Japan–Ming trade-ship flag
The Japan–Ming trade-ship flag is an object dating to 1584 preserved at the Yamaguchi Prefectural Archives that has been designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan due to its historical significance and the light it shines on trade and relations between Momoyama Japan and Ming China.
Description
The sizeable flag, measuring some, is made of hemp, two widths of cloth joined to make one larger canvas. The top is folded back over itself, and stitched with black hemp thread. Running up the left-hand side, to enable attachment to a flagpole, are thirteen "nipples", of deer-hide, stitched on, again, with black hemp thread. The upper and central field is occupied by the large "swords and circles" Mon, or family crest, of the Takasu Family. Below, is the brushed ink inscription, with the signatures and kaō'', or stylized signatures, of three Ming merchants:Significance
The flag dates from the latter part of the sixteenth century, when formal and official trading relations between the two countries had ended, but private commercial interests continued nonetheless with local lords presiding. At this point in Sengoku Japan, after the collapse of the Ashikaga shogunate and the death of unifying warlord Oda Nobunaga in 1582, no central authority was in a position to manage foreign trade and relations, leaving local daimyō free to adopt their own measures. Contemporary Chinese sources also suggest the central Ming government in Beijing, the "northern capital", was unable fully to control the vessels coming and going from its southern coasts.Dated by its inscription to 1584, the flag was to be raised the following year by a trading ship from Quanzhou in China as a "port entry certificate" in Akamagaseki, now Shimonoseki, in Nagato Province, then in the hands of the Mōri clan, and governed through their daikan, from the Takasu Family.
The flag was preserved among the historical materials of the Takasu Family, who were originally landowners and officials in southern Bingo Province. With the changing times, they were retainers first of the Yamana clan, then the Ōuchi clan, and finally the Mōri clan. Later, in the Edo period, they would be samurai of Hagi Domain. From around 1578, family head Takasu Motokane served in the capacity of daikan of Akamagaseki, his responsibilities ranging from governing this and the neighboring towns to collecting tariffs, managing trade vessels, and mediating disputes, as well as procuring foreign goods for public and private purposes.
In 2010, in a joint designation with a grouping of one hundred and seventeen of the Takasu Family Documents, the Japan-Ming trade ship flag was designated an Important Cultural Property, the Agency for Cultural Affairs declaring it "an unparalleled material that tangibly manifests the realities of Japan-Ming trade". Handed down in the Takasu Family and still formally privately owned, the flag is on deposit at the Yamaguchi Prefectural Archives. In 2015, the trade ship flag formed part of the Kyūshū National Museum special exhibition, Sengoku Daimyo: 16th century Warlords' Rivalry in Kyushu over billowing Asian seas. The Takasu originally from Bingo Province and officiating at Akamegaseki in the Kanmon Straits, gateway to the Inland Sea, there is also a replica of the flag at the Hiroshima Prefectural Museum of History in Fukuyama.