Foreign trade and domestic networks — A few remarks on the organisation of tributary embassies to China in the Muromachi period

Abstract

The aim of this article is to rethink the connection between foreign trade and domestic economy in late medieval Japan.The article takes a look at the financial side of the tributary missions to Ming China, investigating how commodities for tribute and for trade were organised. In the 1970s, Sasaki Gin’ya was the first to criticise that research on foreign trade and research on the domestic economy were being conducted separately. He emphasised the importance of complex interdisciplinary research in order to reveal the connection between foreign trade and the domestic economy. Even though this issue had been previously raised, no research had been conducted with the explicit purpose of connecting foreign trade and the domestic economy during the Muromachi period until the past two decades. Contributions that have been made in recent years have aimed at revealing the connections between domestic commercial or religious networks with foreign relations, mainly focusing on the role of Zen monks in diplomacy and trade and on the import and distribution of commodities from China. In Western scholarship, this topic is still under-researched and provides potential for further investigations.   

Thus, the paper tries to provide an inventory of case studies that help us imagine and understand what kinds of connections existed between domestic networks and foreign trade in medieval Japan that made the procuring of tribute items and commercial products for official trade in China possible. Being aware of networks in medieval society, such as the religious network—and also closely connected to that the commercial network—of Honganji or Tenryūji, can help us connect the scattered and loose information in the sources, in order to explain what contributed to the development of foreign trade. The paper argues that despite the weakening of shogunal power, tributary trade continued because the structure of ship management transformed. Tribute ships became part of commercial ventures backed by the flourishing late medieval Japanese economy, and the increase of capital led to an increase in investors who were ready to participate in trade with China. The way that products were procured shows different patterns that provide good examples to help us understand how local commercial, social, and religious networks were utilised for procuring Japanese commodities.