Mikami Y., with J. Batts
fictitious leader of merchants who traveled east to the “Land of Fushū” and west to the “Island of
Kika,” and describes him encouraging commercial activity as he crisscrossed the Japanese archi-
pelago. The goods treated in the work are varied, including “Chinese products” (karamono) such
as bishop wood, sappanwood, and rosewood, alongside domestic fare such as gold, silver, pearl
oysters, sea snails, eagle feathers, and dyed leather, all of which circulated widely.^50 In this sketch
of the merchant, active across an extensive area, we catch a glimpse of something qualitatively
different from that of the Nara- period shōryo.
How did these merchants engaged in long- distance trade come into being? Kushiki Yoshinori
adopts the position that the latter half of the tenth century was a pivotal period, the point at
which a truly wide- ranging sphere of commodity circulation took shape.^51 The notion that the
circulation of currency ceased precisely when an extensive network of commodity distribution
was developing might at first seem strange. It could, however, be that the independent develop-
ment of far- reaching commercial activity brought about a decline in the role of government-
issued coins. Adopting this position, the latter tenth century, marked by the cessation of new
coinage and the formation of extended commercial networks, can be thought of as a period of
epochal change in the circulation of commercial goods. Further research will be required to
deepen our understanding of the actual conditions of this time.
Notes
1 Kozo Yamamura and Kamiki Tetsuo, “Silver Mines and Sung Coins: A Monetary History of Medi-
eval and Modern Japan in International Perspective”; Yamamura Kozo, “From Coins to Rice: Hypo-
thesis on the Kandaka and Kokudaka Systems”; and “The Growth of Commerce in Medieval Japan.”
There are also a handful of articles by Japanese scholars that have been translated into English. The
most relevant to our topic in this chapter is Sakaehara Towao’s “Coinage in the Nara and Heian
Periods,” which appeared in a volume of Acta Asiatica (volume 39) devoted to the history of coinage.
Sakaehara’s article was the only one to address the classical period. Other Japanese scholarship in
translation on coinage includes Honda Hiroyuki’s “Copper Coinage, Ruling Power and Local Society
in Medieval Japan,” which discusses the efforts by daimyo and the Muromachi shogunate to deal with
foreign and domestic counterfeit coins during the fifteenth century; Kuroda Akinobu’s “Copper
Coins Chosen and Silver Differentiated: Another Aspect of the ‘Silver Century’ in East Asia,” on the
same subject during the sixteenth century; and Wakita Haruko’s “The Character of Japan’s Trade
with Ming: A Price- Centered View,” which analyzes prices, exchange rates, and arbitrage trade
between China and Japan in the late medieval period, discussing coins alongside precious metals and
textiles.
2 These include Torao Toshiya and William Wayne Farris, “Nara Economic and Social Institutions”;
Charlotte von Verschauer’s Across the Perilous Sea: Japanese Trade with China and Korea from the Seventh to
the Sixteenth Centuries; Bruce Batten’s Gateway to Japan: Hakata in War and Peace: 500–1300 and To the
Ends of Japan: Premodern Frontiers, Boundaries, and Interactions; Suzanne Gay’s The Moneylenders of Late
Medieval Japan; Hitomi Tonomura’s Community and Commerce in Late Medieval Japan: The Corporate Vil-
lages of Tokuchin- Ho; and Mary Elizabeth Berry’s The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto.
3 The court changed the era name to Wadō (“Japanese copper”) following the discovery of copper depos-
its in eastern Honshu.
4 Nihon shoki, 683 4/15.
5 Matsumura Keiji, “Fuhon shichiyōsen no saikentō,” and Sakaehara Towao, Nihon kodai senka kenkyū,
59–99.
6 Mikami Yoshitaka, Nihon kodai no kahei to shakai, 28–30, and Tōno Haruyuki, Kahei no Nihonshi.
7 Kokuritsu rekishi minzoku hakubutsukan, Okane no tamatebako: senka no rettō nisen’nenshi kikaku tenji.
8 Kim Won- yong, Bunei ōryō.
9 The seven bodies were Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn, along with the sun and moon.
10 Sue ware (sueki, “offering vessel”) was a type of unglazed pottery produced in Japan from the fifth
through the tenth centuries, introduced to the archipelago through the Korean peninsula. Sue ware
could serve a ritual function, but its production and use became more utilitarian over time.