Initially, the Tokugawa shogunate was interested in assuring a consistent value in minted coins; and this led to the perceived need for attending to the supply of cinnabar.
This bakufu title identifies a
regulatory agency with responsibility for supervising the handling and trading of cinnabar and for superintending all cinnabar mining and cinnabar-extraction activities in Japan.[3]
^Takekoshi, Yosaburo. (1930). The Economic Aspects of the History of the Civilization of Japan, p. 238; Schaede, Ulrike. (2000). Cooperative Capitalism: Self-Regulation, Trade Associations, and the Antimonopoly Law in Japan, p. 223.
^Hall, John Wesley. (1955) Tanuma Okitsugu: Forerunner of Modern Japan, p. 201.
References
Hall, John W. (1955). Tanuma Okitsugu, 1719–1788: Forerunner of Modern Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
OCLC 445621
Schaede, Ulrike. (2000). Cooperative Capitalism: Self-Regulation, Trade Associations, and the Antimonopoly Law in Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ISBN9780198297185;
OCLC 505758165
Takekoshi, Yosaburo. (1930). The Economic Aspects of the History of the Civilization of Japan. New York: Macmillan Publishers.
OCLC 313511699