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

在17世纪末和18世纪初，日本的铜矿开采经历了一个前所未有的增长时期，铜成为与中国和其他亚洲和欧洲国家贸易的最重要的出口商品之一。由于这一时期的政治和社会经济结构通常被认为相当僵化，铜矿开采和铜贸易的发展为分析结构系统的灵活性和适应性以及中央和地方精英为应对不断变化的国内和国际需求而采取的各种政策和措施的效率提供了一个极好的例子。从重建全国范围内的铜矿开采和加工地理开始，然后使用案例研究来深入研究巴库府中央政府、领主和商人或行会等私人代理人之间的相互作用，并分析他们各自在日本新兴铜市场中的作用和影响。通过探索组织、经济和技术条件的发展，该项目研究了影响增长或衰退的各种因素，并形成了日本作为中国主要铜供应国的角色。根据对供应方面的分析结果，该项目第二阶段将重点关注日中铜贸易及其对区域发展的影响。

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.