Oh Doo Hwan  J. B. Lewis

Silver ginseng trade Copper development economics

This article follows the trade in silver from Japan to China and examines the role of silver in Chosŏn Korea. Silver was the international currency and the means of settling trade accounts, so its function within Chosŏn society and economy helps us understand the degree to which Chosŏn was involved in international society. A great deal of silver passed through Chosŏn, primarily coming from Japan on its way to China, but silver also came into Korea from China in connection with the Ming armies that fought the Japanese in the 1590s as well as in payment for red ginseng in the eighteenth century. The Chosŏn economy was nearly bi-metallic until the late seventeenth century, thereafter silver disappeared from circulation to be replaced by copper coins. However, silver continued to be used for trade with China until the late eighteenth century and was kept by government organs as a storage currency to be used in case of emergency. The author hypothesizes that Chosŏn’s withdrawal from the entrepot trade, or its withdrawal from the international trade in silver, from the eighteenth into the nineteenth centuries was one important reason why Chosŏn society was not prepared for the cultural and systemic shocks of the late nineteenth century.