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The Formation of the Modern East Asian Economy
     Korean trade also was concerned with weapons. From China they imported, by land, large amounts of the materials needed to make good bows; from Japan they imported a large amount of swords (*) swords also entered Korea in large numbers, until Japanese captives from Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea revealed some Japanese techniques for sword-making.

     And of course, there was the rifle, introduced by the Portuguese and Dutch, briefly used by the Japanese, and little employed by the Chinese and Koreans. On land, the bow, the spear, and the sword remained the most common weapons, while on sea the sword, preferably the Japanese sword, held sway.

     By the mid-seventeenth century, all this trade in essentials, in luxury goods, and in instruments of warfare was interrupted. In all the capitals of East Asia, strategic concerns over land and sea took precedence over the growth of trade. Fearful of the troubles along their coasts, these states shut their doors to begin what the Japanese have called the age of seclusion. I shall question the full appropriateness of this term in subsequent lectures. But the mid-seventeenth century undeniably saw a dramatic increase in hostility toward foreign trade and foreigners throughout East Asia. The Tokugawa government feared further loss of Japanese silver and intrusions by Westerners; consequently, from the late 1630s it barred all Japanese from going abroad, tolerated only Chinese and Dutch foreign merchants at the single port of Nagasaki, and banned Christianity. The Koreans closed their country off even more, out of fear of further invasions by the Japanese and the new rulers of China, the Manchus. These soldiers shared the Japanese anxiety about a "silver dearth" and "copper shortage." But they were worried more about Chinese pirates than Western traders and missionaries. Aware of these pirates' long developed links to supplies and manpower on land, the Qing government forcibly moved all coastal residents of southeast China, from the Lower Yangtze delta to the Canton delta, to over 15 miles inland. It built a wall between them and the sea, eventually subduing the coastal pirates that had so long plagued these waters. In 1661, it banned, for the next 23 years, Chinese private engagement in foreign trade, just at the time the Japanese were about to stop the outflow of their silver.

     Through all of these traumatic changes, these nations never negotiated or discussed their problems with one another. They never even made use of the middlemen their societies so often rely on to solve problems. Confronted with unwanted trade and violence, these uncertain governments shut their doors and harbours and brought an end to a long cycle of maritime war and trade, particularly in southeast Asia.

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