Modern Japanese Businessmen In Commercial Activities And Its Historical Role

The early modern era ( 1568-1867 ) in Japanese history refers to the Azuchi-Momoyama Period and the Edo Period. It was the last period and climax of feudal society. There were several kinds of merchants in this era. They were called the'early modern merchants'. The activities of those merchants broke down the foundation of feudatory reign and gave the Japanese society an impulse to develop the modern capitalist merchandise trade, which made Japan prepare to face the upcoming capitalist era materially. This thesis will discuss the commercial activities from different vacations at different levels during the 300 years in the early modern era, on the basis of research findings in both Chinese and Japanese academia. Through this, the social characteristics in pre-capitalist Japan will be presented.There were two stages in the development of commodity economy at the early modern era, which were'seigniorial commodity economy'and'rural commodity economy'. At the stage of'seigniorial commodity economy', the merchants were generally from rich and powerful families or old and well-know families. By the development of commodity economy in rural areas at 18th century, the stage of'rural commodity economy'came up. Because of the expansion of common people's market, the merchants who belong to middle and lower status became more and more, including the rural merchants, unprivileged urban merchants and the new type of usury merchants.Through the depiction of the business activities from different vacations and stages, the historical consequence, especially the profound influence which those activities brought on the system of commodity circulation and the scale of market in pre-modern Japan will be argued. At the same time, the concrete measures which merchants took when they faced the changes of market system and circulation system will be described. The rise and fall of this process will be also demonstrated.This thesis argues that at the first stage of pre-modern period, the merchants from rich, powerful and well-known families were outdated because of the decline of'seigniorial commodity economy'. The rural commodity economy, on the contrary, developed gradually because of the expansion of common market. Those business activities not only expanded the lower market but also attacked fiercely on the circulation system which was dominated by the privileged merchants. During this process, the merchants who belong to middle and lower status wanted to control the producing and circulation system further.