THE RYUKYU NETWORK IN THE FIFTEENTH AND EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURIES
Roderich Ptak's note analyzes the Ryukyu network in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, examining how Ryukyuan merchants and rulers navigated the Ming tribute system to fashion a far-flung commercial network centered on Naha. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources (Lidai baoan, Ming shi...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
April 2003
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40006/2708 |
| Summary: | Roderich Ptak's note analyzes the Ryukyu network in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, examining how Ryukyuan merchants and rulers navigated the Ming tribute system to fashion a far-flung commercial network centered on Naha. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources (Lidai baoan, Ming shilu, Korean sillok, lishi dili, Chen Kan’s Shi Liuqiu lu, Chinese nautical treatises, local gazetteers) and supplementing with Iberian accounts and secondary literature, the study reconstructs the geography and modalities of Ryukyu trade. The article emphasizes that official tribute trade remained the legal channel for access to China, and that the three Ryukyuan polities (Zhongshan, Shannan, Shanbei) competed but also maintained rapid exchange networks with the Ming court, beginning with envoy missions to Nanjing from 1372 onward. Within this regime, Ryukyuan merchants built an extended network linking Fujian to Okinawa, mainly via tribute contacts, while integrating exchanges with Southeast Asia, and branches to Korea and Kyushu. Most commodities flowed through Naha, consolidating the island’s role as the hub of multi-regional trade. The piece also notes ancillary phenomena—Ryukyuan students studying in China, subsidies granted by the Ming, and mentions of a Mongol exile in Ryukyu—highlighting the deep political and cultural ties underpinning the trade system. The article concludes that the Ryukyu network exemplifies how tribute-era diplomacy and commerce coalesced into a durable but selective regional mercantile sphere in the fifteenth–early sixteenth centuries. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |