Changes

The chief exports from Japan in this period were precious metals (chiefly [[silver]] and [[copper]]), especially in the first half of the period, and marine products, which were divided into two categories. ''Tawaramono'' (goods in rice straw bales) included dried abalone, shark fin, and sea cucumber, while another category, ''shoshiki kaisanbutsu'' ("various kinds marine products") included dried kelp and, as the term suggests, a variety of other marine products.<ref>Robert Hellyer, ''Defining Engagement'', Harvard University Press (2009), 55.</ref> By the beginning of the 19th century, the flow of precious metals had reversed, with the shogunate successfully halting the outflow of [[gold]] and silver, restricting the outflow of copper, and then beginning to ''import'' silver in considerable quantities, exchanging for it, chiefly, marine products.

The chief exports from Japan in this period were precious metals (chiefly [[silver]] and [[copper]]), especially in the first half of the period, and marine products, which were divided into two categories. ''Tawaramono'' (goods in rice straw bales) included dried abalone, shark fin, and sea cucumber, while another category, ''shoshiki kaisanbutsu'' ("various kinds marine products") included dried kelp and, as the term suggests, a variety of other marine products.<ref>Robert Hellyer, ''Defining Engagement'', Harvard University Press (2009), 55.</ref> By the beginning of the 19th century, the flow of precious metals had reversed, with the shogunate successfully halting the outflow of [[gold]] and silver, restricting the outflow of copper, and then beginning to ''import'' silver in considerable quantities, exchanging for it, chiefly, marine products.

Saitô Osamu identifies the 1820s as marking the key turning point in the significant shift in the Japanese economy from agriculture to proto-industrialization, in which local operations in both rural and urban areas began to focus on the more specialized production of specific goods expressly for the purpose of selling them in distant markets (i.e. in the big cities, and/or into the broader nationwide commercial networks). Trade networks had grown more and more integrated over the course of the period, reaching even into many rural provincial parts of the country, and so by the 1820s, not only did rural and provincial consumers have regular access to a wide variety of goods both imported and domestic, but they were also able to more intensively focus their own production efforts on a given product, selling it into these commercial networks, and being able to buy enough food and other goods to live on, in return.<ref>Hellyer, 117.</ref>

Saitô Osamu identifies the 1820s as marking the key turning point in the significant shift in the Japanese economy from agriculture to proto-industrialization, in which local operations in both rural and urban areas began to focus on the more specialized production of specific goods expressly for the purpose of selling them in distant markets (i.e. in the big cities, and/or into the broader nationwide commercial networks). Trade networks had grown more and more integrated over the course of the period, reaching even into many rural provincial parts of the country, and so by the 1820s, not only did rural and provincial consumers have regular access to a wide variety of goods both imported and domestic, but they were also able to more intensively focus their own production efforts on a given product, selling it into these commercial networks, and being able to buy enough food and other goods to live on, in return.<ref>Hellyer, 117.</ref> Many rural areas, particularly in coastal areas, also grew during this period, becoming more prosperous and more interconnected, transforming from mere fishing villages or merely locally active ports into more prominent regional ports. As storage & shipping agents (''[[tonya|ton'ya]]'') in these rural areas began to compete against those located in the more major cities, merchant shippers turned away from the urban ''ton'ya'', to rely more heavily on those in smaller towns charging lower fees. In just the few decades between the 1750s and the 1780s, the number of ships putting in at [[Okayama]], for example, dropped by a third, as many of them began to instead offload their goods at smaller harbors in the area. Similarly, the town of [[Kaminoseki]] in [[Suo province|Suô province]], a fishing village and harbor of local significance which grew to more prominence over the course of the Edo period, was by the 1840s home to warehouses storing just about every major type of goods that passed through the [[Inland Sea]], from [[kombu|kelp]] to [[lacquerwares]], [[timber]], [[cotton]], [[tea]], [[salt]], and [[sugar]].<ref>Martin Dusinberre, ''Hard Times in the Hometown: A History of Community Survival in Modern Japan'', University of Hawaii Press (2012), 32.</ref>

==Popular Culture==

==Popular Culture==