- 公益財団法人 史学会
- 史学雑誌 (ISSN:00182478)
- vol.113, no.12, pp.1967-2003, 2004-12-20 (Released:2017-12-01)
From the late 16^<th> to the early 17^<th> century, amidst the "Age of Commerce" in the East Asian maritime region, many Chinese, including merchants, smugglers, captives, and drifters, came to south-west Japan. Especially in Kyushu, where most of the Chinese arrived, not a few Chinese settlements were formed in various seaports and castle towns. In this paper, the author discusses emigrant Chinese intellectuals in this maritime region, by focusing on physicians who sojourned in south Kyushu. Nearby the castle town of Obi 飫肥, There are two epitaphs on gravestones of Xu Zhilin 徐之〓, who had served as a physician in Obi domain during the 17^<th> century. According to these epitaphs, Xu zhilin was borne in the gentry lineage of Shangyu 上虞 county of Zhejiang province. In 1619, He made a voyage to Beijing aspiring to pass the civil service examinations, but was captured by pirates along the way. He was first taken to Nagasaki, then later moved to Satsuma, where he learned medicine from a Chinese physician residing there. Five years later, He was invited by the lord of Obi domain to serve as one of his physicians until 1666. Concerning the pedigree of Xu Zhilin, except the two epitaphs, no available sources had been found in Japan. But I had found three editions of genealogies of Xu lineage in Shanghai Library which describe the family line of Xu Zhilin in detail, and accounts on ancestors of him are almost coincide with these of epitaphs. From these genealogies, we can ascertain that he actually was a member of elite, lineage producing numerous scholar officials from the 16^<th> century. From the late 16^<th> century onward, the lift of prohibition of private maritime trade remarkably stimulated the oversea trades with south Fujian as its node. Although the ban on voyages to Japan remained, many Fujian traders had sailed to Kyushu. Particularly, south Kyushu was gradually integrated into the network of Fujian merchants. Arrivals of many Chinese physicians were also one aspect of the expansion of the Fujian network, which accompanied transfers of culture, technology, and human resources. During 16^<th> and 17^<th> century, enormous amount of silver continued to flow onto the southeast coast region of China, particularly south Fujian, from Japan and the New World. The imported silver was gradually diffused all over China, and a considerable part of it went to Beijing as taxes, then thrown onto the frontier bases of the northern border region as military expenditures. As a result the influx of silver produced booming trade and economic prosperity in the maritime Asia and China's northern border. Numerous Chinese attracted by economic chances also flowed, into these regions as traders, peasants, soldiers, and various specialists. It should be noted that the Chinese who immigrated to foreign countries included marginal intellectuals such as lower literati, merchants, and physicians. They often served the military-commercial powers in those respective regions and countries, offered advanced Chinese cultures and technology, and mediated commercial or military negotiations between the Ming Dynasty and foreign powers. Arrivals of Chinese physicians in Japan were one phenomenon, of such emigration by Chinese marginal intellectuals during the "Age of Commerce" in East Asia.