万历抗倭援朝战争中的明朝商人

On the Ming Merchants in the Imjin War

在琉、日的明朝商人陈申、许仪后等获悉丰臣秀吉将发动侵略明朝的战争,想方设法将消息传回国内。随后,许仪后成为明朝去日本打探消息的线人,他总是尽可能为明朝提供帮助。明朝从商人手上征集粮草,指令商船协助运送粮饷,又召募行商前往朝鲜,为明军将士提供生活必需品,以弥补朝鲜商业不发达、不用白银为流通货币的缺陷。朝鲜不满于明朝行商赚走明军将士白银和大量购买朝鲜人参、水铁等物品,不准他们租用粮船,拒绝为他们运送物品,并借机加以打击;同时希望留置水铁制品,以便为其制造火器。本次战争对于商人的依仗,也体现了明朝商人在万历年间较高的社会地位。战争结束不久,朝鲜即开放白银禁令,最终融入白银世界之中。

The Ming merchants such as Chen Shen and Xu Yihou living in Ryukyu and Japan tried to send the information back to Ming China that Toyotomi Hideyoshi would launch a war of aggression from Choson Korea to Ming China before the Imjin War.Moreover, Xu Yihou became an informant of the Ming court who made enquiries about Japanese information and helped the Ming court as much as possible.The Ming generals collected grain and grass from the Ming merchants, instructed the merchants’ ships to assist in transporting grain to Korea, and recruited merchants to go to Korea and provide daily necessities for the Ming soldiers to make up for the shortcomings of Korean commerce and the useless of silver as a circulating currency in Korea.The Choson Korean officials were dissatisfied with the fact that the Ming merchants had earned the silver of the Ming generals and soldiers and bought a large number of Korean ginseng and ironworks, so they did not allow them to rent Korean grain ships and refused to transport their ironworks to Yizhou.Besides, the Choson Korean officials wanted to retain the iron products for its own need of manufacturing firearms.The dependence of this war on merchants reflects the high social status of Ming merchants during the Wanli period.Shortly after the end of the war, Choson Korea government terminated the ban on silver and was eventually integrated into the silver world.