins after the Occidental pattern. The financiers of the new era chose the gold standard, taking for unit a quantity of pure gold represented in the Japanese metrical system by an integral weight (four fun), having for its Occidental equivalent one and one-half grammes. Ten per cent of copper being added, a coin was obtained approximately equal in value to the gold dollar of America. This was the yen (literally, a "round" thing). Silver occupied a subsidiary rank, and was linked to the standard gold coin by the ratio of 16.17 to 1. It as already been described how this system subsequently drifted into silver monometallism, and how the gold standard was afterwards resumed by a bold and well-conceived arrangement.
This retrospect of Japan's media of exchange having been carried independently to a conclusion, in order to avoid the necessity of incidental reference to it in other contexts, the story of the course of trade may now be resumed.
Among the salable chattels in the early times servants were included. In the legislation of the eighth century there stood an enactment that if within three days after purchasing a servant, a horse, or an ox, the buyer discovered his acquisition to be suffering from a disease contracted previously to the transaction, he was entitled to cancel the bargain. In order to facilitate the operation of this proviso, all such sales had to be accompanied by a guarantee from a third party. Any deception practised by a seller brought him within the purview of the penal laws, whatever might have been the article sold; but a buyer had no recourse should a part of the goods purchased by him be destroyed by fire while still in the possession of the seller: the latter was then absolved from the responsibility of implementing the contract. Incidentally to land sales mention is made of written agreements and the method of their signature. In some eras all sales of land were forbidden; in some they were permitted. But even in the latter case careful processes had to be observed: the permission of the authorities was a necessary preliminary, and thereafter three deeds of sale had to be drawn up, setting forth full details of the land, and each bearing the Government's written seal. One was filed in the local archives, another in those of the province, and the third was kept by the purchaser. It appears that written seals were in public use as well as in private even at this remote period, and that persons who could not write were allowed to affix an impression of the thumb.[2]
There were two recognised kinds of loan. One took the form of a tax rather than a loan. It was levied arbitrarily for state or religious purposes. The other was a loan in the ordinary sense of the term. With regard to the latter, it is seen that already in the eighth century professional money-lenders existed, and that legislative attempts were made to prevent usury. Thus the law forbade a rate of interest higher than twelve and one-half per cent in sixty days, or seventy-five per cent in a year, and also provided that under no circumstances should the total payment on account of interest exceed the principal. The result of the latter veto was that debts remaining unpaid after four hundred and eighty days ceased thenceforth to carry interest. If a debtor failed to repay a loan, he had to become the servant of the creditor, and probably for that reason officials and nuns were not allowed to borrow under any circumstances. Fire, in those early days, was regarded as a calamity not involving any responsibility. Thus if a borrowed article was burned while in the possession of the borrower, no duty of making compensation devolved on him, and the same principle held in the case of goods stolen with violence, though to have lost a thing by common robbery did not cancel the obligation of recouping the lender. All damage done to an article while in the hands of a borrower had to be made good, as also had its loss, but the death of a borrowed animal, if due to natural causes, did not entail any responsibility. The law further provided that in assessing damage or loss, the value which an article bore at the time of lending it should be taken as a basis, independently of all subsequent fluctuations. Probity in commercial transactions was obviously deemed essential, for an enactment provided that no contract containing an erroneous statement should have binding force. As for vicarious responsibility, a surety was held liable if a principal absconded or died, but neither the parents, the wife, nor the children of a deceased debtor were saddled with any obligations if they could show that the debts had been contracted without their knowledge. It must be remembered that at the time here under consideration—the eighth century—wives had not yet begun to live in their husbands' houses. A man might have two or even more families who were absolute strangers to each other, and under such circumstances to hold the wives or children responsible for his debts would have been plainly an injustice.
The system of pledges was simple. An article given as security for a debt might not be sold, without the consent of the owner, until the accumulated interest equalled the sum lent, when failure to discharge the debt entitled the holder to sell. The sale must be preceded, however, by due notice to the authorities, and any surplus realised had to be paid to the debtor. For the rest, all regulations referring to articles lent applied with equal force to articles pledged.
In this system, remarkably intelligent considering the period of its elaboration, the question of facilities of travel was not neglected. They had, indeed, previously received some attention. Thus arrangements had been made in the seventh century for relays of horses along the principal highways, but the use of these animals being restricted to officials, no convenient means of travel existed for private individuals. Moreover the task of teaching the people how to build bridges and construct roads was left to Buddhist priests, of whom it must be recorded that into whatever excesses they were subsequently betrayed by prosperity, their influence during the early epochs in Japan was of the most wholesome and civilising character. At the commencement of the eighth century, however, the spirit of reform and organisation animating officialdom extended to inter-provincial communications. Roads were divided into three classes; regulations for their repair were enacted; post towns were established along the highways, one in every stretch of seventy-five miles, their affairs superintended by a headman who derived funds for that purpose as well as for his own remuneration from tracts of land allotted to the towns; provision of horses and oxen was made at each station; strict rules were laid down concerning the number of animals to which each traveller was entitled according to his rank; private persons, if they belonged to the fifth or any higher grade, were authorised, when making a journey, to demand lodging in a town hall; barriers with guard-houses were established at important places to check the depredations of robbers, and in view of the fact that travellers not infrequently perished of hunger by the wayside, a law was enacted that rice for sale to wayfarers, must be stored at convenient places, and that the name of any man who sold as much as one hundred koku (five hundred and seventy-three bushels) in a year by this process should be reported to the Emperor for special reward; the management of everything relating to roads was entrusted to a department of civil affairs; a military board had charge of matters relating to post horses and oxen, and a maritime bureau exercised control over shipping as well as harbour improvement.
Large responsibilities, it will be observed, devolved upon the central Government under this system. That, indeed, was its object, for it marked the resumption of active administrative authority by the Emperor. But it was a system somewhat in advance of the temper of the time, and its success in operation was not commensurate with the intelligence of its conception.
When examining the historical records of early Japan, constructive evidence has already been found that the art of navigation did not emerge from a primitive state until mediæval times. Between the beginning of the seventh century and the close of the eighth, eleven voyages were undertaken by Japanese envoys to the Chinese Court, but no less than five of them suffered shipwreck, or were carried by storms towards southern lands, where the ambassadors, their suites, and the crews of the vessels were massacred. It was from that time that the term "southern barbarians" (namban-jin) began to be applied by the Japanese to foreigners other than the Chinese and the Koreans. Among the enactments of the great Emperor Mommu, author of the eighth-century reforms, there was one directing that embassies to China should be carried in four ships, constructed after Chinese models. By these vessels, on the rare occasions of their voyages, Japanese students and religionists travelled to the Middle Kingdom to drink at the fountains of learning and theology that were supposed to have their sources there; and by these vessels a limited interchange of mercantile commodities took place between the two empires. But trade, in the modern sense of the term, can scarcely be said to have existed.
These scanty facts represent the sum of available information about Japanese commerce up to the end of the Nara epoch (784). Thenceforth, during the interval of four hundred years that preceded the establishment of feudalism at the close of the twelfth century, the state of affairs underwent very little change. When (794) the capital was established at Kyōtō, the eastern and western sections of the city each had its own market, that in the east being kept open continuously during the first half of the month, and that in the west during the second half. The spirit of extreme formalism that had presided at the laying out of the city with mathematical regularity, made itself apparent in the rules for the control of trade. It was required that the headman of the market should present to the governor a catalogue in triplicate, containing an exact statement of all the commodities offered for sale and of the prices at which they were offered, the latter being limited in the case of every staple. No person was allowed to enter the market wearing a sword. The old veto held strictly with regard to operations of sale by servants of men of rank. Government officials patrolled the street in front of the fiftv-one stores in the eastern market and the thirty-three of the western, and police constables were on constant duty to prevent theft or incendiarism. These elaborate enactments naturally ceased to be operative during the evil days that overtook Kyōtō in the civil wars from the middle of the twelfth century, but up to that time trade seems to have flourished in the Imperial city, and its affairs were certainly regulated most carefully. In many provincial towns, also, the same method of special market-places existed, but it has already been shown that this system dated from an early period.[3] Nothing is on record as to the habits of the mercantile class, or the mode of transacting business between remote places. Since, however, the efforts of the authorities to preserve order in the capital were not extended with equal energy to country districts, robbery on the highways and piracy on the rivers were events of frequent occurrence, and inter-provincial commerce seems to have been attended by risks almost deterrent. Thus, on the whole, it cannot be said that any special progress was made in the domain of trade as compared with the preceding epoch. All the laws of the eighth century concerning pledges, mortgages, rates of interest, and so forth, remained unaltered, and any other changes made were not sufficiently important to call for special notice. In this epoch, as in the preceding, Buddhist priests were conspicuous for practical benevolence. They planted trees along the highways, dug wells for the use of wayfarers, improved roads, and built bridges. The Government itself evidently recognised the importance of creating facilities of communication, for in the days of the Emperor Nimmyo (834—850) the duty of superintending the establishment of ferries and the marking of fords was entrusted to an Imperial Prince. Shortly afterwards, it is on record that a bridge was built with a roadway five hundred and sixty feet long, thirteen feet wide, and sixteen feet in height,—a work considered sufficiently important to find a place in history. By the beginning of the tenth century the posting system had been extended to eight circuits, comprising sixty-one provinces and including three hundred and twenty-one post-towns, where the total number of horses stationed was thirty-four hundred and ninety, and the number of oxen, seven hundred and thirty-seven. It appears, however, that the use of these facilities was still confined to officials and the upper classes. Merchants, manufacturers, and farmers had neither means of conveyance nor inns at which to sojourn. If they could not obtain lodging in a private house, they had either to construct temporary shelters or to sleep on the roadside.
In the field of foreign trade no change is noticeable during this epoch. Commerce with Korea was insignificant, and commerce with China continued to be entirely controlled by officials, all merchandise being carried on arrival into a hall,[4] where it was valued in the presence of secretaries, clerks, accountants, and appraisers, after which sales were made at greatly increased rates to the people, the difference going into the Treasury. So strict was this monopoly that, in the middle of the eleventh century, five men were sentenced to transportation for crossing to China on a tradal mission without official sanction.
The establishment of the feudal system in the year 1192, with its headquarters at Kamakura, was marked by the introduction of strict discipline into the management of public affairs. Kamakura became the scene of a highly organised and rigidly enforced system of government. Police functions were entrusted to one class of officials, municipal duties to another. Street repairing and drainage were duly provided for. Limitations were imposed on the method of building houses so as to prevent any obstruction to traffic. Walking abroad after nightfall, except under imperative circumstances, was forbidden; and in the early part of the thirteenth century the number of tradesmen residing within the town was definitely limited. This last measure is specially noteworthy, for it gave rise to the formation of companies with representatives stationed in the feudal capital and share-holding members in the provinces. Official stations were established to control transactions in the principal staples, as rice, charcoal, silk, timber, horses, and so on, and merchants were required to exhibit samples of their commodities in their stores, so that "shopping" began to be preferred to purchasing in the market. It was in this epoch also that commission agents and shipping agents[5] came into existence, and bills of exchange[6] began to be used in connection with inter-provincial and foreign commerce. This last innovation is attributed to Chinese example, but it was quickly appreciated by the Japanese, who had otherwise no medium but gold dust for making large payments. Naturally the prices charged for monetary accommodation in these disturbed times were high. Rates of interest ranged from five per cent to eight per cent monthly, and in the middle of the thirteenth century loans without tangible security were wholly interdicted. Military rule was not in any sense favourable to the development of trade. It has been shown that while the administration of affairs remained in the hands of the Kyōtō Court, special provision was made for maintaining horses and oxen at the various post towns, but under the feudal government the people were required to furnish horses and other assistance for carriers travelling on public service. One horse and two baggage-carriers represented the assessment for every twelve and one-half acres of rice land or twenty-five acres of upland, and whenever the Shōgun travelled between Kamakura and Kyōtō, an additional contribution of four hundred mon had to be made for each acre. This levy on account of a Shōgun's progress meant, if translated into modern prices and currency, a payment of about three shillings per acre.
China under the Sung and Yuan dynasties had numerous articles for which a ready sale should have existed in Japan. She did indeed send con- siderable quantities of brocades, damask, "Indian" ink, stone-ware, and matting, and all these found eager purchasers. But the Mongol invasion (thirteenth century), the series of incidents that preceded it, and the piratical tendency subsequently shown by the Japanese, greatly interrupted trade between the two countries. Japan had then nothing to send to China except rice and marine products, and the export of the former staple was always liable to be interdicted in time of scarcity.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the Ashikaga Shōguns ruled in Kyōtō, officialdom showed itself at once merciless and unscrupulous in its manner of exploiting the trading class. Monopolies of all the principal staples were sold to individual merchants, or associations of merchants, at prices highly remunerative to the Government. This was the beginning of the guild system in Japan. Its foundations had been laid when the Hōjō Shōguns limited the number of tradesmen admitted to the city of Kamakura, but the sale of declared monopolies was an Ashikaga device, and, after the manner of signal abuses, it remained long operative. The guilds were joint-stock corporations, their shares being transferable by sale or bequeathable from father to son. It is easy to see that at a time when means of communication were very defective, monopolies must often have produced great hardships. The exclusive privilege of brewing saké (rice-beer), for example, granted to a priest of Kitano at the beginning of the fifteenth century, caused a violent depreciation of the price of rice in districts where brewing had to be abandoned, and serious riots resulted. But the Ashikaga rulers gave themselves little concern about riots. Their emissaries were even suspected of inciting mobs to raid merchants' houses, since in these violent proceedings bonds given by the Government in acknowledgment of debts were often destroyed. The toku-sei, or so-called "benevolent system," was another constant source of insecurity. Under pretence of relieving indigent debtors, curbing the oppression of rich creditors, and preventing undue accumulation of wealth in the hands of individuals, the authorities, from time to time, declared the cancelling of all monetary engagements. So long as this system was really guided by the considerations avowedly underlying it, the injustice it wrought was probably outweighed by the relief it afforded to the distressed. But the Ashikaga rulers, especially the dilettante Shōgun Yoshimasa, perverted it into an instrument for cancelling obligations incurred by their own extravagance. The abuse was further aggravated by lawlessness which the Government never took resolute steps to check. For the alleged purpose of destroying bonds and promissory notes which, though rendered invalid by an amnesty, their holders still retained, bands of roughs broke into the houses and strong-rooms of wealthy citizens, plundering and destroying on an extensive scale. Even temples and shrines did not escape these depredations. Neither security of property nor sanctity of engagement can be said to have existed. Commerce suffered in other ways also. "Transport dues" (dansen) and "house tax" (munewake-sen), which had been originally imposed on special occasions only, as an Imperial progress, the construction of a palace, the accession of a Shogun, or the building of a temple, were now levied on the pettiest pretext. In short, when Yoshimasa wanted money, whether to build a pavilion, lay out a park, or purchase objects of virtu from China, he never scrupled about the means of getting it. History says that on one occasion he beheaded a number of merchants who had refused to provide an immense sum demanded by his agents. Since, however, the range of these arbitrary extortions and violences was limited chiefly to Kyōtō and its environs, provincial traders were still able to ply their business. The monopoly system continued to flourish, and machinery for transmitting money from the western districts to the capital underwent great improvement. It was in this period (beginning of the fifteenth century) that trade-names first came into use, as Kame-ya (urn-house), Taka-ya (hawk-house), Shiro-kane-ya (white-metal-house), and so on. The custom began in the provinces, and extended to Kyōtō in the second half of the sixteenth century. Hitherto a trades-man had been designated by his personal name only, the use of a family name not being permitted to commoners.
It is difficult to speak with any assurance of the commercial customs of feudal times prior to the seventeenth century: they varied according to localities. One general rule applied, namely, that the pursuit of trade was considered despicable and degrading. Thus Takeda Shingen, one of the most celebrated representatives of the military class, issued an order forbidding his samurai to discuss matters relating to purchases or sales outside their family circle. Many of the noble houses also showed their independence of vulgar commercial restrictions by using measures and weights of their own for fiscal purposes. Thus a "piece" of cotton cloth might vary from twenty-five to thirty feet in length, and of the masu, or measure of capacity, there were a score, differing more or less in dimensions. One of the Taikō's beneficent reforms was an attempt—not wholly successful—to introduce uniformity in these matters.[7] There are incidental evidences that a somewhat prevalent abuse was the seizure of goods exposed for sale in the market, the grounds of seizure being a pretence that the articles had been stolen; and it is also evident that military men frequently compelled merchants to sell at nominal rates, on the plea that the articles were needed for the Shōgun or for a provincial governor. Efforts to restrain these abuses appear to have been made by many of the feudal nobles, but not with uniform resolution. Some of the principles underlying the laws were remarkable. In the Sendai fief, for example, a rule existed that should a man die without having received the proceeds of goods sold by him, his diary should be taken as evidence in preference to the allegations of his debtors, unless the latter could produce documentary proof. The practice with regard to loans was also different from that prevailing in ante-feudal days, when accumulated interest had always to be less than principal. The system under the Ashikaga Shōguns was that, whereas the period of a loan must never exceed twenty years, the double of the principal must be paid if the debt was not discharged until the tenth year, and the treble if that period were exceeded. At the expiration of the term originally fixed, the creditor had to make three applications for repayment before appealing to the law courts, and the latter, if the debt was duly proved, had power to impose a fine amounting to one-tenth of the sum due, by way of penalty for failure to pay. There was also a law protecting a creditor against being importuned for mercy by an impecunious debtor; a law evidently designed to guarantee tradesmen against the menaces of indigent samurai. The old rule exempting a child from any obligation with regard to a parent's debts ceased to be observed in this epoch, as was natural, seeing that the custom of separate residences for fathers and children had given place to family life. The liabilities of a parent now possessed validity against a child, but, on the other hand, a parent was not liable for his children's debts. An insolvent debtor had still no recourse but to sell his person into servitude: no bankruptcy court existed to grant him a discharge. In one of the great fiefs, creditors were strictly forbidden to importune a debtor on market day, and any violation of this veto was severely punished. In another fief, the old law as to liability for the destruction of borrowed articles underwent intelligent modification. It assumed this form, that in the event of fire or robbery, if the borrower's property was destroyed or stolen simultaneously with that of the lender, no responsibility devolved on the former; but if only the goods lent were affected, compensation had to be made. The business of pawnbroking was very strictly controlled, maximum periods being fixed by law for different articles, and the pawnbroker being required to pay to the Government, by way of tax, ten per cent of the total loans issued by him. This heavy impost, taken in conjunction with the fact that twenty-four months was the maximum period for any article, is suggestive of the terms that a pawnbroker had to demand from his customers. He was also a conspicuous sufferer from the "benevolent system." Nominally the law granted him security against the operation of this system during the fixed terms of pledge; but in practice the exemption proved illusory, especially as pawnbrokers' stores always possessed special attractions for rioters who took violent advantage of a toku-sei proclamation.
Mention has been made of the fact that the impression of the thumb was often used on documents in ante-feudal days by way of substitute for a written signature or seal. From the beginning of the sixteenth century stamped seals began to be used. They had their origin in the employment of a vermilion seal by the Shōgun, and they soon obtained wide vogue, though the superior value of a written signature or seal has always been recognised. By degrees it became the custom for every Japanese to have a seal, and such deep root did the habit take, that, in spite of the obvious abuses incidental to a device which presents such ineffective obstacles to fraud, the nation seems to have formed a permanent attachment for seals, and in modern times they have been accorded the validity of signatures by act of Parliament.
The establishment of barriers having guard-houses attached was originally a precaution against bandits. But during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the feudal chiefs became practically independent of the central Government, barriers served not only for military purposes, but also as means of levying toll from wayfarers. Buddhist and Shintō shrines were allowed to set up barriers for the latter purpose, and it is on record that the Kasuga Shrine and the Kokufu Temple collected two thousand kwan (£800) annually at a single barrier,—that of Hyōgo. It stands to the credit of the great Takauji, founder of the Ashikaga Shogunate, that he made a resolute, though unsuccessful, endeavour to abolish these barriers. That was in the middle of the fourteenth century. Two hundred years elapsed, however, before a thorough reform could be effected. Oda Nobunaga accomplished it. He removed all the barriers except those established for military purposes, caused the roads to be widened to fixed dimensions, planted pines and willows along the principal highways, and provided proper means of crossing at the ferries.
Trade with China was resumed, though under somewhat novel conditions, during the Muromachi period; that is to say, under the sway of the Ashikaga Shōgun. The rulers of Japan found themselves at that time in constant need of funds to defray the cost of the interminable military operations caused by the struggle between the Northern and the Southern Courts and other civil disturbances. In their distress they turned to the neighbouring Empire as a source from which money might be obtained. This idea appears to have been suggested to the Shōgun Takauji by Buddhist priests, when he undertook the construction of the temple Tenryu-ji. Two ships were fitted out laden with goods, and it was decided that the enterprise should be repeated annually, the Shōgun promising that, whatever its pecuniary result, a sum of five thousand kwan (two thousand pounds sterling) should be subscribed to the temple. These vessels were popularly known as Tenryu-ji-bune (ƒune=a ship), and the name came also to be applied to some of the articles carried by them from China, notably to fine specimens of Yuan céladon, several of which reached Japan by this route.[8] Within a few years after this renewal of tradal relations between the two Empires, a fresh interruption occurred owing to the overthrow of the Yuan Mongols by the Chinese Ming, and owing also to the activity of Japanese pirates and adventurers who raided the coasts of China through a wide area. The Shōgun Yoshimitsu (1368—1394), however, succeeded in restoring commercial intercourse, though in order to effect his object he consented that goods sent from Japan should bear the character of tribute, and that he himself should receive investiture at the hands of the Chinese Emperor. [9]See Appendix, note 49. The Nanking Government granted a certain number of commercial passports, and these were given by the Shōgun to Ouchi, feudal chief of Nagato, which had long been the principal port for trade with the neighbouring Empire. The resulting commerce was conducted in a peculiar manner. Tribute goods formed only a small fraction of a vessel's cargo: the bulk consisted of articles which were delivered into the Government's stores in China, payment being received in copper cash. It was from this transaction that the Shōgun derived a considerable part of his profits, for the articles did not cost him anything originally, being either presents from the great temples and provincial governors, or compulsory contributions from the house of Ouchi. As for the gifts sent by the Chinese Government and the goods shipped in China, they were arbitrarily distributed among the noble families in Japan at prices fixed by the Shōgun's assessors. Thus, so far as the Shōgun was concerned, these enterprises could not fail to be lucrative. They also brought large profits to the Ouchi family, for in the absence of competition the products and manufactures of each country found ready sale in the markets of the other. Incidentally the expenses of a voyage are recorded; namely, £20 to the envoy; £12 to the supercargo; the same to the master; £8 to the interpreter; the same to an appraiser; £4 to the crew, and £56 for other outlays, making a total of £120. Leaving Hyōgō, a ship passed through the Inland Sea, sailed southward along the coast of Hizen, and thence steering for the Goto Islands, reached Ningpo, after a voyage of from forty to fifty days. Departure from Japan was preceded by religious rites at various shrines, and a service of thanksgiving celebrated the sighting of land as the ship approached her destination. The vessels found most suitable were of comparatively small dimensions—about one thousand koku, that is to say, one hundred and seventy tons. From the Chinese these visitors received most liberal treatment. At Ningpo a sumptuous lodging was provided, and each person had an allowance of five sho (one-quarter of a bushel, or fully a ten days' ration for an able-bodied man) of pounded rice per diem, together with seven or eight other kinds of food. Passports secured a safe journey for them to Nanking[10] or Peking, where again they were handsomely housed at the Government's charges and received the same quantity of rice with eleven kinds of edibles. Their sojourn extended to several days, for it was necessary not only that they should be equipped with Chinese costumes, but also that full instructions in the etiquette of the Middle Kingdom should be given to them prior to their presentation at Court. After presentation a further allowance of rice, amply sufficient for one hundred and twenty days' rations, was granted out of the Government's stores for the purposes of the home voyage, and it will thus be seen that from first to last they were treated unequivocally as a tribute-bearing embassy. It appears that the articles found most salable in China were swords, fans, screens, lacquer wares, copper, and agate, and that the goods brought back to Japan were brocade and other silk fabrics, keramic productions, jade, and fragrant woods. The Chinese seem to have had a just appreciation of the wonderful swords of Japan. At first they were willing to pay the equivalent of twelve guineas for a pair of blades, but by degrees, as the Japanese began to increase the supply, the price fell, and at the beginning of the sixteenth century all the "diplomacy" of the Japanese envoys was needed to obtain good figures for the large and constantly growing quantity of goods that they took over by way of supplement to the tribute. Buddhist priests generally enjoyed the distinction of being selected as envoys, for experience showed that their subtle reasoning invariably overcame the economical scruples of the Chinese authorities and secured a fine profit for their master, the Shōgun. The whole business must, indeed, have proved no small drain upon China's resources. It is recorded that three ships despatched in 1532 by the Ouchi family carried, in addition to the tribute, 24,152 pairs of swords and 298,500 catties (398,000 lbs.) of copper, 26 officials, 297 merchants, and 130 seamen. In the middle of the sixteenth century these tribute-bearing missions came to an end with the ruin of the Ouchi family and the overthrow of the Ashikaga Shōguns, and it need scarcely be said that they were never renewed. The impartial historian is compelled by these records to confess, however, that not all China's claims of suzerainty over neighbouring countries rest on such an unsubstantial basis as some critics have been disposed to believe.
Commerce between Japan and Korea was not surrounded with such ceremonies. No passport from the Korean Government had to be carried by Japanese traders. The So Family, who held the island of Tsushima in fief, wrote permits for fifty ships, which passed, every year, from ports in Japan to the three Japanese settlements in the peninsula. But in the beginning of the sixteenth century this trade came to an abrupt conclusion, owing to the unruliness of the Japanese themselves, whose attitude towards foreigners in early and mediæval times never showed any lack of defiant enterprise. Some objectionable proceedings on the part of Korean officials at the Fusan Settlement led (1610) to a revolt of the Japanese settlers. Their example was followed by their compatriots at another settlement, and in both cases the Koreans suffered, at the outset, complete defeat. But strong forces despatched from Söul soon restored the situation, and in the sequel the Japanese were obliged to retire altogether from the three settlements; an event which terminated the trade between the two countries. There had been no official intervention on Japan's part in this matter, but subsequently the Korean Government, in reply to communications from the Shōgun, agreed to re-open commerce provided that the ringleaders of the rioters were decapitated and their heads sent to Soul. The value attached by the Japanese to Korean trade may be inferred from the fact that they complied with these humiliating conditions. Nevertheless, the trade was not restored to its previous proportions: the number of Japanese vessels was limited to twenty-five annually, and the settlements were abolished altogether. Another complication, thirty years later, again resulting from Japanese truculence, led to the imposition of fresh restrictions, though on this occasion the Shōgun Yoshiharu caused the offenders to be arrested and handed them over to Korea for punishment. The Japanese of those days showed a spirit which did not render them very desirable as visitors to a foreign country, and the Söul Court obdurately refused either to restore the system of settlements or to allow trade to resume its old dimensions. Then followed the invasion of Korea by the Taikō's armies. During seven years the peninsula was overrun by these troops, and when they retired in 1595, they left behind them a country so broken and impoverished that it no longer offered any attraction to commercial enterprise.[11]
- ↑ See Appendix, note 41.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 42.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 43.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 44.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 45.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 46.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 47.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 48.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 49.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 50.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 51.
Note 51.— The reader should perhaps be warned against basing any inference on the apparent sequence of events as here described. It was not in the cause of inter-state trade that the Taikō invaded Korea. Her continued refusal to open her ports to the fleet of over fifty Japanese vessels which twenty-three feudal houses had been in the habit of sending every year, probably prejudiced Hideyoshi against her, but his proximate purpose was to use her as a basis for attacking China.
Note 42.—A cheque, or commercial note, is still called te-gata (lit. hand-shape), evidently from the fact that in early times the impression of the thumb was the common method of signature. Sometimes the whole hand was impressed.
Note 50.—Nanking was the residence of the Chinese Court until the year 1412, when Peking became the capital.
Note 49.—There has been some dispute about these facts, but they appear to be historical. It is on record that Yoshimitsu went to Hyōgo to meet a Chinese ambassador; that he wore a Chinese costume to receive his guest and rode in a Chinese palanquin to the place of meeting.
Note 48.—This céladon is called Tenryu-seiji, seiji (green ware) being the general name given to céladon in Japan. (Vide chapter on porcelain and pottery.)
Note 47.—The interior dimensions of the masu as prescribed by the Taikō's legislation were 5.1 inches by 5.15 inches by 2.45 inches. Japanese joiners found no difficulty in conforming with these measurements. The object of the legislator was to contrive a measure which should contain a fraction less than 1 sho (or 10 go). The masu here indicated had a capacity of 9.86 go.
Note 46.—These were known as kaisen, in mediæval phraseology.
Note 45.—They were called toimaru, a term now obsolete.
Note 44.—This hall was called Koro-kwan. There were three: one in Kyōtō, one in Naniwa (Ōsaka), and one at Hakata in Chikuzen.
Note 43.—The fact that they were market towns in the old days may be gathered from the names that some places still retain; as Yokka-ichi (fourth-day market), Yōka-ichi (eighth-day market), Kami-ichi (upper market), Shimo-ichi (lower market), etc.
Note 41.—The Oban (large plate) did not consist of pure gold. It contained about sixty-eight per cent of gold and twenty-nine per cent of silver.