ABSTRACT
THE HISTORY OF SAKAI.-The characteristics of Nobunaga's age, from the economic point of view, are the improvement of communications both by land and sea, the minting of gold and silver coins, the opening of foreign trade, and the formation of free commercial cities such as Nagasaki, Sakai, and Hakata. About Nagasaki we will write after dealing with the Toyotomi Age. Sakai, being the oldest port, is the most eminent one in the economical history of Japan, and it was the merchants from this port who greatly contributed to the establishment of Nagasaki and Hakata by settling and trading actively there. In dealing with the history of Sakai, we must go back to the origin of the Sumiyoshi god. In ancient times, when the Empress Jingo made an expedition to Korea, Watazumi, the sea-god, appeared in the field of Ahagi of Oto, Hyuga, and said: " Enshrine and rely upon me, then you will always be safe on the sea." Greatly encouraged, the Empress enshrined this god in her ship. When she returned in triumph to the port of Buko, the god again appeared, and said: " I will stay in Sumiyoshi and will protect the ships going in and out there." So the deity was enshrined at Sumiyoshi, and since then all ports in Japan have revered the Sumiyoshi god, just as in China there is a shrine of the goddess Maso in every port. Most of the ships that sailed in and out of the port prayed to the god for safety, with the result that faith in this god rapidly extended. In Settsu, near the port of Sumiyoshi, there was a district famous for salt making, and the people there were all engaged in that industry. The salt making, together with the fishing, turned this place into an important harbour, gradually taking the place of the port of Sumiyoshi, and becoming at last a possession of the Sumiyoshi Shrine. This port was Sakai. The Empress Jingo, after conquering Korea, made that country promise to pay her a tribute every year, which for some years she did, and General Chin, who was in charge of Korean diplomacy, came to Sumiyoshi with the tribute. As one of the rites and ceremonies of the year at the Sumiyoshi Shrine, there was a market opened every September 13th in front of the shrine, which was called Takaraichi (Treasure Market), and there it is said that Korean sailors of the tributary ships used to buy and sell various articles. Thereafter communication between Korea and Japan was maintained through
the port. From the fact that in the age of the Emperor Godaigo (about 1300) the Sumiyoshi Shrine possessed a territory of 120,000 koku, and there still remain several shrines in the city of Sakai which were intended for the lodging-place of the Sumiyoshi god, we can see that the port of Sakai belonged to the Sumiyoshi Shrine for a long time. Owing to the development of the communication with Korea year after year, and to the presence of such populous provinces as Yamato and Kawachi in the hinterland, the coasts of Izumi and Settsu became very prosperous. Osaka was then only a reed-grown seashore, and all the fish and salt contributed to the Imperial Court throughout the Yamato and Yamashiro epochs were transported through the port of Sakai, and consequently Sakai became the leading port from both the commercial and the political points of view. The latter because the powerful families of Kyushu and Shikoku began to come and go to the central provinces to carry out their political ambitions, and their landing-place was chiefly Sakai.
