JAPAN
including three hundred and twenty-one post-towns, where the total number of horses stationed was thirty-four hundred and ninety, and the number of oxen, seven hundred and thirty-seven. It appears, however, that the use of these facilities was still confined to officials and the upper classes. Merchants, manufacturers, and farmers had neither means of conveyance nor inns at which to sojourn. If they could not obtain lodging in a private house, they had either to construct temporary shelters or to sleep on the roadside.
In the field of foreign trade no change is noticeable during this epoch. Commerce with Korea was insignificant, and commerce with China continued to be entirely controlled by officials, all merchandise being carried on arrival into a hall,[1] where it was valued in the presence of secretaries, clerks, accountants, and appraisers, after which sales were made at greatly increased rates to the people, the difference going into the Treasury. So strict was this monopoly that, in the middle of the eleventh century, five men were sentenced to transportation for crossing to China on a tradal mission without official sanction.
The establishment of the feudal system in the year 1192, with its headquarters at Kamakura, was marked by the introduction of strict discipline into the management of public affairs. Kamakura became the scene of a highly organised
- ↑ See Appendix, note 44.
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