Abstract
The magistrate of Nagasaki, under the direction of the shogunate, began to issue shinpai, a kind of trading pass or permit, to the junk merchants in 1715 and declared that junk trader without the shinpai could not be permitted to trade in Japan. The Tokugawa regime used the shinpai for the junk trade until the late 1850s.
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Notes
- 1.
Many records related to pas can be seen in Diaries Kept By the Heads of the Dutch Factory, Vol. XII. The book was edited by Historiographical Institute, The University of Tokyo, and published by The University of Tokyo Press in 2015.
- 2.
Tsūjitomo Tōjin no Yakujō Sōan (通事共唐人の約条草案) in the Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture (HMHC).
- 3.
Most of the Chinese interpreters were descendants of Han Chinese people who had lived on the southeast coast of Ming China and fled to Japan in order to avoid being involved in the civil wars in the early and middle seventeenth century, late Ming and early Qing times.
- 4.
Tsūjitomo yori Tōjin e Aiwatasubeki Wappu no Jō (通事共より唐人江可相渡割符之条) in NMHC.
- 5.
Wakan Kibun 和漢寄文 (Mutual Translation Japanese to Chinese of Documents, WKKB) in Ōba (1986, p. 110). Wakan Kibun is a collection of formal documents including the applications submitted by Chinese merchants to the Nagasaki Magistrate’s office and the ordinances of the Nagasaki Magistrate etc. It was compiled in approximately 1726 by Kanzan Matsumiya (松宮観山), who served at the Nagasaki Magistrate’s office in the Kyōhō 享保 Era (1716–1735). The original source can be seen in NMHC.
- 6.
Shinpaikata Kiroku (信牌方記録 Records of the Shinpai-Secretaries, SPKK) in NMHC, edited by Osamu Ōba and published in 1986.
- 7.
See Note 5.
- 8.
WKKB, p. 110.
- 9.
SPKK, p. 13.
- 10.
The Nagasaki Confucius Temple was founded in 1647 by Gensho Mukai 向井元升, a medic-Confucian scholar in Nagasaki, and it was used as a school to teach Confucianism and also to hold ceremonies for Confucianism. From 1680, the heads of the Mukai family were in charge of this temple for generations.
- 11.
About the duties of the heads of the Mukai family as inspectors of imported books, see Matsukata (2008).
- 12.
This set of archives is stored in the NMHC.
- 13.
SPKK, p. 13. “Kōjō no Oboe” (口上之覚 A Memo on the Talks), in Seidō Bunko (SB) of NMHC, 660–732.
- 14.
Yakushi Tofu (訳司統譜 Genealogies of Interpreters), in Nagasaki Kenshi: Shiryohen 4, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1966, p. 677. Yakushi Tofu has been edited by Egawa Kunpei 頴川君平, a descendent of a Chinese interpreter, and published in 1897. This book shows us a genealogical tree of the Chinese interpreters at Nagasaki.
- 15.
“Kōjō o no Oboe”. Ibid.
- 16.
Ibid., NMHC-SB, 660-732.
- 17.
“Negai Tatematsuru Kōjōsho” (奉願口上書, A Memo on the Oral Application), NMHC-SB 660-731.
- 18.
“Tsutomekatasho no Oboe” (勤方書之覚, Memos on the Work), NMHC-SB 370-418.
- 19.
An official memorandum without a title, NMHC-SB 660-729.
- 20.
“Shinpaiwari Ukagaigaki” 信牌割窺書 (Inquiry Letter for the Judgement of the Nagasaki Magistrate Regarding to the Shinpai Issuance), SB 660-733. “Genchū Nikki” 元仲日記 (Diaries of Genchū), in Yabuta Yutaka and Wakaki Taiichi (eds.) (2010) Nagasaki Saishu Nikki (長崎祭酒日記 Diaries of the priest of Nagasaki Confucius Temple). Osaka: Kansai University Press. This book collects the dairies of the Mukai family stored in Seidō Bunko.
- 21.
Nagasaki Prefectural Nagasaki Library (ed.) (2005) Bunrui Zassai: Nagasaki Bugyosho 分類雑載:長崎奉行所 (Compilation of Various Documents related the Nagasaki Magistrate Office). Nagasaki: Nagasaki Prefectural Nagasaki Library. pp. 129–171. Bunrui Zassai is one of the most important municipal documents that has been preserved in the Nagasaki magistrate’s office and was a kind of companion of the city’s official nengyōji (年行事). From its contents, it can be assumed that these materials were edited as a book after 1828, but there is no obvious information about the time and author of the compilation.
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Peng, H. (2019). The Mechanism and Functions of the Shinpai Trading Permit System. In: Trade Relations between Qing China and Tokugawa Japan. Studies in Economic History. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7685-6_3
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