| Abstract | The visit of the vessel Chitosei Maru to Shanghai in 1862 was a turning point in Sino-Japanese cultural intercourse, as the center of activities was transferred from Nagasaki to Shanghai. The Chitosei Maru was the first Japanese commercial ship dispatched by Edo's bakufu to Shanghai from Nagasaki. its arrival in Shanghai signaled the end of the Nagasaki trade system, the most important component of the bakufu's national isolation po1icy, which had been enforced for over two hundred years. With the shift of the center of Sino-Japanese cultural relations, Shanghai became the window through which Japan learned about China and the world. The young bushi, or samurai, traveling with the officials, recorded their observations regarding Shanghai. in using these records for research on the inception of modern Sino-Japanese cultural intercourse, however, it is essential to peruse the conduct and attitude of the Jiangnan Chinese gentry. Three particular points deserve attention. First, the samurais' records vividly reflect the nature of the prominent Chinese social classes in the Jiangnan region that were the subject of their encounter; hence, they provide a unique source material to be appraised for the study of local history. Second, the Chitosei Maru's visit to Shanghai ended the Nagasaki trade system and opened a new venue; thus, it played a historical role in Sino-Japanese cultural exchange and provided a basis for evaluating the benefits China received from Japan through the old trade system. Third, because much of the Jiangnan region remembered the Japanese piracy and Sino-Japanese military conflict in the Korean Peninsula during the Ming and Qing, it is instructive to examine how the Chinese gentry responded to the reappearance of the Japanese sword-carrying bushi in Shanghai two hundred years later. |
