Commodity and Market 39
1641 and after that in Nagasaki. When the ruling Tokugawa Shogunate
decided to close its doors to foreigners, the Portuguese were expelled
from trading with Japan and the Dutch were severely restricted in their
movements and later ordered to move from their base at Hirado to the
off-shore, artiβicial island of Deshima in Nagasaki Harbor. When the local
authorities banned the export of silver in 1668, the Dutch bought copper,
silks, ceramics and lacquered wares from Japan instead, exchanging them
for Indian textiles and raw silk from Bengal.
After the imposition of the seclusion policy, the Japanese direct trade
with Siam and Annam stopped, but the demand for foreign goods in
Japan did not disappear and the Dutch Company and Chinese traders
immediately βilled the vacuum by shipping the desired merchandise to
Nagasaki, the only port open to external trade. The incessant war ravaging
coastal China and the sea-going prohibition imposed by the early Qing
government during the Ming-Qing transition yielded extremely high
proβits from supplying raw silk to Japan. The traders chose to bypass the
China coast and established direct contact between Nagasaki and the new
source of supply in Annam. Earlier, prior to their expulsion from Japan, it
had been the Portuguese who were in control of the silk trade between
Tonkin and Japan, but now the Dutch took over from the Portuguese and
founded a trading post in Tonkin to purchase silk. Chinese traders also
βlocked to Tonkin for the same purpose. Many Chinese ships moved their
bases from the China coast to Southeast Asia in order to take advantage
of the trade with Nagasaki. During the years from the 1640s to 1660s, for
example, “about a third of the Chinese ships trading at Nagasaki departed
from Southeast Asia, and in the following two decades only about a
quarter of these Chinese ships were from mainland China itself”.^140
In shipping raw silk to Nagasaki from Tonkin, the Dutch Company
had to face the challenge of Chinese rivals, including private traders
and other merchant groups supported by the resistance force led by the
Zheng family in Fujian and Taiwan. Using the tactic of a higher bidding
price, Chinese traders were able to squeeze their Dutch competitors out
of the silk market in Tonkin. Chinese networks in Southeast Asia also
allowed them to work βlexibly. For example, they maximized their trading
proβit by espousing a multi-port operation, making inter-port voyages to
Batavia, Tonkin, the China coasts and Nagasaki.^141 After the Qing court
had lifted the maritime ban in 1684 and unsanctioned overseas trade,
Ningbo resumed its trade with Nagasaki and replaced Tonkin as the main
- Ibid.
- As shown in the shipping documents collected in The Junk Trade from Southeast
Asia, ed. Yoneo Ishii.