_Portuguese Trade to Japan—Dutch Trade—Silver, Gold, and Copper the
Chief Articles of Export—Export of Silver prohibited—Chinese Trade—Its
Increase after the Accession of the Manchu Dynasty—Chinese Temples
at Nagasaki—A Buddhist Doctor from China—Edict on the Subject of
Household Worship—Restrictions on the Dutch Trade—Increase in the
Number of Chinese Visitors to Nagasaki—Their Objects—Restrictions on
the Chinese Trade—The Chinese shut up in a Factory—Trade with Lew Chew
[Riūkiū]—A. D. 1542-1690._
Of the real value and extent of the trade which for some ninety years
the Portuguese carried on with Japan, and which was brought to a final
close in the year 1638, we have no means of forming any very exact
estimate. When we read in writers of two or three centuries ago glowing
accounts of immense commercial profits, we must also recollect that,
compared with the commerce of the present day, the trade upon which
these great profits were made was exceedingly limited in amount.
For more than half of the above period of ninety years the intercourse
of the Portuguese with Japan seems to have been reduced, or nearly
so, to a single annual ship, known as the great carac of Macao, sent
annually from that city, and laden chiefly with China silks, every
Portuguese citizen of Macao having the right, if he chose to exercise
it, of putting on board a certain number of packages, as did also the
Society of Jesus, which had a college and a commercial agency in that
city. Of this traffic the following account is given by Ralph Fitch,
an intelligent Englishman, who was in Malacca in the year 1588[127]:
“When the Portuguese go from Macao in China to Japan, they carry much
white silk, gold, musk, and porcelains, and they bring from thence
nothing but silver. They have a great carac, which goeth thither
every year, and she bringeth from thence every year about six hundred
thousand crusados (not far from as many dollars); and all this silver
of Japan, and two hundred thousand crusados more in silver, which they
bring yearly out of India, they employ to their advantage in China; and
they bring from thence gold, musk, silk, porcelains, and many other
things very costly and gilded.”[128]
If we allow to the Portuguese an annual average export of half a
million of dollars, that will make in ninety years forty-five millions
of dollars of silver carried away by the Portuguese; for, according to
all accounts, they brought away nothing else.
Though the Spaniards were never allowed to trade to Japan, at one
period, as we have seen, a considerable number of Japanese junks
frequented Manila for the purchase of Chinese goods; but this trade was
brought to an end in 1624, in consequence of the facilities which it
afforded for the introduction of Catholic priests into Japan.
[Illustration: MAP OF FEUDAL JAPAN]
The Dutch trade began in 1609. We have seen that in a short time it
gained a very considerable extent; and it increased, as the trading
establishment which the Dutch gradually obtained in India and Persia,
and that on the island of Formosa, whence they had access to China,
furnishing them with a supply of rich silks, the great article of
import into Japan. As the Portuguese trade was carried on from Macao,
so the Dutch trade was carried on, not from Holland, but from Batavia.
The year preceding the shutting up of the Dutch in Deshima is stated
to have been the most profitable of any. The previous average sales
in Japan had been about sixty tons of gold; but that year the Dutch
had imported and disposed of goods to the value of eighty tons of gold
(that is, three million two hundred thousand dollars, a Dutch ton of
gold being one hundred thousand florins, or forty thousand dollars).
Among the exports were fourteen hundred chests of silver, each chest
containing one thousand taels, or near two million dollars in silver
alone[129]. About this time, however, owing to the comparative
exhaustion of the silver, or the comparative increase of gold, that
metal became a leading, as, indeed, it seems to have been before a
considerable article of export with the Dutch. The gold koban, the
national coin of the Japanese, weighed at this time forty-seven
kanderins, that is, two hundred and seventy-four grains troy, which is
sixteen grains more than our present eagle. But, if superior in weight,
the koban was inferior in fineness, containing of pure gold only two
hundred and twenty-four grains, whereas the eagle contains two hundred
and thirty-two grains. It passed in Japan and was purchased by the
Dutch for six taels or less in silver, which enabled them to dispose
of it to good advantage on the coast of Coromandel, where the relative
value of gold was much higher. In the two years, 1670, 1671, more than
one hundred thousand koban were exported, at a profit of a million
florins; and down to that time the Dutch sent annually to Japan five
or six ships a year. In 1644, the export of copper began, and went on
gradually increasing. In 1671, an edict was issued, prohibiting the
further export of silver; but this gave no concern to the Dutch, who
had already ceased to export it. Its principal operation was against
the Chinese, who at this time carried on a great trade to Japan.
Of the early commercial relations of China and Japan our knowledge is
very limited. As the Japanese at an early era, according to their own
annals (constructed, it is probable, by Buddhist priests), as early as
A. D. 600, had received from China Buddhist missionaries, and through
them the language, graphic characters, science, etc., of the Chinese,
it would seem probable that some commercial intercourse must have early
existed between these two nations. If so, however, the threatened
Mongol invasion, towards the end of the thirteenth century, would have
been likely to have interrupted it. The native Chinese dynasty, which
succeeded after the expulsion of the Mongols, was exceedingly jealous
of all strangers and hostile to intercourse with them. No foreign trade
was allowed, and every Chinese who left his country incurred a sentence
of perpetual banishment. It is true that the Chinese colonists, that
had emigrated, perhaps on the invasion of the Mongols, and had settled
in the neighboring maritime countries (as others did afterwards on the
invasion of the present Manchu dynasty), still contrived to keep up
some intercourse with China, while they carried on a vigorous trade
with the adjacent islands and countries; but, at the time of the
Portuguese discovery, no such trade would seem to have existed with
Japan.
The Manchu dynasty (the same now reigning), which mounted the throne
in 1644, was much less hostile to foreigners; and under their rule
the Chinese trade to Japan appears to have rapidly increased. This
was partly by vessels direct from China, and partly by the commercial
enterprise of the Chinese fugitives who possessed themselves of
Formosa, from which, in 1662, they drove out the Dutch, or who had
settled elsewhere on the islands and coasts of southeastern Asia.
“They come over,” says Kämpfer, “when and with what numbers of people,
junks, and goods they pleased. So extensive and advantageous a liberty
could not but be very pleasing to them, and put them upon thoughts of
a surer establishment, in order to which, and for the free exercise of
their religion, they built three temples at Nagasaki, according to the
three chief languages spoken by them (those of the northern, middle,
and southern provinces), each to be attended by priests of their own
nation, to be sent over from China.”[130]
These temples, called, each in the special dialect of its frequenters,
“Temples of Riches,”—the god which the Chinese chiefly worship,—are
described by Kämpfer, from his own observation, as remarkable for their
handsome structure and the number of monks or Buddhist clergy attached
to them. As soon as any Chinese ships arrived in the harbor, the crews
immediately took on shore the idols which formed a part of the ship’s
outfit, and placed them in some small chapels, built for that purpose,
near by the large temples, or convents as in fact they rather were.
This was done with uncommon respect and particular ceremonies, playing
upon cymbals and beating of drums, which same ceremonies were repeated
when, upon the departure of the junks, the idols were carried on board
again.
Encouraged by this favorable reception of his countrymen, Ingen, who
was at that time at the head of the Buddhist priesthood of China,
claiming to be the twenty-eighth in succession from the founder of
the Chinese Buddhist patriarchate, surrendered to a successor his
high dignity at home, and in the year 1653 came over to Japan, there
to establish a sort of caliphate or archiepiscopal see, as Kämpfer
expresses it, of the particular branch or sect of the Buddhist faith
to which he belonged. “The princes and lords of several provinces came
to compliment him, clad in their _kamishimo_,[131] or garments of
ceremony. The emperor offered him for his residence a mountain in the
neighborhood of the holy city of Miyako, which he called _Ōbaku_, the
name of his former papal residence in China. An incident which happened
soon after his arrival contributed very much to forward his designs,
and raised an uncommon respect for his person, and a great opinion
of his holiness. After a very great drought, the country people, his
neighbors, desired him to say a _kitō_, or extraordinary solemn prayer,
in order to obtain rain. He answered that it was not in his power
to make rain, and that he could not assure them that his kitō would
obtain it. However, at their pressing instances, he promised to do his
utmost. Accordingly, he went up to the top of the mountain and made
his kitō. The next day there fell such profuse showers as even to wash
away the smaller bridges in the city of Miyako, which made both the
city and country believe that his kitō had been rather too strong. His
companions, who came over with him from China, had likewise very great
respect paid them, as more immediate partakers of his glory; so that
even a cook, who came over with this learned and sanctified company,
was raised to the dignity of superior of one of the three convents
of Nagasaki, where, by his sublime understanding and reputed great
knowledge, he obtained,” and in Kämpfer’s time still held, “the name
and repute of a _Godō_, that is, a person blessed with divine and most
acute understanding, whom they suppose to be able to find out by his
_Satori_, or Enthusiastic Speculations, such mysterious truths as are
far beyond the reach of common knowledge.”
What tended to favor Ingen’s design was an edict lately issued by the
emperor, aimed at the few remaining Catholics, and also at the sect
of the _Judō_, or Moralists, requiring everybody to belong to some
sect of the recognized religions of Japan, and to have a _Zushi_ in
their houses,—that is, a corner or altar consecrated to some idol.
Nevertheless, in spite of his favorable reception and eminent learning
and sanctity, Ingen failed to gain the submission of the various
Buddhist sects in Japan; nor was his spiritual headship acknowledged,
except by the three Chinese convents.
* * * * *
Though the prohibition of the export of silver, mentioned as having
taken place in 1671, did not affect the Dutch, the very next year the
Japanese commenced a system of measures which, within a quarter of a
century, reduced the Dutch commerce to the very narrow limit at which
it has ever since remained. The first step was to raise the value of
the koban to six tael eight maas of silver; nor was this by any means
the worst of it. The Dutch were no longer allowed to sell to the native
merchants. The government appointed appraisers, who set a certain value
on the goods, much less than the old prices, at which valuation the
Dutch must sell, or else take the goods away. Anything which the goods
sold for to the Japanese merchants, over the appraisement, went into
the town treasury of Nagasaki.[132] These appraisements grew lower and
lower every year, till at last the Dutch, threatening, if things went
on in this way, to abandon the trade altogether, petitioned the emperor
to be restored to their ancient privileges, assured to them by the
concession of Gongen-Sama [Iyeyasu]. After waiting three years, they
got a gracious answer. The appraisements were abolished, but at the
same time, in 1685, an order was suddenly issued, limiting the amount
which the Dutch might sell in any one year to the value of a hundred
thousand taels, or in Dutch money to ten tons and a half of gold,
equal to four hundred and twenty thousand dollars. All the goods of any
one year’s importation, remaining after that amount had been realized,
were to lie over till the next annual sale. At the same time, the
annual export of copper was limited to twenty-five thousand piculs; and
so matters stood at the time of Kämpfer’s visit.
The Chinese trade had meanwhile gone on increasing “to that degree”—we
quote again from Kämpfer—“as to make the suspicious and circumspect
Japanese extremely jealous of them. In the years 1683 and 1684 there
arrived at Nagasaki, in each year, at least two hundred junks, every
junk with not less than fifty people on board, making for each year
more than ten thousand Chinese visitors.” Nor was it trade alone that
drew the Chinese thither. In China, the women, except those of servile
condition, are kept in perfect seclusion. No man sees even the woman he
is to marry till she has actually become his wife; and courtesanship
is strictly forbidden and punished. The case, as we have seen, is
widely different in Japan, and numerous young and wealthy Chinese
were attracted to Nagasaki, “purely for their pleasure,” as Kämpfer
observes, “and to spend some part of their money with Japanese wenches,
which proved very beneficial to that town,”—truly a very mercantile
view of the matter!
“Not only did this increasing number of Chinese visitors excite
jealousy, but what still more aroused the suspicion of the Japanese
was, that the Jesuits, having gained the favor of the then reigning
monarch of China, (the celebrated Kanghi), with the liberty of
preaching and propagating their religion in all parts of the empire,
some tracts and books, which the Jesuit fathers had found the means
to print in China, in Chinese characters, were brought over to Japan
among other Chinese books, and sold privately, which made the Japanese
apprehensive that by this means the Catholic religion, which had been
exterminated with so much trouble and the loss of so many thousand
persons, might be revived again in the country.” And they even
suspected that the importers of these books, if not actual converts,
were at least favorers of the Catholic doctrine.
These reasons combined to produce, in 1684, at the same time with the
restrictions placed upon the Dutch, an edict, by which the Chinese were
limited to an annual importation, double the value of that allowed the
Dutch; namely, six hundred thousand taels, equivalent to eight hundred
and forty thousand dollars, the annual number of junks not to exceed
seventy, of which a specific number was assigned to each province and
colony, and each to bring not more than thirty persons. Chinese books
were, at the same time, subjected to a censorship, two censors being
appointed, one for theological, the other for historical and scientific
works, none to be imported without their approval.
This was followed up, in the year 1688, by another order, by which the
Chinese were, like the Dutch, shut up in a sort of prison, for which,
like the Dutch, they were compelled to pay a heavy rent. The site
chosen for this spot was a garden, pleasantly situated, just outside of
the town, on the side of the harbor opposite Deshima. It was covered
with several rows of small houses, each row having a common roof, and
the whole was surrounded with a ditch and a strong palisade, from which
the only exit was through well-guarded double gates[133]. Even here
the Chinese had no permanent residence, like the Dutch. They arrived in
detachments, twenty junks in spring, thirty in summer, and twenty in
autumn; and, after selling their goods, went away, leaving the houses
empty.
Besides the trade with the Dutch and the Chinese, the Lew Chew Islands
[Riūkiū] were also permitted to carry on a particular trade with the
province of Satsuma, the prince of which they acknowledged as in some
respects their sovereign. The import and sale of their goods was
limited to the annual amount of one hundred and twenty-five thousand
taels, though, in Kämpfer’s time, a much larger amount was smuggled in,
large quantities of Chinese goods being thus introduced.