| Research Abstract |
I'll explain the foot-bellows iron production in the Chugoku district, Kodonotatara is said to date from the end of the 17th century, and the Productive capacity of zuku and rentetu was able to rapidly increase enough to supply the big demand for iron in early modern society, owing to the construction of "Sannai", the living places for workers, "Kodono structure" and the use of "Tenbin bellows". It was from the beginning to the middle of the 18th century that advanced skills, such as Kodonotatara, diffused throughout the Chugoku district, and they came to be seen in the many districts called Houki, Bingo, lzumo, lwami, Nishiiwami and so on. Such advanced techniques of iron manufacturing spread to the districts of Tohoku, Kanto, Kyushu, and Shikoku. In the Tohoku district, the Kohankyu iron mine was managed by Sadanobu Matsudaira, a feudal lord of the Shirakawa clan (Okawa village, Fukushima prefecture), the Tamagawa mine by the Hachinohe clan (Karumai village, Iwate prefecture) and the Tochizawa mine by the Sendai clan (Omura village, Miyagi prefecture).
In the Kanto district, were the Akazawa and Otsuka iron mines (Enya-gun Tochigi prefecture).
In Shikoku here were both the Kashioyama (Agawa-gun Kochi Prefecture), and Morizawa mines (Banta-gun, Kochi prefecture), managed by the Tosa clan, and in Kyushu, the Manago iron mine (Kouzuki, Yawata-ku, Kitakyushu city) was managed by Fukuoka clan and the Kaichigo iron mine was run by the Obi clan. The appearance of these iron mines managed by the feudal clans is the result of national politics which actively introduced advanced skills and workers in to local lands to promote their industrial development after the middle of the 18th century.
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