Tsushima-han's Organization of Trade with Korea, 1684-1711

Abstract

Tsushima (対馬), an island situated between Kyushu and south-eastern Korea, was governed by the So (宗) family throughout the Tokugawa period. Tsushima had monopoly rights to operate Japan's trade with Korea. The "official" trade, of fixed quantity and content, was managed directly by the government of Tsushima-han. For most of the seventeenth century both the the government of Tsushima-han and the privileged merchants in Tsushima who engaged in "unofficial" trade there operated "Japanese Factory" called Wakan (和館) in Pusan as well. Tsushima's chief export was silver, and the imports raw silk and ginseng. The silver export was even greater than that from Nagasaki in the period studied. The author's quantitative content analysis of the trade has been published elsewhere; here she concentrates on the institutional aspects of the trade, particularly the role and functions of motokatayu (元方役), the trade manager in the wakan from 1684 to 1711. Prior to 1684 the bulk of the "unofficial" trade was handled by Tsushima merchants on their own account, while the government of Tsushima-han was able to retain only a small amount of the "unofficial" trade for its own profit. In 1683 Tsushima-han established motokatayaku to manage the entire "unofficial" trade for the sake of han's profit, relegating the merchants to salaried positions. The group of motokatayaku was staffed by five to ten privileged merchants, who served by rotation for terms of about ten years. These officers were responsible for negotiating prices with Korean merchants, making exports (mostly in Japanese silver), and collecting the Korean goods. During the period studied here, the annual export of silver reached as high as 3,000 kan (1 kan 3.75kg). The silver used in the Korean trade was in the form of ingots called chogin (丁銀) of guaranteed purity, which were issued by the Tokugawa shogunate and circulated as money in Japan. In an effort to profit from recoinage, the shogunate debased the chogin from 80% pure to 64% in 1695, and further to 20% in 1711. The sudden devalutation shook Korean confidence in Japanese silver currency, and Korean merchants became less interested in participating in the trade. Until this time Korea had been re-refining the silver obtained from Japan, re-exporting it to China in payments for Chinese raw silk, much of which Korea in turn exported to Japan. Such integration of Japan into an international market suggests the need for a thorough re-examination of the concept of Tokugawa "isolation".