Japanese-Chinese Copper Trade Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries: Regional, Interregional and International Aspects

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Japanese copper mining experienced a period of unprecedented growth, and copper became one of the most important export goods for the trade with China and other Asian and European countries. As the political and socio-economic structures of that period are usually regarded as rather rigid, the development of copper mining and copper trade provides an excellent example for analysing the flexibility and adaptability of the structural system and the efficiency of various policies and measures taken by the central and local elites to cope with changing internal and international demand. Starting with the reconstruction of the geography of copper mining and processing on a nation-wide scale, case studies are then used to examine in-depth the interactions between the central Bakufu government, domainal lords, and private agents like merchants or guilds, and to analyse their respective roles and influences in the emerging copper market in Japan. By exploring the development of organisational, economic and technological conditions, the project examines the various factors that influenced growth or decline, and shaped Japan s role as main supplier of copper to China. Based on the results of this analysis of the supply side, the project will in the second phase focus on the Japanese-Chinese copper trade and its implications for regional development.