ABSTRACT
In 1393 the Ashikaga Shogunate announced a new tax on moneylenders and sake brewers in greater Kyoto. They would be expected to pay 6,000 kanmon (six million coins) in cash each year to help cover government expenses. Government mints produced huge amounts of copper cash to facilitate commercial activity and pay for the military. Estate communities began getting involved in newly emerging local markets, where they could sell estate produce, buy goods from others, and use imported Chinese coins to facilitate their transactions. Daimyo found that their political and military fortunes depended on access to trade and a strong economic base in their domains, so they devised new ways to assert control over the economy. Sengoku daimyo sought to control the types of currency used in their domains. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Japan became one of the world's great silver exporters, providing one-third or more of the silver sold to China.
