Monks,House-owners,Tō tsūji and Ship Merchants—— Nagasaki Trade in the Early 18th Century as Seen through the Seifukuji Collection’s Tangchuan Jifu Zhuangtie

Tangchuan Jifu Zhuangtie(《唐船寄附状帖》),an important historical document discovered at Seifuku-ji Temple in Nagasaki in 2019,contains 136 letters from the ship merchants of China’s Nanjing,Ningbo,Xiamen,Guangdong,Taiwan and Jakarta that sailed into Nagasaki port during the Kangxi period,addressed to Texin of Seifuku-ji Temple and other monks.This paper examines the chronology of the letters and,based on an explanation of the many aspects covered by each letter,points out that the document can fill the gap in archival records such as the Tangchuan Jingang Huizhaolu(《唐船进港回棹录》),from which we can see some aspects of trade in Nagasaki in the Edo period,especially the interaction between monks,house-owners,Tō tsūji and ship merchants.The author concludes that there was a process of development and evolution in Nagasaki’s trading system,and that the Tangchuan Jifu zhuangtie reflects some of the early days of Sino-Japanese trade,and that the little-known details contained therein reflect some of the complexities of Nagasaki’s trade and leave behind a number of clues worth exploring further.