Mikami Y., with J. Batts
Articles in English are almost as scarce as book- length studies. William Wayne Farris’ “Trade,
Money, and Merchants in Nara Japan” is one of the few articles to cover this early period,
weaving discussion of the court’s currencies into the author’s principal argument regarding the
critical role lower- level courtiers played as facilitators of trade, especially between the capital and
outlying regions. And Kozo Yamamura’s “The Decline of the Ritsuryō System” concludes with
a discussion of the court’s various coinages in the Nara and Heian periods and the reasons why
they proved insufficient to monetize the economy. In addition, Yamamura and Kamiki Tetsuo
trace the exchange of copper, silver, and gold between China and Japan leading up to and during
the peak of the silver trade in East Asia around the turn of the seventeenth century, as part of an
important collection of essays on the global flow of coins and bullion. Yamamura has also pub-
lished on the preferences of sixteenth- century daimyo for a system of value and collection of
tribute based on either cash or rice, extending discussion of the back and forth between cash and
commodity currencies discussed here for earlier periods in history.^1
There are also a few studies treating premodern commerce more generally that include a dis-
cussion of coins and currency to varying degrees.^2 Nevertheless, the field remains undeveloped
and ripe for exploration. Even among studies of currency, imported coins in the medieval period
cast a long shadow over domestic antecedents. Further scholarship will be required to shed light
on their circulation, value, and contexts.
The following chapter outlines the characteristics of the currencies Japan’s classical state issued
period by period from the late seventh century through the end of the Heian period in the twelfth
century, together with a discussion of circulation and commerce in the classical period more
broadly.
Currency in the later seventh century
Currency in premodern Japan took the form of round copper coins with square holes in the
center, marked with Chinese characters inscribed into their surface. Coins consistently took this
shape from the classical period up through the early modern era, and their design reflects the
influence of similar copper coins made in premodern China from the Qin dynasty’s (221–206 bce)
banliang coinage (Jap. hanryōsen, c.210 bce) onward. In this way, Japanese coins are a currency very
typical of East Asia. The ritsuryō state issued twelve distinct coinages from the beginning of the
eighth century through the first half of the tenth century. The birth of premodern currencies in
the Japanese archipelago resulted from the impact of the Tang court’s Kaiyuan tong bao copper
coins (Jap. Kaigen tsūhō), issued in 621.
It was once common belief in the field of Japanese history that the first minting of copper
coins in the archipelago was the Wadō kaichin, struck in 708.^3 In 1999, however, the remnants of
a large- scale workshop dating to the latter half of the seventh century were discovered in the
Asuka Pond Historic Ruins in Asuka, Nara prefecture. From these ruins, researchers excavated
large quantities of round copper coins with square holes and the characters ᐩᮏ (fuhon, “founda-
tion of wealth”) inscribed into them. Furthermore, these coins were discovered together with the
relics of a foundry, demonstrating conclusively that copper coins pre- dating the Wadō kaichin
were made in the late seventh century.
The excavation in turn impacted the conventional interpretation of the historical documen-
tary record. According to the Nihon shoki, in the twelfth year of Emperor Tenmu’s reign (683),
on the fifteenth day of the fourth month, the state ordered that “henceforth, [all] must use copper
coins. Silver coins may not be used.”^4 Prior to the excavation, it was uncertain what “copper
coins” referred to here, but subsequently it became clear that the coins mentioned in the Tenmu
court’s ordinance were in fact fuhon pieces. Their shape and weight were nearly identical to the