The Man'en Koban and the Outflow of Gold — The Economic Turmoil of the Opening of Japan
The opening of Japan struck not only politics and culture but the economy as well. Most serious was the problem of Japanese gold coin flowing overseas in great quantity.
Contents
The gold–silver exchange ratio
The cause of the turmoil lay in the fact that the exchange ratio between gold and silver differed greatly between Japan and abroad.
In Japan at the time, gold was valued relatively cheaply and silver relatively dearly compared with world prices. Anyone who noticed the gap could simply bring in silver, exchange it for Japanese gold coin, and sell that abroad at a profit. Through the open ports such as Yokohama, the outflow of gold proceeded by this mechanism.
Coins flowing out
Thus Japan's koban were carried overseas one after another. The loss of the country's precious metal was a grave matter that could shake the foundations of the economy.
The shogunate tried to stem the tide, but before the underlying problem — the gap in domestic and foreign exchange ratios — its responses tended to lag.
The Man'en recoinage
The measure the shogunate took was to re-mint its coinage — the Man'en recoinage. In 1860 a new koban (the Man'en koban) was struck with a reduced gold content.
This curbed the outflow of gold to some degree. But reducing the gold in the coin meant lowering the value of the coin itself. The result was rising prices that squeezed people's lives.
Inflation strikes daily life
The expansion of trade that came with opening up, and the disorder of the currency, descended on the common people as sudden inflation. The hardship of living raised discontent with the state of the world.
The frenzy of Ee ja nai ka and other popular movements is thought to have had such economic turmoil among its backdrops. The changes the opening of Japan brought reached even into people's purses.
The social changes of the era of opening are explored across Bakumatsu Culture.
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