明代海禁概念の成立とその背景--違禁下海から下海通番へ (特集 アジア東方海域の近世)

Abstract

Maritime exclusion 海禁 is the general term used for the national maritime control policy instituted by Ming and Qing dynasties. In previous studies of Ming maritime exclusion, the role of maritime exclusion has been viewed as vaguely uniform across time and unvarying. It has been dealt with, at best, in terms of the strengthening or relaxing of its restrictions, or has been used as data in arguments concerned with international trade or coastal defenses. Moreover, the assumption that maritime exclusion was uniform has resulted in a number of misapprehensions such as taking later examples of maritime exclusion to speculate on that of the early Ming, treating the goal of maritime exclusion as if it were from the start designed to control smuggling, or seeing the state as having a monopoly on trade. All this results from dealing with maritime exclusion as an abstraction rather than in historical context. The origin of the term "maritime exclusion" does not derive from the early Ming. It came into general use from about the mid-16th century. Scholars and bureaucrats when faced with the turmoil of the so-called "northern and southern barbarians" 北虜南倭 and pressed to come up with a policy to deal with them adopted a policy of "border exclusion" 邊禁 to regulate peoples and armies on the northern frontier, and in turn they adopted a policy to prohibit setting sail from the southeastern coast that was called the "prohibition of sailing to foreign ports" 下海通番之禁 or simply "maritime exclusion." Thus, the term "maritime exclusion" was born out of the arguments over how to deal with the turmoil on the coast and in contrast with the already extant "border exclusion, " which had had great influence. In this sense "border exclusion" and "maritime exclusion" fed off one another, and it is possible to understand them as paired terms. A new policy was instituted in the north and south in the latter half of the 16th century when peace was established with the Mongols on the northern border and trade opened, and on the southern coast when the port of Yue 月港 it in Zhangzhou 漳州 was opened. It was under these circumstances that the entries for the terms border exclusion and maritime exclusion first appeared in the Wanli Daming huidian 萬曆大明會典, which was compiled at the close of the 16th century. The creation of entry for maritime exclusion in the Huidian, which should be considered a national survey, verifies the fact that the concept of maritime exclusion was without doubt recognized by the state. Moreover, it demonstrates that maritime exclusion had been repositioned within a new policy framework that was based on the will of the nation state. Maritime exclusion had existed in reality since the early Ming, but the appearance of the term in the latter half of the 16th century and its entry into the Wanli Daming huidian signaled its final conceptualization. To that extent, maritime exclusion is not a mere proper noun but is instead an excellent example of useful historical concept reflecting the sixteenth century.