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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN
COMPARATIVE GLOBAL HISTORY
Edited by
Mihoko Oka
Palgrave Studies in Comparative Global History
Series Editors
Manuel Perez-Garcia, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Lucio De Sousa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo, Japan
This series proposes a new geography of Global History research
using Asian and Western sources, welcoming quality research and
engaging outstanding scholarship from China, Europe and the Americas.
Promoting academic excellence and critical intellectual analysis, it offers a
rich source of global history research in sub-continental areas of Europe,
Asia (notably China, Japan and the Philippines) and the Americas and
aims to help understand the divergences and convergences between East
and West.
Advisory Board
Patrick O’Brien (London School of Economics)
Anne McCants (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Joe McDermott (University of Cambridge)
Pat Manning (Pittsburgh University)
Mihoko Oka (University of Tokyo)
Richard Von Glahn (University of California, Los Angeles)
Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla (Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla)
Shigeru Akita (Osaka University)
François Gipouloux (CNRS/FMSH)
Carlos Marichal (Colegio de Mexico)
Leonard Blusse (Leiden University)
Antonio Ibarra Romero (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico,
UNAM)
Giorgio Riello (University of Warwick)
Nakajima Gakusho (Kyushu University)
Liu Beicheng (Tsinghua University)
Li Qingxin (Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences)
Dennis O. Flynn (University of the Pacific)
J. B. Owens (Idaho State University)
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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Contents
v
vi CONTENTS
ix
List of Figures
xi
List of Tables
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Mihoko Oka
M. Oka (B)
School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies and Historiographical Institute,
The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
e-mail: [email protected]
research books were written in Japanese. Masashi Haneda, who was one
of the project leaders, thought that the maritime research history accumu-
lated in Japan should be introduced to foreign countries and published A
Maritime History of East Asia, in English (Kyoto University Press & APP,
2019), together with his colleagues. The editor of this volume, Mihoko
Oka, was the associate editor of the book. This book is not a collection
of papers by individual researchers but focuses on the work of nearly 40
researchers who collaborated to co-create the most appropriate historical
narrative at the time.
Haneda had already pointed out the problem that historical research in
Japan does not follow the trends of historical research overseas (Haneda
2015).1 The fact that little is known overseas about detailed research
in Japan is not just because of Japan’s unique linguistic difficulties.
According to Haneda, Japanese historical research is “tube-like” and frag-
mented and characterized by the fact that researchers protect their areas
of expertise while being careful not to interfere with the research areas
of adjacent researchers. Such an approach to research is useful for a
deeper understanding of history, but it is a big obstacle to recognizing
the connections and understanding them more widely.
Since Japan is an island country surrounded by the sea, connections
with foreign countries have naturally been formed through the sea. There-
fore, cultural contact with foreign countries, as well as diplomacy, trade,
etc., is basically all maritime history. However, orthodox Japanese history
researchers who study Japan from the inside are sticking to the history
of relations with other countries as seen “from Japan.” There is no
perspective with regards to cross-cultural exchange, but rather it tends
to be entirely focused on the debate about “how foreign cultures were
introduced into Japan and became part of the Japanese culture.” It is
called “Japanese history of foreign relations” in Japan. The researchers
of this “Japanese history of foreign relations” are generally from the
departments of Japanese history at the faculties of letters of famous
universities, and most of them are not good at English and other foreign
languages. They can read Chinese characters that are also used in ancient
Japanese documents, but cannot speak Chinese or Korean. Many of the
researchers of “Japanese history of foreign relations” participated in the
Ningbo project mentioned earlier, along with researchers of Chinese and
∗ ∗ ∗
∗ ∗ ∗
This book is divided into two parts. One is the state of trade in East
Asia before and after the collapse of the tributary system to the Ming
Dynasty, and the other is the war of aggression in which Toyotomi
Hideyoshi of Japan sent a large number of troops to the Korean Penin-
sula with a view of conquering China at the end of the sixteenth century.
In recent years, the theory that the invasion of Korea by Hideyoshi was
carried out to counter the European expansion has been in the limelight
in Japan (Hirakawa 2018).2 In that sense, the war of aggression can also
be seen as part of Japan’s response in the global arena. Research on the
invasion of Korea from this perspective will likely become active in the
future, including the verification of the validity of this theory.
The conditions of the tributary trade to the Ming Dynasty by the
daimyōs (feudal lords) of western Japan, especially Kyushu, from the latter
half of the fifteenth century to the sixteenth century, are clarified in the
paper of Kage in Part I. Another paper by Kage has clarified the changes
in political and economic trends of Kyushu regarding trade, such as the
fact that the Otomo clan, a Warring States daimyō of Kyushu, engaged in
diplomacy and commerce not only with the Ming Dynasty but also with
the kingships of Southeast Asia, such as Cambodia. In the chapters of this
book, we clarify not only the role of the Otomo clan, but also the trade
forms and shipping activity of other daimyōs, as well as details of the Ming
Trade of the Otomo clan. Since the research conducted by Kage is highly
regarded in Japan but has rarely been introduced to an overseas audience,
his contribution here is very meaningful.
Oka analyzes the entry of the Portuguese into the East China Sea
trade of the Wokou (Japanese pirates) around 1550, mainly from histor-
ical material of the Jesuits and the descriptions in Peregrinação by Fernão
Mendes Pinto, which is a famous Portuguese literature. This chapter is
directly linked to her monograph, The Namban Trade (Brill 2021).
The paper by Fujitani has continuity with the events described by Oka.
The Portuguese, who were allowed to settle in Macau in 1557, coop-
erated with the Ming army in repelling pirates along the Chinese coast,
which were still out of control. There are few studies on the relationship
between the Portuguese and the Ming Dynasty when the Portuguese
were allowed to settle in Macau. This is due to the lack of historical
material in Portuguese and of the Jesuits during this period. Fujitani care-
fully analyzed Chinese literature, centered on Ming shi, and succeeded in
describing details that Western scholars in the same field have not been
able to clarify.
Fujita’s paper is a comprehensive study of the world map that details
the areas where Japanese Shuinsen (trading ships licensed by the Toku-
gawa shogunate) sailed in the seventeenth century. It is important to note
that research on world maps was thriving before World War II, but many
of the maps were scattered and lost after the war, and their whereabouts
became unknown. Fujita has confirmed the location of each of these maps
as far as possible and reorganized them by type. These maps are accom-
panied by very detailed lists of products and areas where Japanese ships
sailed, and they provide quite valuable information on intra-Asian trade
in the early seventeenth century.
The second part of the book, the Japanese invasion of Korea, begins
with a paper by Nakajima that analyzes the details of political movements
regarding the Ming-Japan trade in the Ming court before and after the
first invasion. The military actions of Hideyoshi invading Korea, a depen-
dent country of Ming, were an insult to the Ming Court, but on the other
hand, there were court bureaucrats who wanted to revive the Ming-Japan
tributary trade. This is also what Hideyoshi wanted, and the movement
of Hideyoshi’s important vassals that were trying to achieve the revival of
the Ming-Japan trade is also clarified here.
1 INTRODUCTION: THE MEANING OF THE EAST ASIAN … 7
Puk looked at the details of how internal conflicts arose within the
Ming army over military exploits and rewards during the war of aggres-
sion, which in turn led to a large-scale rebellion. This chapter clearly
depicts the destruction of the Japanese army by the Ming army, and at
the same time, it depicts a fierce battle between the Southern soldiers and
the Northern soldiers of Ming over the heads of enemy soldiers, which
was the basis of the rewards system, and it is possible to see a part of the
war that is not necessarily nation against nation.
Kuba clarified that Japanese arquebusiers as well as Japanese captives
acquired during this war of aggression by Ming military commanders were
used to repress the Yang Yinglong’s Revolt (1594–1600) that occurred in
Bozhou, Sichuan. This is an example that concretely reveals the universal
and strange fact that war plays the role of a kind of civilizational exchange,
as well as its tragic reality.
Finally, the paper by Yonetani concerns the repatriation of Korean
captives who were arrested and taken to Japan during the Japanese mili-
tary activities. This paper has already been published in Japanese and
is internationally recognized as an excellent paper, but this time it is
published in English, which is very meaningful in that more readers will
be able to read it. Tokugawa Ieyasu, who became the ruler of Japan after
the death of Hideyoshi and the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), tried to make
peace with Ming and Joseon. The research of Yonetani shows that the Sō
clan of Tsushima played an important role in the repatriation of captives.
It also clarifies in detail the individual names and circumstances of Korean
captives that were in Japan at the beginning of the Edo period. In recent
years, it has become known that these Korean captives were taken to
various parts of the world, and this provides very valuable information
for learning about the continuous global phenomenon caused by the war
that Hideyoshi waged.
In the introduction of this book, apart from this preliminary remark,
we added a paper by Shiro Momoki that focuses on the role that maritime
history could play in history education at Japanese schools. As mentioned
earlier, Momoki is one of the leading researchers in Japanese maritime
history. When I was a graduate student, I was part of a study group in
Osaka that was supervised by Momoki and learned the importance of
having a historical view of Japan from the outside. After that, fortunately,
I was hired by the “temple of Japanese History” in Tokyo. During the
process of establishing my identity as a researcher, I was able to avoid
being buried in national history thanks to my close look at the rebellious
8 M. OKA
3 Momoki Shiro, Yamauchi Shinji, Fujita Kayoko, and Hasuda Takashi, eds. Kaiiki
Ajiashi Kenkyu Nyumon (A Research Guide to Maritime Asian History). Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 2008.
CHAPTER 2
Momoki Shiro
1 For more detailed exposition of this subject, see this author’s papers on history
education (Momoki 2015, 2018, 2019).
2 Within the so-called 6–3–3 system, primary school (six years) and middle school
(three years) are stipulated as obligatory, while high school (three years) is not. The
curricula and textbooks of these schools must follow the National Guidelines, while every
university can run teacher qualification programs with the approval of the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sport, Science, and Technology. The government does not publish
school textbooks, but all titles have to pass a government screening process.
M. Shiro (B)
Osaka University, Suita, Japan
almost all graduates of middle school enter high school and 50% of
youth enter university or junior college. Along with this expansion, the
competitive nature of entrance examinations intensified, and the belief
that university entrance examination results determine one’s life became
widespread.3 However, from the 1990s, owing to economic stagnation
and the conservatism of the business world, the number of graduate
students, including those awarded a Ph.D., did not increase as expected.
Today, more and more universities have difficulties in filling their under-
graduate and graduate programs, not only because of the sharp decline in
the Japanese birth rate, but also due to insufficient reform of the teaching
system (especially in the humanities and social sciences), which has been
designed purely for Japanese nationals.
In primary and middle schools, history is taught as part of Social
Studies,4 while in high schools, Japanese History and World History,
together with Geography, compose the subject area of Geography and
History. When modern educational systems were imposed upon middle
schools and universities at the beginning of the twentieth century, history
was divided into three subjects/majors, namely National (Japanese)
History, Oriental (Asian) History, and Western (European and American)
History. In the Postwar Reform period, high school Oriental History and
Western History were unified to form a new subject of World History,
but at university level the tripartite system was maintained almost intact.
As education expanded and competition in university entrance exams
increased, history in high schools and for those exams became a matter of
memorizing dates and names mechanically without considering methods
of historical study or their wider implications.5 Most universities, though,
3 Though the number of candidates who are selected through high school achievements,
interviews, and/or presentations are increasing, exams on paper are still regarded as the
authentic path to university. There are two types of university exam, one organized by
National Center for University Entrance Examination (a computer-marked multiple-choice
test), and the other organized by individual universities (including essay tests). Owing to
poor finances and a lack of manpower, more and more universities, including private
universities, rely on the former, regardless of their preferred admission policies.
4 A number of great figures in Japanese history are on the curriculum in primary school,
while a comprehensive history of Japan and some topics of world history that relate to
Japan are taught in middle school.
5 A popular obsession with neutrality and fairness has helped this tendency greatly,
because any abstract concept or big picture can reflect political views, and questions
related to these cannot be marked fairly. Despite the democratic constitution and legal
2 THE STUDY OF MARITIME ASIAN HISTORY IN JAPANESE SCHOOLS 11
systems, in which eighteen-year-old students have the right to vote, most Japanese do not
seem to think it necessary for the youth to learn how to make political judgments.
6 In recent years, the number of undergraduate students (and often graduate students)
who major in Asian History has been decreasing sharply in many universities (except
for students who are interested in studying Muslim society), while the Japanese History
major attracts more and more students who are only interested in national topics. The
Western History major continues to attract students who are attracted by ‘elegant’ and/or
‘advanced’ European and North American history. The declining interest in Asian history
among students has various reasons, including frustration about the contrast between a
stagnating Japan and its developing neighbors (which has caused political and cultural
conflict between them) and the total collapse in traditional knowledge that is based on
the learning of Chinese characters and classics.
7 The National Center Test for University Admissions. It has been used by all national
and public as well as many private universities since replacing the Common First-Stage
Examination in 1990. From 2021, the new Common Test for University Admissions is
intended to more broadly test applicants’ abilities with less reliance on the multiple-choice
format.
12 S. MOMOKI
8 For a long time, major universities have required candidates to take a Course B
(four credits) of World History and/or Japanese History, for which a huge amount of
memorizing has been thought essential. This is partly so that candidates can be easily
ranked, and partly to allow specialized study (as professors do not teach more general
knowledge in a systematic manner). However, in the reformed entrance exams for new
subjects (advanced histories only have three credits), questions cannot be asked about so
many knowledge. Universities have to make a great effort to rank candidates efficiently if
there is reduced memorization. It is not so easy to mark questions that involve the big
picture or abstract concepts.
9 There are various innovative [Momoki: the term ‘revised’ looks misleading for readers
familiar with Japanese education, in which every textbook must be revised every four
or five years] textbooks for Course A (two credits) of either Japanese History or World
History, but they are seldom used for the preparation of university entrance exams. In
the case of textbooks for Course B, however, many facts are listed within a conventional
historiographical framework. Moreover, either in Japanese History or in World History,
a single textbook has gained an overwhelming market share: this is Expound History (of
Japan and of the World) published by Yamakawa. An English translation of Expound
History of the World has also been published (Hashiba et al. [eds.] 2019). Foreign readers
may be astonished by its insensible historiography and maps regarding Southeast Asia. This
textbook, with its conventional historiography and list of items to memorize, has played
the role of de facto national textbook among all those who have ever taken university
entrance exams. As far as the market for Course B is concerned, innovative texts for
Japanese History (published by Jikkyo Shuppan, Toyko Shoseki, and Shimizu Shoin, for
instance) and World History (by Tokyo Shoseki, Teikoku Shoin, and Jikkyo Shuppan) are
far from successful.
2 THE STUDY OF MARITIME ASIAN HISTORY IN JAPANESE SCHOOLS 13
10 The term Asian Maritime History (kaiiki Ahiashi) was first employed by the scholars
who inaugurated the Maritime Asian History Research Group in 2013, including Fujita
Akiyoshi, Yamauchi Shinji, and the current author. General research trends in the field
were introduced in Momoki et al. (2008) and Fujita et al. (2013), while large-scale
pictures of maritime Asia in the second millennium were drawn in Haneda and Oka
(2019). The Minerva Series of World History, a global history series that was launched in
2016, also pays much attention to maritime Asia (Haneda 2016; Akita 2019; Nagahara
2019).
11 A boom in the study of maritime expansion in medieval and early modern Japan took
place between the 1930s and 1945 in major universities in mainland Japan and also in
Taipei under the Japanese rule. After 1945, however, a reaction to militarist expansionism
combined with the dominance of the social sciences (represented by Marxist theory) that
were only interested in the structure of a closed nation and people’s struggle, and research
into Japan’s external relationships was almost forgotten (despite the activities of pioneering
scholars such as Iwao Seiichi and Kobata Atsuhi). It was only in the 1980s that there was
an academic revival led by the younger generation, such as Arano Yasunori and Murai
Shosuke (followed by the next generation, including Hashimoto Yu, Enomoto Wataru,
and Oka Mihoko), this often being stimulated by new academic trends in local history,
such as Ryukyu/Okinawa (led by Takara Kurayoshi). The idea of Hoppo History (history
of the Northern region, including areas outside the national territory of Japan), which
was mainly proposed in Hokkaido, also played an outstanding role. The situation was
not so different for Japan’s academic study of Chinese history and Korean history, except
for the traditionally styled research on overseas Chinese. In the case of Chinese history,
foreign trade and external relationships started to attract Japanese Sinologists of Imperial
China (first the specialists in the Ming–Qing period, including Kishimopto Mio, Ueda
Makoto, and Nakajima Gakusho, then those who were studying earlier periods) only after
the Cultural Revolution ended, when China began to search its past in relation to the era
of Reform and Open-Door Policies.
12 During the decades up to the 1970s, academic study of Southeast Asian history had
begun to include maritime trade and port cities. Scholars such as Wada Hisanori and Ikuta
Shigeru collaborated with those studying Ryukyu history. From the 1980s onwards, Ishii
Yoneo and Sakurai Yumio led many research projects that involved both foreign scholars,
such as Anthony Reid, and young Japanese students, including the present author.
14 S. MOMOKI
13 Pioneering scholars included Yajima Hikoich, who worked on Muslim trade in the
Western Indian Ocean, and Karashima Noboru, who worked on medieval Tamil networks
in South and Southeast Asia.
14 Practical divisions are also problematic. For instance, both Asian history and Japanese
history often quote sources written in classical Chinese, but methodologies for quotation
and translation vary between academic articles and high school textbooks.
2 THE STUDY OF MARITIME ASIAN HISTORY IN JAPANESE SCHOOLS 15
Problems mainly come from the highly developed but over-rigid disci-
pline of the study in Japanese History (this often being increased by
a neglect of those who were studying foreign histories). For instance,
among academics and in universities, Japanese History is clearly divided
into four successive phases: Ancient History, Medieval History, Early
Modern History, and Modern and Contemporary History, with histo-
rians who are studying Japan’s international relationships being allocated
a marginal role in every instance. Although the fundamental impact of
international conditions is generally admitted in the Ancient and Modern
and Contemporary phases, all four phases are entirely focused on Japan,
neither taking into account global and regional periods, nor including
discussion about long-term change and continuity beyond traditional
units such as ‘ancient’ and ‘medieval’. This inward-looking approach used
to allow them to accept the Soviet-style comparative way of periodiza-
tion,15 according to which every nation evolved on a uniform path in
different paces. After the decline of Soviet-style Marxist history, which
dominated Japanese academia for more than two decades after 1945,
Japanese historians, especially those who studied the Medieval and Early
Modern phases, became more conservative in making broad compar-
isons with other countries, because of Japan’s seemingly unique political
system. Even today, not many scholars show an interest in comparing
Japanese domestic experiences and systems (kingship, aristocracy, and the
feudal system, for example) with Asian and/or world conditions, although
research into connections with the outside world was already popular,
even during the period of seclusion (sakoku) under the Tokugawa Shogu-
nate. Foreign historians found it difficult to grasp Japanese academic
trends or new conceptions of Japanese History, given the plethora
of specialized studies that were couched in a unique historiographical
language.
The situation has been made worse by the deficiency of Japanese
general education, thanks to which few students chance to study widely
new fields of research (social history, gender history, and ecological
history, for instance). At both high school and university levels, general
topics, such as the nature of science or academic research, or the differ-
ences between and common features among various disciplines, are
15 The Soviet-style which I intend to mean here is the idea that the periodization of a
certain area should be different from the periodization of another area. It is not suitable
for the current trends to think about history that should be aware of global.
16 S. MOMOKI
seldom taught, the focus being instead on intensive memorizing (in high
schools), empirical research of a narrow field (in university history), and
teaching skills in the narrow sense (in teacher training programs). Even
in university liberal arts programs, students spend most of their time
studying the outline of individual disciplines and research topics without
the opportunity to consider general academic trends or compare different
disciplines. Few high school teachers who were trained under such condi-
tions are capable of understanding the full scope of historical research
and general pictures of Japanese History and World History. They cannot
help but teach by rote facts they learned at high school, leavened with a
small amount of new knowledge picked up at university, without consid-
ering the basic discrepancy between Japanese History and World History
(let alone related subjects, such as Geography, Civics, Ethics, and so
forth).
This lack of a general view has caused many specific problems for
Asian Maritime History. The deep-rooted combination of Japanese partic-
ularism and Eurocentrism is so enduring that when teachers and museum
curators try to connect their locality to global history, many of them auto-
matically seek connections with Europe and America. Even in Nagasaki,
where more than two-thirds of trade was conducted by Chinese traders
under the seclusion policy, only the interaction with Dutch and other
European people is remembered. There are still a considerable number of
disproved theories, which derive from research conducted before 1945,
that have still to be corrected in textbooks. Examples are those relating
to Japan’s tribute missions dispatched to the Tang (kentoshi), and the
Ming licensed tribute-trade system, which are treated by teachers as if they
were uniquely experienced by Japan.16 Textbooks pay more attention to
the trade of Japan with Southeast Asia at the end of the sixteenth and
the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, but they still reproduce maps
that were drawn more than half a century ago (when no Japanese histo-
rians learned local languages or the history of Southeast Asia), without
referring to recent books and other material published by specialists in
Southeast Asian studies (Hasuda 2019). New fields of study, such as
gender, also tend to reproduce conventional frameworks. For example,
scholars were shocked when an excellent guide to Japanese gender history
was published (Kurushima et al. 2015) without any reference to compar-
isons with other countries in the medieval and early modern periods.
Surely it is worth studying such topics as the gender of Japanese ‘pirates’
in the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, or the impact of seclusion
on the formation of the Ie (family/household) system peculiar to Japan
during the Tokugawa period, isn’t it? Finally, the worldwide reconsid-
eration of modernization and modernity (often leading to reassessment
of the early modern era) that has taken place since the latter half of
the twentieth century has not yet reached new textbooks: conventional
historiography, which emphasizes the stagnant nature of East Asian coun-
tries during the late early modern period, is still dominant. The first text
books issued for the new compulsory subject of Modern and Contempo-
rary History (the screening of which was undertaken by MEXT in 2020),
do not appear to be free from traditional assumptions that there was a
universal model of modernization in East Asia, that all ‘sleeping’ countries
were shocked by the impact of the West, and that Japan alone succeeded
in self-modernizing.
two interpretations (not only among high school teachers but also among
professional scholars), which are at opposite ends of the spectrum: one
will not accept Japan’s tributary position even in the Tang and Ming
Periods, while the other overemphasizes the effect of China’s tribute–
investiture system upon surrounding countries. Both appear to share a
simplistic image of vassal states and do not take into account the diversity
and flexibility of interstate relationships in the pre-modern Asian world.
This topic is intertwined with the debates around spatial setting.
While some scholarship tends to emphasize the influence of the Chinese
tribute–investiture system upon the policy and world consciousness of
surrounding countries (with the major purpose of criticizing the histo-
riography of Japan, a historiography that has been overemphasizing the
independence of Ancient Japan), Central Eurasian scholarship insists
on the superiority of nomadic peoples over the ideologically arrogant
China.17 These frameworks therefore do not mesh together, and both
pay little attention to Southeast Asia, including the Sinicized Vietnam.
On the contrary, maritime Asianists have been dissatisfied both with too
narrow a framework for East Asia (with many scholars studying only
the three countries of Japan, China, and Korea to satisfy a wider view
beyond national history, but neglecting Southeast Asia, because its civi-
lization did not interest them) and also with the dominance of Central
Eurasian history (which tends to insist on strong political power and
large-scale human networks, often overlooking the viewpoints of the small
and weak). Maritime Asianists can intervene in this debate in fruitful ways.
They have pursued more comprehensive viewpoints, including a compar-
ison between trade in Central Eurasia through oasis cities and that in
Southeast Asia through port polities, as well as Lieberman’s (2003, 2009)
comparison among the countries in the Protected Zone of Eurasia, which
did not suffer invasion from Inner Asian peoples but the Mongols, and
would become the basis of modern nation-states.
Another task for Asian Maritime History is to provide a comprehen-
sive overview of important commodities and their related production and
technologies, such as ceramics, precious metals, and copper coins, the
history of which is so far taught in a fragmentary manner across various
17 Central Eurasian academics are generally indifferent to maritime Asia. Even for the
Mongol Empire, few scholars other than Mukai Masaki and Yokkaichi Yasuhiro (and some
specialists in the Korean peninsula and those in supra-regional cultural interactions) have
studied the maritime world closely.
2 THE STUDY OF MARITIME ASIAN HISTORY IN JAPANESE SCHOOLS 19
RQ.4. What maritime policies did the Ming enforce and how did
the surrounding countries respond to them?
G. What policies were enforced by the Ming (from 1368 to the mid-
sixteenth century) regarding maritime trade and piracy.
22 S. MOMOKI
(1) The century of silver: Iwami mine and haifuki refinement tech-
nology (with lead), Ikuno and Sado mines, American silver and the
trade of Manila Galleon, refinement with mercury, (late) Japanese
pirates, Wang Zhi, clandestine trade in which the Portuguese were
involved, hybrid cultures and identities of pirates, popular human
trafficking, lift of the maritime ban (of the Ming), market trade
in Guangdong, opening of Zhangzhou port (Fujian), the burst of
Chinese trade for silver, new economic and taxation system of China
based on silver, commodity production in Jiangnan (lower Yangzi
region) such as cotton, raw silk, and silk fabrics, Jindezhen porcelain
(including five-colored overglaze enamel wares), the huge silver flow
to the Great Wall, troubles caused by ‘Barbarians in the North and
Japanese in the South’.
(2) The entry of European powers into Asian trade: clove,
nutmeg, pepper, the Maluku or Spice Islands (Ternate, the Banda
Islands), cinnamon; Portuguese, Goa, Malacca, Macau, matchlock
guns and mercenaries, Catholic missionaries, Jesuit Society, Fran-
cisco Xavier, Magellan’s voyage, Spanish occupation of the Philip-
pines, Manila, Dutch East India Company (VOC), Batavia, Taiwan,
English East India Company (EIC), missionaries and merchants
who served Asian courts, Matteo Ricci, Xu Guangqi, Faulcon in
Ayuthaya; Columbian Exchange in Asia (e.g., sweet potato, maize,
potato, pumpkin, chili, tobacco, syphilis).
(3) Gunpowder empires in Southeast and East Asia: Muslim
states in maritime Southeast Asia (e.g., Johor, Ace, Banten,
Mataram, Makassar, Brunei, Champa); Theravada Buddhist states
in mainland Southeast Asia (Taunngoo, Ayutthaya, Lan Sang,
Cambodia); civil war of Dai Viet (Tonkin, Cochinchina); the trans-
formation of Japan–Ming trade from the interstate license trade to
clandestine/private one led by daimyos and merchants in Western
Japan, Tanegashima, Sakai, Hirado, Nagasaki, Namban Boeki (trade
24 S. MOMOKI
(such as tea, opium and soy beans), trade and immigration from
the ports of Guangzhou, Teochiu, Amoy, etc., import of marine
products from maritime Asia (sea cucumber, bird’s nests, shark fin,
etc.).
(5) Incorporation of maritime Southeast Asia into modern
world system: cash crop economy in Dutch Java (coffee and sugar)
and Spanish Philippines (sugar and tobacco), EIC, Canton Trade,
Strait Settlements, Singapore, the Anglo-Burma War, opium trade,
the outflow of silver from China; the Chinese Century 1730–1830
in Southeast Asia, agricultural production and mining by Chinese
migrants, Chinese local polities such as Ha Tien and Songkla,
Chinese congsi business organizations and secret societies; new waves
of immigrants from India (e.g., Tamil and Gujarat) and West Asia
(e.g., sa’id from Yemen).
Final Question: What are the merits and demerits of the Seclusion
(sakoku) policy of the Edo Shogunate? Could Japan continue to develop
without seclusion in the global and regional situation that pertained in the
mid-seventeenth century? When did the demerits of seclusion (vis-à-vis
modernizing Europe) become serious?
Since the 1990s, the number of university candidates who have taken
the World History examination has continuously decreased, because
World History has required more, and more disorganized, learning by
rote than Japanese History and Geography. The globalization and ‘Asian-
ization’ of Japanese History is still superficial, while traditional knowledge
of East Asian civilization (once shared by all educated people in Japan),
which was passed on using Chinese characters, has now almost disap-
peared. Against this background, recent politico-historic conflicts have
clearly weakened interest in and understanding of Asian history among
Japanese youth. These trends seem to go against the current of devel-
oping economic ties and exchange among East Asian countries in the
sphere of popular culture (comics, animation films, TV dramas, computer
games, etc.). The situation in neighboring countries does not seem to
be much better, despite initiatives such as the new Korean high school
subject of East Asian History. To change this pessimistic outlook for
global history, Japan’s academics, who have previously emphasized Asian
perspectives, would do well to set forth a new vision of world history
that includes Japan’s position within it. Asian Maritime History could
contribute directly to this by integrating our understanding of Japan and
2 THE STUDY OF MARITIME ASIAN HISTORY IN JAPANESE SCHOOLS 27
References
Akita Shigeru, ed. 2019. Globaru-ka no Sekaishi [A World History of Globaliza-
tion]. Minerva Series of World History 3. Kyoto: Minerva Shobo.
Fujita Kayoko, Momoki Shiro, and Anthony Reid, eds. 2013. Offshore Asia,
Maritime Interactions in Eastern Asia before Steamships. Singapore: Institute
of Southeast Asian Studies.
Haneda Masashi, ed. 2016. Chiikishi to sekaishi [Local/Regional History and
World History]. Minerva Series of World History 2. Kyoto: Minerva Shobo.
Haneda Masashi, and Oka Mihoko, eds. 2019. A Maritime History of East Asia.
Kyoto: Kyoto University Press.
Hashiba Yuzuru, Kishimoto Mio, Komatsu Tastuo, and Mizushuima Tsukasa
(supervisions). 2019. World History for High School. Tokyo: Yamakawa
Shuppannsha.
Hasuda Takashi. 2019. Shuinsen boeki-Nanyo nihonmachi chizu no saikento
[Revisiting Maps Concerning the Red Seal Ship Trade and the Japanese
Quarter]. Annual Bulletin of the North East Asian Studies 24: 1–8.
Kurushima Noriko, Nagano Hiroko, and Osa Setsuko, eds. 2015. Rekishi o
yomikaeru: Jenda kara mita Nihonshi [Toward a Different Reading of History:
Japanese History from a Gender Perspective]. Tokyo: Otsuki Shoten.
Lieberman, Victor. 2003 [2009]. Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global
Context, c. 800–1830. vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Momoki Shiro. 2015. In Search of Integrated Education of World and Japanese
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ence: Researching World History in the Schools; Nationwide and Worldwide:
A Conference of the Alliance for Learning in World History, University of
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Momoki Shiro. 2018. History Education in Japanese Senior High Schools and Its
Reform: What Should Be Changed to Help Students ‘Think’ about History.
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教育比較研究工作坊], Shanghai, East China Normal University, September
22–23 (proceedings, pp. 167–99).
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ings in Contemporary Japan. Paper for Panel 1.3, The Role of Universities in
the Reform of High School-Level History Education, 4th AAWH Congress,
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2008. Kaiiki Ajiashi Kenkyu Nhumon [A Research Guide to Maritime Asian
History]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
28 S. MOMOKI
Toshio Kage
Introduction
This study examines how the medieval daimyōs (feudal warlords) of
Western Japan came to be involved in diplomatic relations and trade with
the Ming from the mid-fifteenth to the late sixteenth centuries, at a time
when fully centralized authority did not yet exist in Japan. It considers
their economic activities and also the activities of merchants who were
involved in the sea trade.
For Japanese people, foreign countries have always been described as
“overseas” (kaigai), because Japan is an archipelago surrounded by the
sea. Thus, in premodern times, intercourse with foreigners was entirely
dependent on sea routes. Among all overseas countries, China has always
T. Kage (B)
Faculty of Intercultural Studies, Nagoya Gakuin University, Nagoya, Japan
1 Asō Documents , 50 (Kyūshū Shiryō Sōsho [Kyūshū Historical Documents Library], 17).
2 According to the Boshi Nyūmin-ki, record of the diplomatic mission to the Ming in
1468, the ships for the mission were commandeered from Buzen, Suō, and Bingo. The
smallest was the Yakushi-maru from Kaminoseki in Suō, with a capacity of 500 kokus.
The largest was the Tera-maru from Moji in Buzen, with a capacity of 1800 kokus. In
addition, the Izumi-maru from Moji in Buzen was a huge ship capable of loading 2500
kokus, but was too large for the journey to China. The 1800 kokus Tera-maru was also a
large ship that frequently encountered “difficulties.” This interesting point demonstrates
that in the fifteenth century large ships were not always the best for diplomatic missions
to the Ming crossing the East China Sea.
3 JAPANESE DAIMYŌS AS SEA LORDS … 33
travel abroad. But what about more powerful lords of the shugo daimyō
and sengoku daimyō class?
To take one example, in the early fifteenth century, the shugodai (repre-
sentatives of provincial shugo) of Settsu Province issued a permit called
kasho for a voyage from Kyūshū to Hyōgo to the shugo daimyō Ōtomo
Chikayo in Bungo Province, in order to transport goods belonging to
the Shogunate aboard a large vessel named Kasuga-maru.3 According
to the information shown in the permit, the load capacity of this ship,
which sailed the Inland Sea in 1412, was 1500 kokus.4 This was several
times larger than Asō’s ship mentioned earlier, being equivalent to the
ships sent to the Ming as diplomatic vessels in the mid-fifteenth century.
Details of the ship’s construction are not clear from the document, but it
was likely large enough to cross an open body of water such as the East
China Sea.
Indeed, among the historical documents related to minor lords and
shugo and sengoku daimyōs of Western Japan, there is abundant infor-
mation about the transportation of goods by ships and about the
construction of ships. For example, in the Uwai Kakuken Diary of the
Uwai family, who were based in Miyazaki and controlled Hyūga Province
as retainers of the Shimazu family (shugo and sengoku daimyō) of Satsuma
Province in the mid-sixteenth century, several entries from 1584 to the
following year concern ships, using terms such as funade (departure of
ships), uwanori (soldiers or guards on ships), funa-zosaku (construction
of ships), and funa-iwai (celebration of ships).5 Uwai Satokane, who
entered Miyazaki Castle in 1577 as the jitō-shiki (manager and lord of
manor) of Hyūga and was dispatched by Shimazu after the downfall of the
Itō family’s predecessors in office, placed his father in Shiwasuzaki Castle
in the southeastern suburbs of Miyazaki and started to use the inlet of
Oriusako, situated at the foot of the castle, to build his own ships. When
a new ship was completed, he waited for a favorable tide and inaugurated
Labio-glosso-laryngeal,
1169
44
of chronic lead-poisoning,
685
176
Spinal spastic,
861
Spinal unilateral,
1165
Stage of, in writers' cramp,
518
Paraplegia, hysterical,
238
in acute myelitis,
817
in nervous diseases,
43
1093
46
Paresis in general paralysis of the insane,
189
1196
633
478
of hystero-epilepsy, characters,
293
304
,
306
of vertigo, characters,
417
818
868
in chorea,
448
in diffuse sclerosis,
888
875
in epilepsy,
481
195
in hemiplegia,
962
862
in spinal syphilis,
1025
in tabes dorsalis,
829
835
,
857
858
1092
265
266
52
1251
of infantile spinal paralysis,
1114
586
595
Pathology of athetosis,
460
of brain syphilis,
1014
1263
of catalepsy,
334
of chorea,
450
of chronic hydrocephalus,
744
lead-poisoning,
689
of hysteria,
208
of hystero-epilepsy,
291
of insanity,
121
of neuralgia,
1221
699
of tremor,
431
of tubercular meningitis,
729
of tumors of brain,
1046
of spinal cord,
1096
196
708
996
of labio-glosso-laryngeal paralysis,
1172
of migraine,
410
of multiple neuritis,
1196
of spina bifida,
759
1167
1273
Periodic insanity,
150
407
of neuralgias,
1212
Peripheral causes of epilepsy,
475
1176
injuries of,
1182
65
779
288
1225
in paralysis agitans,
438
978
772
Phthisis, influence of alcoholism on production of,
609
of neuralgia,
1218
214
to mental diseases,
119
142
649
668
Physiognomy of acute alcoholism,
588
717
718
of delirium tremens,
628
of labio-glosso-laryngeal paralysis,
1170
654
of tubercular meningitis,
725-727
580
Physiology of dreams,
370
865
of speech,
567
of tabes dorsalis,
840
721
Congestion of,
715
716
716
719
718
Etiology and synonyms,
716
Prognosis,
720
Symptoms,
717
Treatment,
720
Bleeding in,
720
Counter-irritation, use,
721
Diet in,
721
721
721
988
1273
645
Pleuræ, disorders of, in chronic alcoholism,
610
Pneumonia, in alcoholism,
609
1213
1151
Polyneuritis,
1195