our forefathers suffered most from was the scarcity of coins, for although the beginning of the coinage in our country is so old that it has been lost in the remotest past, yet for a long period not enough care was exercised to provide the country with sufficient money in coins of different denominations to cover the necessities of the growing industries. No wonder that the presents of copper coins by the emperors of the Ming were gladly received by the Shogunate, and this Chinese money, together with that obtained by sale of our commodities, was in wide circulation throughout Japan, many of them having remained to this day, and served as auxiliary coins. Among other things of Chinese provenance earnestly coveted by us, perhaps the most desired were books. Besides these two articles, copper coins and books, many rarities and useful commodities must have been imported by these ships, which carried the envoys on board, and rendered a not insignificant service in altering for the better the general ways of living of the people of our country. The chief emporium of the trade with China in the early Ashikaga period was of course Hakata in Kyushu as before. As the family of the Ouchi, however, held the strait of Shimonoseki, the gateway of the Inland Sea, and as Hakata itself came afterwards under the rule of the same family, the Chinese trade had been for a long time controlled or rather monopolised by this lord of the province of Nagato. The prosperity of the inland city of Yamaguchi, the residential seat of the Ouchi family, is to be ascribed also to the same circumstance. Moreover, the growth of the port of Sakai in the easternmost recess of the Inland Sea owes its origin to the fact that the city was once under the lordship of the same Ouchi, and a close historical connection was thereby created between it and the port of Shimonoseki. It was by the co-operation of many other political causes, however, that the centre of the foreign trade was shifted from Hakata to Sakai, and when intercourse with western nations was opened, it was the latter and not the former, which became the staple market of import and export.