Commodity and Market 37
Takeshi Hamashita points to pepper and sappanwood as two important
items bought in Malacca to be sent to China as “tribute”^131 in exchange for
silks, porcelain and the like for other places in the triangular trade. From
the Ryukyuan records, Takeshi Hamashita cites a letter from the Ryukyu
king containing a detailed list of the cargo shipped to Annam as below:
Ten thousand chin of sulphur, 1 iron helmet with gilded copper
plates and green leather pieces woven together with thread,
2 short swords in black lacquered scabbards with embossed
golden dragons, 6 short swords ornamented with gold and gilded
material, 2 long swords in red lacquered scabbards plated with
gold and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, 2 black lacquered spears in
sheaths plated with gold and inlaid with mother-of pearl, 4 bows
of mulberry wood, 120 hawk-feather arrows plated with gold, 100
bolts of soft local linen in different colors, and 2,000 chin of raw
iron; all of these are to be presented to Your Majesty the King of the
Country of An-nam [Annam] in token of our appreciation.^132The bulk of the goods shipped to Siam, Palembang, Sumatra (Aceh) and
Java consisted of silk textiles, swords and ceramics.^133 One other aspect
relating to the Ryukyu trade as suggested by Sydney Crawcour is that:
“Ryukyuan vessels came into contact with the traders of the Arab world
and ... some of the Ryukyuan ships were under the command of people
with Arab-sounding names.”^134
A total of 256 ships was dispatched from Ryukyu to Fujian between
1425 and 1564, and 104 to Southeast Asia from 1425 to 1570.^135 The gifts
bestowed by the Ming court, including silk fabrics, were taken to Siam
and Japan in exchange for local products. However, the transshipment
business declined from the sixteenth century, probably because of the
Portuguese entry into the trans-regional trade, the surge of Chinese junk
trade and the development of direct trade by Japanese with Siam and
Annam. After the imposition of the ban on seafaring activities (known
- Xu Yihu 徐玉虎, “Mingdai Liuqiu wangguo duiwai guanxi zhi yanjiu” 明代琉
球王國對外關係之研究 [The foreign relations of the Ryukyu Kingdom during
the Ming Dynasty] (Taipei: Xuesheng shuju, 1982), pp. 113–236; and Takeshi
Hamashita, “Haiyu Yazhou yu gangkou wangluo”, p. 2. - Document in Lidai Baoan, see Takeshi Hamashita, “Relations among Malacca,
Ryukyu and South China”, pp. 19–20. - Xu Yihu, “Mingdai Liuqiu wangguo duiwai guanxi”.
- Sydney Crawcour, “Notes on Shipping and Trade in Japan and the Ryukyus”,
p. 378. - Chang Pin-tsun, “Chinese Maritime Trade”, pp. 353–7; and Xie Bizhen, Zhongguo
yu Liuqiu, pp. 216–43.