According to G.W. Skinner in China local markets are systematically integrated by a traffic network and form a wided ranging market. His thinking is quite new in that he explains the integration of higher ranking and lower ranking markets, but he overlooks the counter connection between them. This study shows through a study of the cotton trade that in Szechwan some regions were integrated into a national market and others remained independent of it. From the mid-Qing period, the indigenous cotton industry of Szechwan developed in the Tuojiang and Fujiang 沱江・〓江 vallies, north-west of the Szechwan basin. Its raw cotton and cotton cloth was sold in the surrounding prefectures and provinces. On the other hand to the east and south where Yangtze 長江 flows through, the import of raw cotton from Hupei province continued, but there the imported cotton was woven into cloth and sold to neighboring regions. Between these two cotton producing areas there were location that imported both Szechwan and Hupei cotton. In Szechwan te the largest entrepot for the import of cotton and export of rice was Baxian 巴県 (重慶). Here over 10% to the half of all the 牙行 (brokers) in Szechwan would gather to play middleman between Szechwan and other provinces. Hupei cotton was imported to Szechwan through cotton brokers, cloth brokers, and sundries brokers. But as soon as indigenous cloth (Szechwan cloth) began to flow to Baxian in during the early 19th century, the import of Hupei cloth decreased and the cloth brokers found it difficult to maintain their businesses. Sellers of native cloth could directly sell it to native cloth shops without the mediation of reliable cloth brokers because it was local product. So the cloth brokers accused native cloth shops of not paying bang fei 〓費 (a kind of business tax on trading) and reported them to the Baxian authorities. The government ordered local shops to pay the tax; but neither prohibited trade of native cloth nor put the shops under mediation by brokers. Therefore, the brokers could not bring the cloth shops into their trading system and declined as the amount of imported cloth decreased. The cloth brokers represented the economy which depended on imported goods; and the indigenous cloth shops represented the economy which substituted for imports. The decline of the former and development of the latter show that the economy of Szechwan was becoming independent of the national market.

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The author attempt to look at the way the Tenno dominated the people and society in ancient Japanese through a study of the Kuraryo (内蔵寮), the royal finance office, that existed before the ritsuryo (律令) regime was set up in Japan and was included in the ritsuryo bureaucracy. The allocating function of the Kuraryo had two characteristic features. The first is when the Tenno ordered the Okurasho (大蔵省) to allocate something, it was necessary to issue a document called Daijokanpu (太政官符). On the other hand, in the case of expenditures from the Kuraryo, the personal will of the Tenno was carried out directly under the provision of Ho-kuchoku-sakumotsu (奉口勅索物 : spoken orders of Tenno requiring some material or other) without passing through the Daijokan (太政官) or the Nakatsukasasho (中務省). The second has to do with items of expenditure. The Tenno bestowed government officials with gyofuku (御服) stored in the Kuraryo (clothing originally belonging to the Tenno) at sechie (節会: seasonal court banquets), or offers up mitekura (幣 : clothing for shrines) from the Kuraryo at shrine festivals, etc. These facts show that the Kuraryo contributed to uniting the governing classes through the giving of gyofuku, uniting the common people in shrine festivals, through the medium of the personality of Tenno. This is in marked contrast to the Okurasho, which unified the state financially through the medium of abstract and bureaucratic organs. Generally, state unity in ancient Japan is maintained by both bureaucratic organs and the personality of Tenno. Not only Kuraryo but also other domestic offices of the Tenno belonging to the Nakatsukasasho (中務省) and Kunaisho (宮内省) played important roles in the Tenno's personal role. In the Nara period, such functions of personal unification covered a wide range of state authority in spite of its diffuse and temporary nature. But in the early Heian period, especially the Konin era, it came to the surface in the state systems under a changed form. For example, from that times, gifts to government officials at sechie gatherings changed from gyofuku in the Kuraryo to clothing in the Okurasho in the form of allowances. On the other hand, gyofuku in the Kuraryo was given symbolically to officials only a sechie held on New Years Day, or was limited to upper-class aristocrats closely related to the Tenno at naien (内宴 : January inner court banquet) and rinji-en (臨時宴 : temporary banquets). These facts show that the whole bureaucracy as a governing classes was reorganized through the medium of abstract laws and institutions, and only upperclass aristocrats were united through the personality of the Tenno. The same phenomena are observed in hobei (offering of clothes) from the Kuraryo to shrines of clans related to Tenno by blood and to tombs of former Tennos. Nevertheless, considering hobei from Kuraryo for shrine festivals like the Kamo-no-matsuri (賀茂祭) established in the early Heian period, it was still necessary to create fields in which the personality of the Tenno was dominant in order to make the people recognize the legitimacy that the Tenno is authority, though rule impersonal bureaucratic domination was becoming more and more dominant during that time.

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